Beneath Ceaseless Skies #128

by David Tallerman

  I nod.

  “Your name is Farima. You are the daughter of the wizard Mevlish the Mighty and his witch-wife, Princess Kaffryn of Admar. You are eight years of age.”

  I repeat the lie.

  “You must obey the man who is soon coming here to take you away. His name is Mevlish, and you will treat him as your father. You must obey him in all things, apart from The Rules I have already set out.”

  “Obey him.”

  She holds a golden strand of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “This belonged to your sister. I am binding it to you. It will truly make you her twin.”

  I stare up at her with lifeless, rock crystal eyes, dumb and uncomprehending. And then she mutters the incantation, carefully licks the hair and places it upon my forehead.

  I gasp as I draw in my first breath and twist in pain as my sister’s memories flood into my rocky skull. “No,” I say.

  Saltwater sparkles in Mother’s eyes. They are beautiful; rainbow aglitter. She leans forward, and her long dark hair brushes my face. She smells of sweat and dust and apples. I long to touch her, to feel her damp warmth.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  A tear lands heavily upon my cheek. My parched skin sucks it in, greedy for moisture. Greedy for life.

  * * *

  My arms press at a jumble of rocks: my organs exposed. I struggle to contain them within my disintegrating body. Narrow plumes rise from my innards, my life-force escaping. Soon I will return to the dust that gave rise to me.

  The aurora writhes above, indifferent to my fate. A shadow looms and blocks it from view.

  “Farima.”

  I cannot turn away from his gaze. He kneels down, black and silver dragonrider jacket undone and askew, hastily donned; his chin and cheeks bristle with stubble, his eyes are sunken and dark. His voice is hoarse as he mutters an incantation.

  Again, I realize the extent of my folly. It is merely Zeffron’s spell, spoken in reverse. I feel the magic flood back into me.

  My scattered parts reassemble, drawn back together; my cracked skin seals itself as best it can—but seams remain broken in places and bulging in others. I stare up at Father. Surely he has seen me for what I am?

  But Angry Father cannot see.

  “Farima.” He grips my shoulder. “What have you done?”

  “I’m looking for Mother.”

  A low moan escapes him. His fingers convulse, and not for the first time I am thankful I am not mere flesh and blood. “Are you mad? She is gone. Long gone. Don’t you dare follow her, I forbid it!”

  And there it is, what I had feared most. Father commands, and I must obey. Now, I will never find Mother.

  It is against The Rules, but I cannot help myself. My laughter is like a fall of pebbles. “She was never mad.”

  “Farima!” His voice is a snarl. His other hand reaches for my throat. At the last moment it falls short. “Your mother is dead. She killed herself.”

  “That’s not true. You murdered her. Or as good as.” I close my eyes and wait for the blow.

  It does not come. Eventually, I risk a peek. His head is lowered; bedraggled silver hair dangles over his face. “Oh, poppet.” His voice is thick.

  I sit up. The light cast by the aurora flickers for a moment and darkens Father’s silhouette. He is hunched, trembling. There is a sudden ache in my throat, and I say, “Sometimes... sometimes I think I can hear her voice.”

  Father takes me gently by my arms, lifts me up, hugs me so tight the rubble inside threatens to spill out again. I do not know what to say or to think. The Rules do not apply.

  The wind in the valley keens. Only it isn’t the wind I hear; it is a voice, calling. I stiffen, and Father does the same.

  From through the Wall. A voice both familiar and strange. Father stands. His face could have been carved from the same stone as mine as he peers into the roiling darkness beyond the Wall.

  “Kaffryn? Is it you?”

  * * *

  The Wall is not made of bricks or boulders or wood or glass. It’s location is marked by a series of widely separated wooden posts, set like squat sentinels across the rock-littered floor of the pass. There is nothing obvious to stop a person walking straight between them. Not far beyond the line of posts, the ground shimmers. The boulders seem to distort, their outlines hazy—inconstant. The farther one looks beyond the Wall, the more uncertain, the more fluid, the landscape appears. One feature is obvious, however: the bodies of those fool enough to breach the invisible barrier lie just beyond it, skeletons grown strange by long-term exposure to the intense magic field.

  Father approaches as close as he dares to the Wall. In the curdled sky above the pass, the strange green glow flickers and churns. The field itself ripples, stirring his iron-grey hair. “Kaffryn!”

  This time there is no answer. No matter his shouts, the ghost—if that is what it is—ignores him.

  Father turns, crunches across the talus towards me. “This is madness.”

  “Use Zeffron’s spell. Let’s search for her together.”

  He stares at me, tight-lipped, emotions crossing his lined and weathered face. I find it difficult to follow human expressions at the best of times, so I do not even try. “Don’t you want to know how far she reached?”

  He licks his lips, runs his hands through his hair. “There are monsters beyond the Wall. The world’s nightmares, trapped and magnified by the Source. Some things survive only where magic is strongest, and believe me, Farima, that is a blessing to all of us outside the Wall.”

  He is just masking his fear. “What? Are you afraid? That Mother was a better magician than you?”

  He bristles. “Quiet, Farima.”

  “You are afraid. You’re not man or magician enough to claim your own wife’s body.”

  Angry Father’s face and fists tighten. “Enough.”

  I press on. “You’re afraid of what the King will do. You’re afraid of the Wall and what’s beyond it. You’re afraid of Zeffron’s spell. You’re afraid of magic... you’re afraid of everything!”

  “I said enough!” He pushes me roughly. I stumble back and fall.

  He glares down at me and then closes his eyes. For a moment I believe I have failed—then he mumbles the familiar, lilting words. He lifts his chin. His voice becomes strong, full of fury.

  The last word of power is a shout.

  The spell expands around him. I step back, but I am beyond its farthest edge. I move closer, begin to feel the magic field grow weak, and stop. If I get too close to him, the spell will drain the last of my remaining energy. If I move too far, I will be exposed to the full force of magic outside its zone of protection.

  “Come,” he says, breaking any previous restriction on me. He walks towards the Wall.

  One step. Two. He is through it.

  * * *

  Father steps gingerly across the uneven ground, and I follow, inextricably bound to him and the spell he has cast. The shield holds, but unless I keep within it, the rising strength of the magic field will tear me apart. In Cradlegate’s forbidden library, I once read a book of ancient myths; one described the narrow path between a great churning chasm and a giant monster, and the fine line the hero had to tread between the pair to survive. Just like him, I am caught between two disastrous fates.

  “Come closer, Farima,” Father urges.

  I ignore him and keep a safe distance.

  The field exerts a pressure against us, even within the spell. It is like walking into a headwind; a wind that strikes sparks off flesh, makes it dance and crawl. Every movement creates sprites of light that flicker and quickly fade; miniature fireworks glimpsed only from the corner of the eye. The valley floor ripples beneath the ghostly pall cast by the aurora.

  We pass the last of those who have preceded us, those who crossed the Wall without the benefit of Zeffron’s magic. Father stops to examine a grotesquely deformed skeleton. The bleached bones are twisted and swollen; the skull cave-like, the extended fingers turned int
o mountainous ridges. Of necessity, I halt too, but I already know this poor warped cadaver is neither Mother nor my sister.

  Father hesitates, his face grim. Just as I believe his resolve is about to crumble the wind carries another faint snatch of the siren voice. He starts, looks at me. “You heard it, too? I’m not going mad?”

  I nod. “It’s Mother.”

  His mouth sets in a thin line. “Let’s end this madness, then. Once and for all.”

  I’m not sure what he means, but I have no choice but to follow him as he marches deeper up the valley.

  We approach the crest of the pass. A pale blue glow rises beyond it, a proximate indigo dawn capped by the blue-green aurora, both beautiful and terrifying. On either side, the mountains loom, the pass crowded with tumbled rocks. The exact location of the Source has long since been calculated; it lies at the very heart of the Near Kingdom, at the center of the circular zone of intense magic demarcated by the Wizard’s Wall. It is just over this ridge, less than half a mile away, in the cleft between the mountains. I can almost feel the magic flowing over me, through me, drawn from the rest of the world and building in intensity as it jostles around that mysterious exit just beyond sight.

  Father’s scowl deepens. He is pale, sweating. The extent of Zeffron’s spell is clearly visible around him, a bubble whose surface glitters in the field. He looks back at me and extends his arm. “Hold my hand.”

  I shake my head. I dare not approach too close to him.

  Mother’s voice distracts before Angry Father can emerge. He is ahead of me, and taller, and I hear his gasp as he reaches the crest.

  The Source is visible at last. But it is more than half a mile away.

  Much more.

  Beyond the ridge, the whole world slopes down into a vast bowl-shaped valley. The naked Source lies at the bottom, a miniature blue sun, rotating and flickering and alive with a kind of crackling flame; a shaft of light sweeping round so fast it aches the eye to view it for more than a brief moment. Lightning-rent clouds roil overhead, lit blue by the glow of the Source. Despite the searing light, or perhaps because of it, the valley floor is crazed with deep, confusing shadows; rugged and littered with shifting, indistinct obstacles and ravines.

  It will not be an easy climb down.

  “This is far too big.” Father’s eyes are fixed on the Source. “You could fit the whole of Proximus in here with room to spare. And the slope is all wrong.” He leans down, picks up a fist sized rock, hurls it down into the valley. It falls far short of where it should and does not bounce or roll as one would expect. Again, I fear he is about to turn back.

  Mother’s voice is quiet but quite distinct. Father’s face pales further. He glances at me, licks his lips.

  “Come, Father.” I take a step over the ridge, towards the Source. “We’re almost there.”

  * * *

  A river flows up a cliff, curving away out of sight above and below us; more than one moon stares down from the sky. We are crossing worlds, it seems, and not just distance.

  We teeter over a spindly arch of rock that spans a seemingly bottomless ravine. The currents of magic are so strong here that Zeffron’s bubble is constantly buffeted. One half of me lies exposed outside the increasingly defined edge of the spell, glistening and feeling over-sized yet also strangely light. My other half is numbed by the lack of magic. The contrast between the two zones threatens to tear me apart, but I dare not step fully into one side or the other.

  “We must be close,” Father says. He looks drained. Haunted. I have no idea what sensations a mortal must feel in this strange place and under these conditions. “We’ve been walking for hours now. We can’t go much farther. The spell won’t hold.”

  “It will hold.” The elegant internal construction of Zeffron’s spell is still clear in my etched-stone mind. Like all magic, it will only grow stronger along with the field.

  Father rubs his face. “This is madness. We must head back to the Wall, Farima.”

  “No! You said yourself we are close.” I can no more understand his fear than I can understand his love. Only a little farther and we will be right upon the Source. Mother and Farima must surely be near.

  Anchored to the spell that protects us, I pace its trembling boundary. Father sits in the dust. Blue light beats against the jagged landscape around us. Beyond the impossible bridge we have just spanned, the approach to the Source looks relatively flat. The ground is covered in strange patchwork patterns, like a giant checkerboard. What look like buildings dangle suspended in mid-air above the blindingly bright point; towers, columns, and blocks that lean at odd angles or slowly rotate, drifting like polyhedral clouds.

  Father nods towards them. “People once lived here.”

  “The creators of the Source, do you think?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I thought it fell from the sky, a gift from God.”

  Father shakes his head. “No one knows the origin of the Source, Farima. No one alive today.”

  “Perhaps we will find out, if we get closer.”

  “Perhaps.” He squints at the Source, shading his eyes with his hand, his fingers curled into claws. “Or maybe there will just be more lies and infernal illusions.”

  “Those aren’t illusions.” I sweep my hand at the floating buildings. The tips of my fingers tingle as they momentarily pierce the skin of Zeffron’s spell. “They’re as real as you or me.”

  Father grunts. “And who’s to say we are real? That we’re not just part of the Source’s dream?” He shifts forward, his drawn face intent. “Who’s to say that if we get closer we won’t wake something up, disturb its slumber, and then we’ll be gone in a blink of some monstrous eye—erased as a new dream or nightmare begins?”

  “You’re being silly.” There is a rumble and the ground beneath us shakes. I stumble and sway but retain my footing. I extend my hand towards him. “Please, Father. Let’s see how close we can get. I want to find Mother.”

  For a long time he just sits and stares at me. I grow uncomfortable, but I am trapped; I can neither retreat nor go nearer him. Has he at last seen through Mother’s cloaking spells? What is he thinking behind those glittering blue eyes? It is my curse that I can never know for certain. But am I really so different from any flesh and blood person in that respect?

  At last, Father stands. “Very well. Only for you, Farima. Only for you, to the bitter end.”

  “The end won’t be bitter,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer. Inextricably tied together, we descend towards the checkerboard plain and the final resting place of the Source.

  * * *

  Father stops. His eyes widen.

  She is there. They are both there. Standing, hand in hand, between us and the pulsing blue heart of magic. They rise from one of buildings that has collapsed and cracked open like a monstrous egg; girders and filaments spilling out like an explosion of trembling spider’s legs.

  Mother is a giantess. She stands like a colossus upon the plain. The Source itself is much smaller than it had seemed; no larger than a person, perhaps even smaller than that. It seems shy, shrinking with each step towards it. I wonder if it will vanish entirely if we get too close.

  My flesh-sister Farima stands beside Mother. The pair are billowy, unsolid; I can see the Source right through them. They are puffed up, bloated: like week-old drowned corpses.

  Father moves forward as if he is sleepwalking. “Kaffryn! Is it truly you?”

  “Father,” I warn. “Stay away.”

  He does not slow or stop. I am forced to follow him, tied by our invisible bond; if I were to step outside the protection of Zeffron’s spell now I would be crushed in a second. The magic field is thousands upon thousands of times stronger here than it is at the Wall, and every step closer to the Source magnifies it a thousandfold.

  But that same spell will destroy Mother and Farima and whatever strange magic sustains them here, unless Father stops. Does he not realize that?

  “You’re go
ing to kill them!” I shout.

  Father does not hear, or chooses not to. I cannot grab him, cannot hold him back. I shout again for him to stop, to warn him off.

  He does not stop.

  “Father!”

  Protecting Farima is the first, most fundamental Rule. I cannot allow him to harm her, no matter the cost. I prepare to dive forward to grab hold of him, even if it means my own life force will be extinguished.

  Mother growls. For a brief moment she speaks no language I have heard or ever want to hear again. I remember all the foolish tales; of demons that make their home near the Source and wear the skins of those mad or determined enough to seek it. Those tales suddenly don’t seem so foolish. What if these creatures aren’t Mother and Farima at all but demons who took their guise after they passed? The ghosts of the first magicians; those who created the Source by accident or by design, flayed of their humanity by the unforeseen power of the field and left as corrupt imprints in its folds and whorls? What if they were never human, but beings of pure magic, drawn to and captured by the irresistible inflow of the field from this world or another?

  What if they are hostile?

  Mother leers. Sister Farima simpers. Their eyes are howling black holes. This is not how I remember them. This is not how they would be. “Father!” I shout. “It’s not them!”

  Mother’s face melts and twists as we approach. At last, Father hesitates. “Kaffryn?”

  “No, Father! You have to go on!” The irony of the reversal is not lost on me. Father must destroy these beings before they destroy us. There is only one way we can do that.

  Demon Mother looms tall, stretches up like a tilted reflection. Her talons reach the edge of Zeffron’s shield—and cast bright sparks. She shrieks in pain, quickly withdrawing; the giant Farima gasps in fear. Like some panic-stricken animal, Mother-creature emits a stream of noxious-looking black gas. It gushes against our shield, but only harmless soot drifts to our feet.

  Father slows for a moment, then picks up his pace. “Stay behind me, Farima.” His face is grim, his eyes flash dark, and for the first time I have some inkling of how the free magicians in the Far Kingdoms must feel when the King orders the wrath of Mevlish the Mighty down upon them. Even without his accompanying flight of dragons, even deprived of his ability to utter the cruelest munitions spells, the expression on his face is enough to strike fear into any demon’s heart. This is not Angry Father: this is War Father. He marches on in full knowledge of what he is about to do.