by Dan O'Brien
“What is it like?” queried E’Malkai, watching the colors dance from blue to green.
The collisions created a canvas of hues.
“I have only passed through once, before I came here. It was a wasteland of darkness and lies. There is truth there as well.”
“What must I know to survive?”
“There is much about Dok’Turmel that is hidden, obscured. There is no end or beginning to it. You merely exist, and within all of the inconsistencies is a perfect place: the Grove, a shelter within the cell that contains the power that you seek. It should always be foremost in your mind.”
E’Malkai pushed himself up so that he was sitting.
“How can I find the Grove?”
“You will have a guide, whether you wish one or not. Dok’Turmel has been called the underworld in some cultures, though paradise hides within it as well. The Grove is a place of peace. Those who walk within Dok’Turmel are neither human nor dead. They are apparitions of a long dead past, but they can still lead you astray. Make you wander for eternity without ever finding an exit. Once you enter Dok’Turmel, you will be unable to leave until you reach the Grove. The entrance we create will disappear the moment you cross over, but you must seek it out once you have the power.”
“How did you leave?”
The Shaman sighed.
“That was in a before-time, one in which the laws of time and space did not exist as they do now. A hole was created. In doing so a balance had to be restored; such a breach could not be repaired. Once Dok’Turmel is opened, there is no way to close it completely. A tear would grow for all eternity, until it happened upon something else that wished to come through. The exit that was created to allow me passage was sealed by those of my kind, the only ones who could have ever performed such a ritual. I am the last. They have all passed on and will greet you in the Grove.”
E’Malkai smirked. “If I make it.”
“Indeed,” acquiesced the Shaman with a sad nod of his head.
E’Malkai looked away from the Shaman, watching the iridescent walls sparkle around them. “Will I see my father?”
“You may at that, E’Malkai, you may at that,” replied the Shaman, as well losing himself in the lights all around them.
E’Malkai remained silent.
There were questions to which he sought answers.
“You know of the sacrifice of family. That is what plagues your mind, isn’t it?” queried the Shaman with a sidelong look.
The youth nodded.
“And you believe that they must die, at your hands perhaps?”
E’Malkai looked at him shocked, horrified even.
The Shaman shook his head.
“The sacrifice of family has to be a willing one. They must believe that you are the one. That love and trust will open a window into Dok’Turmel.”
E’Malkai draped his hands over his knees and pulled them toward himself. “And if they will not? What then? There can be no journey into Dok’Turmel?”
“I have already spoken to them,” began the Shaman as he pushed up from the ground and dusted his hands off against one another. “They have agreed to participate in the ritual as long as you are present. The window of opportunity is brief, and must be capitalized upon.”
E’Malkai stared forward.
He had not expected them to be asked so frankly.
Yet, there was something the Shaman was not telling him.
“I did not know that you were going to ask them so simply. I guess I didn’t realize what this was all about: the way to open Dok’Turmel.”
“There is much more that I cannot explain because I have never entered the Grove, for I am neither dead nor the vessel of the Original Creator. It is different for each man, woman, or child who enters that place. Your experience, most of all, will be unique because you enter alive where others have only entered when death had claimed them.”
“What?”
“As I said, Dok’Turmel is the underworld, a realm of death,” he replied with a self-explanatory shrug. “A mortal walking among the dead will not go unnoticed.”
E’Malkai looked at him blankly.
There was much about his journey that he did not yet understand. It had all blurred together: battling Fe’rein within Culouth; recovering in Illigard; journeying north to find the Fallen.
The Shaman smirked. He had dwelled beneath the Desert of the Forgotten for eternity, and in that time the questions had always remained the same.
“Time is strange within Dok’Turmel. Though only days or weeks will pass in the world that you call Terra, years will pass within Dok’Turmel. If and when you emerge once more, you will not be the same as when you entered. It has been said that those who walk within Dok’Turmel lose what they once were and are born again anew.”
“Did my father change?” queried E’Malkai.
The Shaman shook his head.
“The power that your father sought rested here in these caverns. There had not been a taint on it as there is now. When your uncle, the one called Fe’rein, took the power from your father, it forced the true power into safekeeping within the Grove––as it had been done before when the power was threatened by the darkness.”
“Will I not wither and die searching for the Grove?”
“You are still rooted in this reality, so you will not age physically more than the time that has transpired upon Terra. Once you return, you will no longer age. Eternal life will be yours.”
E’Malkai’s thoughts drifted to Arivene, and then his mother; the dark look on T’elen’s face when last he saw her. Memories are what would haunt his eternal life, dreams of those who had passed on. “What if I fail? What if I cannot make it back?”
The Shaman looked down at him.
His cool eyes watched the youth with a comforting gaze. “Then all you know will fade to darkness. The people who have died to defend you, so that you might come this far, will have died in vain. The Intelligence will have won. Dak’Tan will have won a war it started millennia upon millennia ago.”
E’Malkai laughed. “No matter the outcome, there will always be more war. It is inevitable, isn’t it? If I defeat the evil of this world, more will come. Drawn to what I have. It will never end.”
“You speak the truth, son of Seth. The path that you have chosen is one that makes you a herald of war. There will be those who will try and use your power for their own gain, and others who will wish to take it from you,” replied the Shaman with a knowing shake of his head as he touched the walls. A glow passed over his hands and illuminated the beads at his wrist.
E’Malkai pushed himself to his feet and approached the far side of the room. There was smooth black obsidian stone on which there were no globes of flowing energies.
It looked like an archway. The youth ran in his fingers over the rock and felt how cold it was. “Why is this stone so cold?” he called over his shoulder.
The Shaman was at his side in an instant. He held the youth’s forearm away from the dark stone. “That is the archway into Dok’Turmel. It would be unwise to touch it.”
“Why?”
“They can feel you, E’Malkai. They can feel what you are. We would hope to make your presence there a surprise, one that the shadows of that realm cannot mold to their advantage,” replied the Shaman as he let go of the youth’s arm.
E’Malkai pulled his hand away, all the while watching the dark stone. “When do I go?”
“In the morning. You should get more sleep. You may not sleep for some time once you enter,” answered the Shaman as he disappeared from the youth’s side.
E’Malkai turned and watched as the back of the Shaman blended into the darkness. Looking down at his hand again, dark veins of shadow coursed through them for a moment and then disappeared.
He could already feel the evil of Dok’Turmel.
ⱷ
The Fog of War
The ridge of the second trench had been abandoned for weeks. Elcites and Xi’iom had found sh
elter there, as most of the fortifications had remained intact despite the siege. The guardian wore leather armor like his brethren, but the pole he carried was not adorned with the flesh and skulls of the lives he had taken. Instead, it was painted in the colors of Illigard: red and black, blood and death.
The ruse had worked.
As Xi’iom had begun to lose footing, Elcites charged north against the backs of those who pursued the company. With a mutual effort, the two commanders were able to split the Culouth forces and drive them back east as they took a much-needed rest within the confines and cover of the second trench.
They sat across from each other around a blazing fire. Embers crackled as the grip of winter threatened to expunge it, but it stood fast––much like the warriors of Illigard.
At the moment, rest was their only concern.
Elcites grunted as he tore into a large slab of jerky, the venison having grown hard from the cold weather. “She will come,” he growled as he gorged himself on the meat, moistening his palate to swallow the coarse strips.
Xi’iom stared into the fire, the climbing flames dancing in his almond eyes. “Will it be soon enough? Kyien is no fool. He will see what we have done and send a hundred thousand men down upon us. Maybe twice that, who can tell.”
Elcites nodded as he tore a piece of the meat off and stuffed the rest into a pocket of the leather armor. There were maybe fourteen thousand men left between the two commanders. Considering how many Culouth soldiers were dead and frozen, it went considerably well.
“I wonder if Dean survived. I have not seen him since we separated,” spoke Xi’iom as he tossed a blackened twig into the center of the flames.
The Umordoc guardian shook his head. “There were many from Dean’s division who met up with my company several hours after we split. One of them swore he saw the old man charge to his death,” replied Elcites as he swallowed the last of the meat that he had torn free.
A shrill pitch echoed through the camp that urged both commanders to their feet. The noise sang again. It was an early warning call. There were troops approaching from the east.
Elcites pulled his weapon from the ground beside him and bounded up the edge of the ridge in two steps. Night had fallen as they made camp. The field ahead of them was a haze of snow and blowing winds. There were markers of fire that were clear even through the limited visibility.
They were close.
It did not take long for the company to assemble behind their commanders. Xi’iom lowered to one knee as he accepted binoculars and nodded grimly as he placed them over his eyes.
“The front ranks are a thousand or more side by side. They could extend back farther than I can see in this haze. There could be more than a hundred thousand. I can’t be certain,” whispered Xi’iom as he turned and adjusted the controls. Sucking in air, he pulled them from his face and turned to Elcites. “Kyien is with them, full horse regale and everything. Ten or twenty mounted alongside him, armored as well.”
The guardian sighed and watched the horizon as the fiery glow of their torches became more and more clear. “We should divide our ranks again. There are too many.”
Xi’iom nodded. “There is a ridge about a mile from here along the southern coast of the swamps. There are caves and some inlet streams that run through the lower caverns. We could mount a protracted defense there,” reasoned the solemn commander as he stood.
“We do it quietly so that they march right into the trench, and hopefully do not notice until we have a decent lead on them,” spoke Elcites as he plunged his spear into the sleeve along his back. Xi’iom nodded, waving back to the troops as they began to move around the enemy in hopes of a reprieve from the icy grip of death that threatened their every step.
*
T’elen had started down the south side of the swamps the moment she left Illigard. She knew that Kyien had little working knowledge of the layout of the badlands, especially with the perils of fighting in the winter. The company she commanded was still almost twenty thousand strong.
Several hundred would succumb to the weather and illness. Some had contracted a vicious flu and had to be cut loose, lest they infect the entire company. As they passed the third trench, the scars of war revealed the terrors that haunted the winter winds. Soldiering on, T’elen thought only of her men stranded among the jackals of Culouth.
*
Kyien’s horse kicked at the cold earth and snorted loudly as the High Marshal pulled on the reins so that the steed did not stray too close to the edge of the trench. He surveyed the empty ditch with a note of disdain. Pierce was at his side as he often was; his soft features marred by a look of disgust at their defeat, though not an outright one.
They had been tricked.
“They could not have gotten far in this weather, High Marshal Kyien,” spoke Pierce matter-of-factly.
“Are you a tracker, Pierce?” snapped Kyien.
“Of course not.”
“Then how can you know how far they have gotten, or how long they have been gone? They might have seen our torches and escaped back the way they came. Perhaps they pushed toward the Stone Tower around our legions. There are too many footprints here to figure out who went which way. With a hundred thousand men stepping all over the tracks once more, it becomes rather difficult to discern much of anything. You can appreciate the need for caution with your words,” snarled Kyien, his face red as he scolded Pierce.
Pierce stared, uncertainty plaguing him. “I will be more vigilant, my lord,” he stammered, struggling to keep his mount steady.
A man approached who bore the yellow stripe of Kyien’s army. His rank insignia marked him as a lieutenant. With a rifle over his back and a thick blade at his side––not a weapon, but a fourteen-inch machete that wore a dark red sheath––he saluted briskly.
Kyien nodded in return, turning his horse again.
“Lieutenant,” called Kyien dryly.
“High Marshal Kyien.”
Kyien crossed his arms over the horn of his saddle and looked down at the sandy-haired soldier. “What news do you bring me?
“We have picked up a trail moving east. It is far to the south of the trenches. We got a few miles before we lost the trail beneath the caverns by the cliffs to the east of the Stone Tower,” replied the solider.
“Follow the trail. Run them down,” commanded Kyien without inflection. The soldier turned without another word and disappeared into the growing haze of cold and snow.
*
The rocky cliffs were a steep winding slope of slick outcroppings that rose hundreds of feet into the cliff side before an opening was revealed; an opening through which they climbed down into the darkness. Elcites and Xi’iom stood watch as the night faded and the haze lightened. The sun tried to break through the perpetual curtain of clouds. They watched the ground below in silence. The sound of marching echoed in the distance; however faint it was, it remained. They stood their ground quietly, waiting for a new dawn.
ⱷ
Fe’rein
The Stone Tower was empty. Though tens of thousands of soldiers were camped just outside, hundreds died each day from the cold and malnutrition as the war raged all around them.
Fe’rein sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor.
His eyes were closed; his hands lay on his knees, palms facing up. With eyes fluttering beneath his closed eyelids, he searched through the darkness for what he sought.
He searched for E’Malkai.
The threat the boy posed had not been apparent to him in the past, but the mion knew that each day E’Malkai moved closer to the Shaman. He focused, images coming to view.
In his mind he passed over the cold battlefield where his brother’s son had gone. Fe’rein snarled and shook his head, obscuring the images that had formed. He searched deeper within the earth, beneath the protective fabrics that held Terra in balance; that was where the Shaman would be. He dove deep into the earth with his mind, plunging through tectonic plates and magma.
&n
bsp; Everything had a unique energy signature.
Coursing through the innards of the earth as if it were a sidewalk on which he casually strolled, he searched. The earth toiled around him, but it mattered little for he saw the white light of who he knew to be the thorn in his side. The emerald strain that infected the being was the same that he had seen months ago. He delved into the light and emerged on the other side to witness the ceremony.
ⱷ
E’Malkai
E’Malkai stood farthest from the obsidian archway. Arivene and Mete were clothed similarly as they approached from the darkest corner of the Shaman’s keep. They seemed distant, absorbed in what they were about to do.
Arivene had on a long white dress, fitted around her waist and cut at her ankles. Mete wore a white tunic and white pants. They held hands as they moved in front of the reflecting stone and stood with their backs to E’Malkai.
The Shaman walked behind them.
His clothes remained unchanged, except that his dark hair flowed freely over his shoulders, hiding his face slightly. He nodded to the youth as he passed, but no words were exchanged.
E’Malkai was torn.
He wanted to talk to them, but he felt as if the silence was a part of it all; that if he interrupted, it would only serve to make the entire process longer.
He wanted desperately to tell Arivene not to do this; he wanted to tell her many things. His young heart pulled him in more directions than he cared to think about. He could not ignore the pang he felt in his heart at the sight of her before the dark doorway into Dok’Turmel.
Arivene and Mete reached out and touched the stone. A ripple passed over it as they did so. They continued to stare forward, their bodies trembling.