by T. Wyse
“I’ll be back. I’ll be back quickly, I promise.” Kechua fastened his pack again, but his feeling of the earth was interrupted.
“Don’t go, please don’t go,” the man begged, grabbing Kechua’s naked wrist, his exhausted eyes looking frantic at him. “It’s better here, safe from the things. The fire keeps them away . . . the fire keeps us safe.” His hoarseness cracked within his throat.
“See how helpless they are, without their silly champions united; without Blessed who can take control?” Wolf paced around the two of them, a strange greyed vulture, his words sentencing the three.
“It’s fine. They’ll all be fine, like the others,” Kechua replied, anger boiling in his gut at the brash beast.
“It’s been too long. Too hungry. Too thirsty,” the weak man whispered. “We wanted to go out, to search . . . ” He trailed off, then seemingly caught his mind. “We met. When the wall came, swept everything away. Farmer’s market, old ugly barn thing, didn’t get taken away, at least most of it didn’t. The thing collapsed on some of the others . . . ” The man’s voice trembled with the weight of the memory. “They died . . . crushed in front of us . . . ” He coughed violently, his throat taking its price for the memory.
“It wasn’t your fault. It’s alright now . . . ” Kechua tried to soothe him, but the man trembled.
“We . . . we had food, loads of it, but . . . the night . . . oh God the night.” The trembling became more violent. “Dogs, black with these glowing red eyes . . . they came and dragged half of us away into the dark. I ran, I hid, I heard them scream, more screaming . . . more screaming.”
“Listen to me! It’s not your fault . . . we’ll get you help. I’ve seen things like . . . ”
“No . . . We thought they just hunted in some area, but it’s not that easy. We left the market the next day with everything we could carry. We should have gone together, should have stayed together. We didn’t, though. We argued about which way to go. Some wanted to go to where their families were. I guess that’s smart, guess that’s the best way. Others wanted to go towards the nearest city, big city, they figured there’d be more help there, or shelters, or something. We . . . the six of us . . . we were going towards the west coast, towards the ocean.”
“Why?” Kechua asked, puzzled.
“Whatever this is, whatever weapon, or hand of God, or wrath . . . ” He paused, seeing beyond Kechua’s head. “I thought we could still . . . fish.”
“We can, we can!” Kechua gripped the man’s shoulder. “There’s a river south of here, big and getting bigger. There’s fish and water, and—”
“There’s no river. No rivers anymore. We would’ve seen them,” the man muttered, bitter anger in his voice.
“Look at me. Look at my eyes.” Kechua leaned down and locked eyes with the man. “I am going to the river. I’m getting you fish and water, and we’re going to fix this.”
“Alright.” The man smiled and closed his eyes again. “Just be back before dark.”
“I will.” He left only his jacket and a cluster of stabbed holes behind.
***
The shadows of the trees grew long with the fading afternoon when Kechua once again pierced into reach of the smoke. A pair of fish hung from a length of line dangling from his pack, fat beasts flapping in morbid joy as he ran the length back.
The three hearts beat, and the man responded to his arrival, even smiling as he dabbed his forehead with slickened cloth. Kechua let the bundled cloth slip onto the earth. He had soaked every single piece of cloth that would hold water and rolled them into a ball.
“Are the others?” he whispered.
“They’re still fine,” Kechua answered, struggling with the tethers on the fish. He tore a piece of it off and gave it to the man, chasing a sip of water. “Eat this,” he urged as the man made a repulsed face.
He gagged while chewing slowly. He forced down a mouthful but refused the next. “Sorry,” the man said. “I can’t take another.” He coughed again, his eyes closing.
“Cook it. I’ll cook it on the . . . the fire.” He slipped the fish onto one of the burning, charred logs, his hand swallowed by the smoke in the process and coming out blackened and singed.
He raised a hand to the fire’s heat and felt only the stinging prickle of it, not a trace of warmth shared between them.
“Have you been feeding the fire?” he asked, his brow wrinkling as he watched the fish carefully before turning it.
“No . . . ” He coughed once more. “We just started it, built it high, and it didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. It was like that from the beginning. Burned us but we weren’t warmed by it. No light from it either.” His voice trailed off.
He let the man settle and dug at the failed springs, which had become disturbed indentations in the pebbles. A little gurgling puddle formed in the first, but the water was black and stagnant, a foul and twisted stillborn growth.
He stumbled back to the fire to check the fish, his feet nipped by the toothed rocks through his shoes. The fish resembled the burned wood, but peeling away the skin revealed a thin layer between raw and burned. His tongue retracted from the taste. An overwhelming metallic flavor of coal smoke permeated the flesh.
He moved to rouse the woman, kneeling beside her, and his arms fell limp beside him as chill poured down his body.
She wasn’t sleeping.
“They’ve passed, haven’t they?” The man on the end struggled to gasp.
Kechua wished the man’s blank gaze away from him, but he was not granted that mercy. “They’re fine, just eat.” He tried to rise, but his knees slammed into the pebbles. He shuffled forth, kneeling with his charred fish outstretched.
“Eyes are foggy, but I can see you. I can tell you’re lying.” The man choked but smiled. “I can’t eat. I can’t try any longer,” he whimpered with a hoarse dryness.
“No, come, eat,” Kechua pleaded. “I’ll chew it for you, mash it up, so you can—”
“It’s alright . . . ” The man’s breathing was wracking, rasping. There was a faint hint of rattling within his lungs. “We were dead before you found us, days before. It was nice to feel cool water on my face one more time, really. I appreciate you trying.” He smiled.
The man’s eyes closed, his breathing stuttered, and the rhythm of his heart fluttered.
The ruined fish fell with a puff of dirt as Kechua frantically shook the man.
“Wait!” he stuttered and forced the trembling words out. “If you’re going to die . . . Your family. Is there anything you need me to carry for you, a message, for any of you?”
The man’s eyes opened, glazed over and yet reflecting some burning light. “I see them every time I sleep. I see them now, all of them. We all did.” He trembled. “Light no fires. That’s all I can give you. It’s not hope, it’s poison.”
“Light no fires,” he repeated. The reflection sparked into brilliance for the briefest moment before dimming to nothing.
“They’re alive, they’re all alive. You just needed to . . . ” Kechua leaned in, whispering into the man’s ears as if to entice the stilled string to tremble just a little more.
“Foolish, futile,” Wolf growled, though without an accompanying glare.
“What do I do?” The boy let go of the body, letting it sink ears deep into the stones.
“You have given what comfort you could.” The softened rumble spoke behind him, and the clearer resonant voice continued. “Close his eyes.”
He closed the man’s eyes, not daring to touch his own, not acknowledging they poured forth truer drink than his clumsy attempts to stab water from the earth.
“Now, cover them in soil. Draw each of them a circle and write each of their names upon the inner soil.” The deeply musical voice pushed against his back.
“I don’t . . . ” Kechua choked, trembling.
“Follow my words, and do not look back at me until you have finished. Do this and all will be observed. All will be well.” The heat of Wolf’s breat
h beat upon Kechua’s back with massaging comfort. The voice reminded him of the shaman in his more pensive states, in the narrow slivers when he was not striking the boy out of rage.
In the end, three mounds lay side by side, the stones cleared furiously and the earth packed around them, a sealing circle torn around each. There “Henry,” “Jose,” and “Sally” ended their struggle. Their wallets each revealed their names in turn, though they also whispered of children, of relatives, of the lives left behind. With trembling hands, he etched their names on scavenged wood, the cuts unworthy of anything but his first few tries at carving. The queasiness in his gut rose more with the etching than it had when he moved their forms and committed them to the earth.
“Do I say something?” He swallowed, standing before the resting trio. “I don’t even know what gods to speak to.”
“In their end, they have met their Ushers without your words and have passed an eternity since.” Wolf spoke with elegant strength.
“You cannot win every fight. That is what makes it meaningful when you do.” The voice shifted again into feminine warmth. “Come, it is time to dry your eyes and leave this place. Your spring-well grows and will quench the fire in time.”
He walked away with clumsy and numb limbs, kicking pebbles and shoveling through the dirt long after he left the forest behind. His tears faded, but so did the light.
“Draw a circle. The night is soon,” Wolf growled, snapping with a jagged half snarl.
“No.” Kechua stopped, clearing his throat and spitting. “No circle.” He glared at the great beast, shifting from leg to leg, his heart pumping; his face flushed with burning blood.
“Then prepare to fight, boy.” The growling voice gave a morbid chuckle.
He ran against the packed mud, the stilled orchard a memory at his back. Each stride moved from a step to a leap, until his toes barely tapped stone and plant and mud before rising again. The song of night summoned insects harmonized with the greying foam beside him. His heart pounded and breath came and went with starved gulps, but he ran faster, trying to outrun the grey crack in the sky as its barbed claws clung on.
Night fell upon the earth, puddles of black forming like oil leeching forth. The puddles overflowed and became pointed buds of tar, reaching towards the sky, forming into creatures for the faintest second before darkness concealed their figures.
The shadows snapped at his back with curved teeth and long maws. Hooked claws swiped barely beyond his shoulders as the river’s song flowed into his ears. Tentacled sea monsters with gnashing beaks shivered from the rapids, and he ran without so much as glancing to deny their reality.
The trees of his forest surrounded him, and he stole a look back, his pace easing. The horizon burned with a thousand red eyes, tiny pinpricks all leering hungrily.
He traversed his rocky paths with a limping breathlessness, accompanied only by the two familiar red crescents at his side.
CHAPTER 9:
The Pensive Aspect
The moment his feet ascended the final step to the flat overlook, he slumped onto the earth without detaching the pack. The sea of red dots burned from below, having traced his ascent from beyond the forest’s borders, and he felt them as he drifted into the dreaming dark.
His dreams slurred and murmured, his body both exhausted and humming with electricity. His sleep broke repeatedly in the night, though his eyes were met with a black void each time to push him back down into the black forest.
With no warming silhouette to touch him in the dream world, and not even the vague council of the obscured spirits, he woke with the first hints of blue above. His arms ached at the shoulders, biting stiffly as he detached the pack and sat with limp-necked exhaustion. He glared at the sky, willing the light forth with his anger and impatience, yet it came with a painfully gradual slide. The carving tool shone in his hands, glowing an anticipatory light blue even while the waiting clubs were black shadows lying before him.
Where to record his failures though? He found himself wondering the moment the wood of the clubs grew brown skins, the dark retreating into the recesses of the carvings.
In the end, he took the smaller of the two, a failure of protections; of guardianship.
He etched the shape of the great turtle, living with its sweeping and soaking breath and dredging shell. He etched the death of the creature, and inside he carved the boy’s room and the grasping darkness. He showed the change, the boy staring out the window, and the dome emblazoned with an eye upon its back.
He etched again, and the others shifted out of the way, narrowing their place upon the club in the bleak shadows of the newborn day. He pictured the fire, belching smoke, and the three beside it. The wooden boy returned with the fish only for them to perish before him.
His hands sung and trembled, the choking lump rising in his chest, the burning rage in his heart stinging his eyes more than the fire ever did.
The hosf kept their distance during his artistry, though the stomping of their hooves echoed beneath the entire while.
His misery exorcised enough for him to move again. He practiced striking with the clubs, re-affirming their weight and balance in his hands. He struck away the wraiths of himself, of Talah, and before the red of the day burned away the blue, he was calmer for the exertion. His brow dripping wet and his arms trembling and exhausted, Wolf’s eyes regarded him the entire time.
He felt calm enough to check on Tyran and found himself moving blurredly through the forest again, at such an ease that even walking was enough to traverse the distance in little time.
“Hello?” he called, his voice reverberating in the ruins. The rustling of leaves in the wind was his only response. The river of echoes in the concrete inched further towards silence, yet he could not trace any recent pattern of steps.
“Hello?” He opened the door to the cafeteria, the fountain happily gurgling clear water. Only a single bottle remained out, full of light tan liquid.
“‘Juice for you, my friend,” the note began, nestled under the bottle. “I waited, but you didn’t come back. Even waited till the morning. I hope you’re alright, but somehow, I know you are. Stay strong and keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe we’ll meet again someday, maybe not, but stay a doer if you can.”
“Doers get the good stuff,” it concluded.
Kechua took the ginger beer and held it aloft in a silent toast. He held it in salute of the fountain, the silent countertop, and the library before drinking of the bottle. He sputtered as it bit his tongue and stung his already hoarse throat, glad Wolf lurked nowhere nearby. He slid to the floor, his breath trembling and catching, and he fought back the gnawing feeling in his chest.
He raised the half-drunk bottle, gritting his teeth, but stopped before tossing it against the floor. Instead, he finished it, reset the cap, and filled it with water from the fountain, leaving it back upon the fountain’s lip.
“What now?” he asked, sweeping his arms wide in a show for the half-eaten plates and disturbed chairs surrounding him. The ghosts gave no suggestion, no roaring demand. Only the trickle of the fountain burbled ponderously.
He left the emptiness behind, allowing one last trembling breath before bursting back into the darkened cave of a hallway, emerging straight-faced and with the rhythmic stride of purpose.
He ran through the forest, fighting a blurring feeling. He ran and the hosf collected and ran alongside him. He pumped his arms, abandoning the rhythm, his clubs flapping at his sides in chaos. The staff whistled as it cut through the wind.
The mountain opened before him, the brown worthless world below, and yet his momentum stopped suddenly as a hunched figure cut against the ocean of sky.
“Excellent view.” A haggard voice, but one whose words flowed with careful contemplation.
Kechua gasped, falling to his knees, his heart a rumbling fury blinding his eyes.
“Wouldn’t want to sully the view by falling down, would you?” The man turned his head to meet Kechua’s eyes.
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Two orbs glimmered in the man’s wrinkled and pale visage in place of eyes. They were black as ebony, yet drank in no light, giving Kechua a distorted view of his own ragged face twice over. The beads clung in his hair, but the tips tangled around them as if fighting to free themselves from the tether, and his once neatly straightened hair was caked with ash and soot and clumps of dirt.
The man’s face shimmered with a soft reddened glow, sourcing from the pure black mirrors, which opened wide and without any lids to betray an expression. The black bubbles stretched half over his cheeks, looking like they had been slammed into the man’s skull in turn somehow without wounding him.
His features flowed with the smoothness of a rippling lake, and he bore no blemishes other than clusters of whitened skin. A long white beard poured from his jaw and ended in his lap, yet he wore no moustache. His robe hung about him like an aura, a softness to it, gently cuffed edges around the lowered cowl and sleeves. No trace of stitching or fanciful design sullied its simplicity. He sat cross-legged and arms folded, his feet and hands completely concealed within the robe.
“Are . . . ” Kechua panted, rising to his watery legs, clubs drawn back to his side. “Are you Wolf?”
The black eyes shimmered a little, and the man’s face scanned Kechua with curiosity. The boy fully expected the loose skin to burst open revealing some hissing beast.
The old man laughed and went back to regarding the world beyond. “No, I believe that is your wolf.” A wizened hand, with blunt but blackened fingernails, jutted out from one sleeve of his crossed arms, pointing out the weighty bulk of Wolf’s grey hide.
“Then you’re an Aspect, or Usher, or something.” Kechua shifted in place, unsure of the need to begin the dance, or to run.
The hosf host running with him came to a tumbling stop, catching up to the runner.
“Oh, hello there.” The old man glanced back and gave a wave without uncrossing his arms.
Wolf trotted to the man and sat beside him.
“Wait, shouldn’t you be urging me to strike him down, take his power?” Kechua stumbled on the words, his heart beating fast again.