by Dan O'Brien
Her eyes glistened in the half-light as she regarded him.
The quivering of her bottom lip and the strength of her embrace kept him in place as he waited for her to speak. “I promise you nothing, but I wish to be held. Could you hold me for a while? I do not wish to be alone.”
Leane leaned back against his chest as he nodded slowly to himself, and she wept for some time there. She could never forget about Seth, or the son who now stood at the brink of death a dimension away from her, but she felt alone in a way she could not explain. She stayed there in the embrace of the soldier long after the day had risen once more on the ghosts of Illigard.
ⱷ
E’Malkai
The screaming pain that tore through E’Malkai as he pulled back from Darien’s touch was nothing compared to the thunder that echoed in his mind as his body fought to right itself once more. They had transported across the strange terrain of Dok’Turmel under Darien’s insistence, a painful journey that ripped his body from his mind as it leapt across the very fabric of the dimension.
Memories of his first days had already begun to fade; the time within the Shaman’s domain a distant thought of which he could only remember fragments. His memory had been shattered into millions of pieces that had lost any semblance of order, yet were all thread together like the weaving of a quilt.
The sands had changed from the bleached white desert to sparkling black diamonds. It was cool on his feet; the heat of the white sands had burned his feet coverings completely through and he now walked barefoot upon his journey. The skies overhead had faded from the oppressive heat of the night to the strange cool breeze of white skies. There was no sun, no markers, not even sounds that echoed.
Dok’Turmel was a paradoxical place, where blinding white skies and darkness underneath should be the epitome of heat, but was instead frigid. Darien walked beside him, their journey one marked by histories of places trapped and forgotten.
“The vessel of the Ai’mun’hereun grows tired?”
E’Malkai looked at the clear shadow of a man in wonder. “This place is a restless existence. I do not think rest will do me any good. I have not eaten, yet the pangs of hunger do not threaten my sanity,” reassured the youth with a confident nod of his head.
He wore only shredded leggings and the skin sheath of his father’s blade. His dark hair was restrained with a tie of fabric to keep it from falling in his face. Upon the white sands, it had felt like a rug draped over his face.
“It would appear that the vessel longs for the clothes he shed so quickly.”
The youth shook his head.
He still looked the part of a young man, but his mind had gained a sad wisdom beyond his years. Already it was a century that toiled in his memories. “I will be fine, Darien. How much farther is the entrance to the caverns that lead to the Grove?”
The glittering figure moved alongside him slowly.
Shiny spheres stared ahead at the unchanging landscape.
“There are doorways scattered across Dok’Turmel. They cannot be seen by the living. You can see only the despair of forever. We will pass through a gateway soon and be within the Outer Circle, the village outside of the Grove. There you will find another to lead you to the foot of the Kien’jedai. Within that maze of caverns is the Grove, but first you must confront its gatekeeper.”
E’Malkai shook his head in frustration.
When he was a boy growing up in the House of Di’letirich there were no riddles to enter another building, or another part of the city. But in the Lower Plane there were names for everything; histories and mystics to every piece of its world.
“What is the being called?”
“That is not for me to say. Your guide from the Outer Circle will have answers to your questions. Dok’Turmel is a place shrouded in mystery, even to its inhabitants. An eternity here is not long enough to understand the depth of this place.”
E’Malkai nodded absently as he trudged forward.
His mind wandered to his mother and the angst she had showed at his presence in Dok’Turmel. He did not have time to explain his actions or his choices. The Final War would consume Terra, he had seen as much, but the texts spoke of his ascension and the coming of the Believer.
He could not hesitate; the world depended on him.
His head pounded and he closed his eyes against the pain, rubbing his temples with his hands as he continued to plod forward. He was no longer certain how much time had passed.
E’Malkai no longer felt time. He saw it all around him, the speedy progression of things living and dying, though he never saw them take a corporeal form. They were only dust in the winds of the cold desert.
He was startled from his daydream as Darien passed his translucent hand through his body. A cold shiver passed over him and he looked to the former Creator. The prismatic being pointed out ahead of them, but E’Malkai could not discern anything, even with the white light above.
“We are very near now. The gateway is just ahead.”
E’Malkai tilted his head.
His eyes squinted as he tried to make out what Darien saw.
“How can you be certain? I cannot see anything at all.”
The strange laugh rolled again. “You must have faith, vessel of the Ai’mun’hereun. I have told you that no living being can see the halls and portals of Dok’Turmel. I will guide you where you must go until I am needed no longer.”
E’Malkai wished to argue, but he was weary.
He smirked and turned back ahead only to feel heat wash over him. A burning sensation ran the length of his spine, and then exploded through his muscles. “What is…” was all that he could murmur through his clenched lips.
“Do not fear: this is the gateway. This, too, shall pass.”
Fear and panic raced through his mind as he struggled to get a hold on the pain that afflicted him. The homing technique that Elcites had taught him was a tool he still kept close to his mind; it could take his mind away from where he was, allowing the pain to pass.
He closed his eyes and reached his hands out from his sides and concentrated, pushing the pain aside, cornering it. Tearing it away as if it were useless flesh that he no longer required, he was calm once more.
His mind followed a flash of light, and then another. Crawling veins of energy infected his vision and the calm changed into rage. The latent tsang that the battle with Fe’rein had called forth––as well as when he was in the Fallen––flooded over him.
The veiled power flowed over him, enveloping him in its thrall.
The air around him thickened and constricted in his throat. He felt the subtle twinges of fear as he realized that he could not breathe. His eyes flashed open and lightning crackled across his vision as the fire dissipated and he was upon the ground.
He knelt and Darien passed a hand through his side. The frigidness of his touch pushed him to his feet and he looked at the former Creator in wonder. The youth was consumed in the strange fire that had overtaken him twice before. His eyes were white globes of energy that stared out upon the village that Darien had called the Outer Circle. It looked very much like the rim villages E’Malkai had seen in the south.
It was rather small.
E’Malkai reached his hands out from his body and upon seeing the white and emerald energy that coursed over his frame, he made a panicked noise. “What in the name of the Creators has happened to me?” he bellowed as he turned his forearms over and touched the flames.
“The closer you come to the Grove, the greater the need and want to release your energy. The Outer Circle is a place of ancient magicks. Strange people lurk here; many are trapped within Dok’Turmel much like you. Some have never been able to leave this place.”
E’Malkai looked at Darien with a hard gaze, though the exterior of his energy hid his features. “I thought that no living mortal could reside within Dok’Turmel?”
The apparition shimmered as if he were shrugging at the youth’s question. “The Outer Circle, as we
ll as the Kien’jedai, are not governed by the laws of Dok’Turmel. The dimensional rift that you passed through separates this place from the sands of Dok’Turmel, much as the portal within the Temple of the Shaman was the gateway into Dok’Turmel. Though the strength of what divides the Outer Circle and Dok’Turmel is insignificant compared to the barriers between the world of the living and the underworld.”
E’Malkai looked at the land.
It was green underfoot; actual grass was rooted in between his toes and the slender grade of the mountain was not brown and gray as it was when he was pursued by the shadow creature, but instead majestic.
White-capped peaks and fog rolled over them.
There was a smell to the place, a sense of nature.
They stood just beyond a wooden fence lined with broad pine trees that stood several feet high, trimmed into neat rows. E’Malkai noticed the heavy fog on either side of the copse of wooden buildings.
He looked down at his hands once more in disgust.
“I do not wish to look like this when I enter that place.”
Darien looked at him. Though the man possessed no face, he seemed to tilt his head in a way that signified he understood the reservations of the youth. “They will not fear your appearance here, vessel. You will be surprised at how much they will know.”
E’Malkai cast a sidelong glance at the vibrating creature.
He nodded as he followed him forward, between two massive pines that framed the clay road leading into the Outer Circle. There was vegetation all about the place. Bushes and rose vines wound their way around the trunks of the trees and over the wooden fences that cascaded into the fog.
E’Malkai turned and watched the mist of swirling clouds. Dark shapes took form and dissipated like the wind, dancing in his eyes. “How far does the fog stretch?” he called as he continued to stare.
“Some say forever.”
E’Malkai smirked, not from mirth, but contemplation.
There was much about Dok’Turmel that had intrigued him, the vastness that seemed to carry on without end, but here there were signs of life. The trees, the fog, and even the mountains did not seem as if they were born of imagination, but instead were a reality much like his home.
“This place is not what it seems, vessel of the Believer.”
E’Malkai turned from the fog at the sudden insight of the former Creator; as if he were reading his very thoughts at the moment. As they drew closer to the town, he saw that there were only four or five buildings, each with brown thatched roofs and oak doors.
“What is this place really, Darien?”
“Many things. Those who live here speak in riddles, ones that have been passed on through the ages. You may hear things that will distress you, or perhaps make you doubt yourself. But you must remember your intention, what it is that you are searching for. If you can be tricked, then your intentions have not been true from the start. They will not be tricked.”
Since leaving for the tundra a lifetime ago, he had become accustomed to using his tsang to moderate his surroundings. This was at first an action that he had to force himself to do because he had not yet truly accepted what he was. Over time it had become a non-conscious device that he used without any hint of real danger.
“I do not sense violence here, Darien. I do not believe I have as much to fear from these beings as you seem to think,” he wondered aloud, watching the trees thin the closer they got to the buildings and then eventually disappear.
Darien sighed, the sound like that of gas escaping a container.
“I am not your instructor. Therefore, I will not argue logics with you, son of Armen. But you would do well to heed my words. I was denied the power of the Original Creator. You might face a similar fate if you do not learn to think about the possibilities of things that you had not anticipated.”
E’Malkai balked at the words, but did not respond.
They neared the first house and stood before the rotund door.
There was a mark etched into the door, deep black scars that looked like they had been burned into the wood. As Darien reached toward the door, he materialized. His shimmering form became flesh and his features were at once apparent to the youth. His hair was not as gray as E’Malkai had anticipated. What gray there was ran back from his temples, giving him a regal appearance. The translucent visage had been deceptive. The man had wide shoulders and thick muscles that were covered in the earth tones of a woodsman. He carried at his side a scabbard longer than E’Malkai’s arm.
The youth stared. “What has come over you, Darien? You are corporeal,” he whispered in awe.
Darien turned to him and the youth saw the hard set of his jaw, muscles flexing beneath his cheeks. A dark brown beard speckled in gray carved his jaw line. His gray eyes were cold, distant like a warrior who had seen many horrors on the battlefield. A dark black scar traced from the edge of his hairline to just below his left eye.
Noticing that E’Malkai was looking at him, Darien traced the line of the cicatrix with one of his large fingers. “This scar is a reminder that I abused the power that was given to me. There is much about the power that you could never understand, but in time I hope that the wisdom of being eternal will grant you the possibility of better choices.” His voice was no longer distant and ethereal, but instead gravelly. “I am now a frail old man. In my youth I commanded power and legions unlike anything you have seen before.”
E’Malkai was stunned by the power that radiated from the man. “You do not look frail to me, Darien. I had thought you were a feeble old fool before now. How is this transformation possible?”
Darien laughed heartily, like the barrel-chested soldier he was. “We should go inside. The answers that you seek shall soon be at your fingertips.”
As he pushed open the door, E’Malkai cringed; shielding his eyes defensively, as if he expected a barrage of lights and sound, or thunder upon his mind once more as it had been when passing between the gateways. E’Malkai unlaced his fingers from in front of his face as the threat of theatrics passed. He surveyed the wide grin on Darien’s face as well as the simple interior of the home.
Darien stepped past the archway and motioned for E’Malkai to do the same, pointing him toward a squat chair near a stained table that sat at the center of the room. The youth took a seat, taking in the ambiance of the house. There were weapons on racks and leaning against the walls: swords and knives, axes and pikes. They were of all shapes and size: some were ornate, carved with bright materials; some were of simple wooden construction.
“What is this place?” wondered E’Malkai out loud as the warrior king pushed the door shut and took a seat opposite the youth. There was a long shelf that ran the length of the room to the left of the door. Books were stacked, dusty volumes with thick jackets keeping them from crumbling to dust.
“This is my home, all that remains of the riches of my life.”
E’Malkai spun and looked at him.
Darien’s broad features were stoic as he watched the son of Armen. “How can that be? You said that you abused the power and were condemned to Dok’Turmel,” questioned E’Malkai as he maneuvered uncomfortably in the chair.
Darien sighed and leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. “When I walk among the Dead Sands of the Light and the Dark, I do so as the miserable soul I have become. Here in the Outer Circle, I am as I was. This village is home to the guardians of Dok’Turmel and the Kien’jedai. We are here because there is much more to this realm than the underworld. Vast resources and grand cities are to the east of here, but that is something for another time,” he answered with a sigh and then getting up suddenly, his voice softened. “How rude of me. Would you like something to eat, or perhaps drink?”
E’Malkai looked at the warrior strangely as he spoke the words. “I told you that I no longer hungered for anything.” Just as he spoke the words, a wave of nausea spread over him. His stomach churned violently and he held his hand over his mouth as his eyes went wide.
>
Darien watched the youth. “That will pass. In the Dead Sands, you no longer thirst or hunger. The pleasures of life are taken from you. The necessity for sustenance disappears. On the other side of the barrier, here in the Outer Circle, you are freed from those constraints and are human once more.”
E’Malkai had paled.
He pulled his hand away, the color returning to his cheeks. “Is that why you are form? Because the darkness does not hold sway here?”
Darien shifted again, reclining in the chair. “That among other things. Time is restored here. Your mind will not age at such an accelerated pace, though your body will age. If you stayed within the Outer Circle for a hundred years, you would die of old age just as you would in the realm of the living.”
The youth nodded weakly and motioned to the basin on the opposite side of the room. “I could really go for something to drink,” he whispered hoarsely. His throat felt like sandpaper and he touched it, massaging it as he waited. Darien nodded and stood, retrieving the basin and two glasses as he sat back down once more.
The chair squeaked beneath his weight.
He smiled as he poured the water and then pushed a cup in front of the youth. “It has been some time since I entertained guests here.”
E’Malkai drained the water and slammed the cup down and looked up, stretching out his neck and pushing his jaw around in jutted strokes. Sighing as he sat back, he swallowed with ease. As an afterthought he reached forward, his hand outstretched toward the basin.
“May I have more?”
Darien nodded and the youth filled his cup again, and then drained it in one drink. Filling it again, he leaned back in the chair and sipped at it.
His eyes closed as he did so, a soft murmur escaping his lips.
“Didn’t think I was that thirsty.”
Darien nodded.
A humorless smile parted his lips. “We will eat when the others arrive, until then it would be best if you drank in moderation. You do not want to do more harm than good now that you have made it this far.”