by T. Wyse
“May your arrows strike true.” The resonant nobility of the unseen wolf chased after him.
***
The walls brushed his skin like sandpaper, somehow soft, clinging, and barbed as he slipped down. He fell in spurts, never truly slowed by the ethereal false cloth, and felt the numbness taking over. He tried to move, to squirm his hands enough to tear at the bindings, but the black teeth of the clubs passed through the prison, the power of the realm affording him nothing.
The cloth peeled away from him like a blooming flower, and he was struck with chill air as the walls heaved outwards. It was like being inside Mana’s freezer on the few occasions when she had allowed him in, the creeping and unfamiliar chill and stillness wrapped within an alien and forbidden world. The faintest sense of light shone from somewhere, but the cloth wrapped itself around his legs before he could move.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Mana smiled at him, the freezer flickering into his mind from the gaping blackness. Her smile curled back to reveal jagged teeth, and a familiar cluster of little warm blobs gnawed at the cloth gripping his legs.
“You, you came?” His words sputtered forth with a white mist, dissipating into nothingness before they reached the hallucination. Yet he found his feet thawed, the cloth no longer holding him there, and his legs burned with hypothermic enthusiasm.
He pushed forward, feeling the slithering cloth following behind him with an almost curious pace. They nipped at his back, parting playfully and allowing him through the veiled blackness.
Heartbeats shuffled around him, betraying the movement of the sheets by those cocooned within. He cut towards the feeling of light, and the cloth closed in around him, only to yawn open again.
The walls formed into a triangular shape, the floor into a concave array of mats below. The bonfire glowed only in his dreaming memory before him, and he found himself lowering to sit out of reflex.
“You are not abandoned, and you are never alone.” The voice cast itself beyond the empty with a confidence and song the old man never aspired to. The shapes of bodies hung in bulging blisters above, alongside the hanging pelts, all grand banners of noble beasts. The creatures swayed and cast their shining black eyes down, alive and fascinated. They reached out at him, clawing and stretching to bite and gnash, only to dart back to their resting places the moment he looked. “Would you like to learn? Willing to listen now?”
The bonfire faded from his memory, and so did the sense of the old man. The tent pulled him into its centre and gave him bearing, returning his sense of up and down in the nothing world. The clawed cloth reached for him, but none found clinging purchase; none tasted his blood. He became aware of the bloom’s dimensions around him, and for the first time, he found the sound of the light—a single waking heartbeat to rhyme with his own.
He pushed against the walls, which shriveled from his touch, the layers swirling with a more cautious tinge. They rubbed against his shoulders and face, reminding him of the cling of his clothes when drenched with sweat or blood. He remembered the times when he returned to the black tent in failure, wounded and beaten, only to receive the strike of the old man’s staff for his lateness.
The cloth closed in, and he lost the light. Each step was through icy mud, and his feet regathered the dark numb. He tried to look up, the feeling of those early days in Glalih’s forest when he would be lost for hours in the night, having only the moon to guide him. Only the cling of black chill striking his eyes responded.
“Little boy.” A jaw clicked. It was the low rumble of the Demonic Wolf that flowed through the misshapen giant. “Doing things because you think you should. Never really thinking, always running but never going anywhere.” The thought of Talah’s face emerged from the folded cloth, jagged teeth brushing against the boy’s own lips.
“Could’ve just killed me once. Wouldn’t have hurt anyone after that. Who would blame you? Who would mourn? That’s what you were supposed to do.” The growling voice laughed, and an undertone of clicking joined in.
“No.” Kechua saw a warped version of Talah, jaw open wide, teeth closing in on the boy’s head. “I wasn’t ever afraid of him after the day I stood in the light.”
The bite paused. “I was always sad for him.”
The giant slipped backwards, the cloth blooming, and they were again in the shack.
Kechua turned to face him, and spoke freely. “Touched by addiction before you were born, and then both having left before you even knew them.” The boy stood in the open door, the memory of the square of light warming Kechua’s body. “You were me, all of us, only with a thousand-fold sadness. I thought I could stop the rage you felt, or focus it; channel it.”
“Because you’re a noble hero,” Wolf’s growling voice scoffed.
“Because I felt it too. Every single day, I felt it, and I saw the hands and head of Glalih, dug into for metal, poisoned and thrown aside. I woke up every day alone, my parents sending me something once a year.” Kechua shook his head. “We are kin, in all ways. You made me complete, both of you.” He nodded and closed his eyes.
The rhythm of Glalih flowed through the illusion, pouring into the walls of the shack, the furious dance of his people chanting and stomping. He thought of the few times he had seen Talah smile, relax, and be a gentle part of the community. He remembered the bonfires, the gathering of the twenty-two elders; every one of them for years upon years.
“Well then, shall we dance?” He felt the sand between his naked toes, and the bonfire raged against the darkness. Before him, standing in the flickering light of the bonfire, was Anah. Her jaw was pointed, her hands shrunken and perfect all the same.
Together they danced, him following her flow, following, and predicting in the rhythm she provided. They stamped, they swayed, and he lost himself in the ebb and flow of the memory of the world.
“Can’t stay forever.” The nervous laughter flowed through her illusion. “You have to move on.”
“One moment more.” Kechua separated and closed Anah’s lips with a finger. She laughed silently, the animating spirit not attempting to emulate the gesture. With a parting kiss, she faded into the darkness.
The warmth no longer a falsehood, his consciousness bubbled forth in the embrace of the inky dark. He chased the light, even as his memory faded, and plunged through the cloth with his pace found once more.
False flames lit around him, the writhing of the folding cloth becoming a panicked vortex. He forged on, remembering the taste of the guarded boy’s room, following the feeling towards the palest of the lights. The cloth parted one last time, yawning into a spherical bloom.
He felt the clarity of the air and drew it into his lungs. It came cold and biting, but it was like waking from a dream of drowning with the single gasping breath of real air.
A pale light flickered in the centre of the space, swirling with a slow grey static and flowing outward to the inky walls. It moved with the easy disinterest of a lava lamp. As he approached it, he found it to be some pale lamp with a pattern around it, spinning and casting shapes against the dark.
A figure cut against the dark, and as he approached, Kechua realized it was the woman he had vaguely sensed before. She sat before the fire, looking like a jagged candle of blue wax with a white flame burning above it. Black cloth swallowed half of her legs, peeling back at her knees before following the reluctant grasp up her sides. The grasping black latched onto her face and clothing in ligament stretches, each ending in a triangular grasping nub. Long white hair burst forth between the gripping layers of black, flowing down in broken waterfalls to stop just short of her lap.
“I’m glad you made it. Glad you heard me.” The woman broke the silence, and to his surprise, her eyes opened, palest blue glimmering against the lamplight. She stayed as still as a statue while she spoke, and yet the grasping tendrils shifted along her body and face. He felt the rhythm of her breath and heart, reaching outward through those gripping tendons into the fabric of the prison around them. “First one
to make it all the way in.” She smiled, closing her eyes. Her face was smooth ivory, and yet her eyes were encircled with darkened wrinkles and pits of almost bruised blackness, betraying many restless years.
“I saw you out there, fighting with the dogs.” She smiled, and the tendrils shifted as the shadows moved upon her face. The pale light caused them to retreat, leaving pinprick trails of blood weeping down the sides of her face.
“I’m here to help you,” he mustered the words, bursting out with fogging steam.
“There’s no help.” She smiled with a sadder twinge. The tendrils again shifted and left more red lines. “I just wanted to meet you.”
“This isn’t right,” he growled, finding his feet reluctant to pivot around the light between them. Instead, he sat across from her. The cloth crept behind him, rippling at his legs, but found no purchase in his skin.
“My name is Kechua, and I think that we’re the same.”
“Felt it too. See it too. You certainly aren’t like the others,” she spoke without smiling, her eyes closed. “Pushed this far. I’ve seen you from the shadows, little glimpses early on, but I can only see what it sees. “Sarah,” she added, opening her eyes a moment and buying another smile with blood.
“We need to get you away from this, out of this. Sometime with the dawn, you should be freed from this and able to fight,” he said, but she twisted her head as if struck before quickly turning it back.
“I know, but I gave that up after the first few times.” She winced as the tendrils closed back in. “It spat me out and I tried to fight, then tried to run, but it was useless. It always caught me, always swallowed me.” She paused, taking a deep sighing breath, and continued. “It’s better this way, just staying this way. It’s a balance.”
“It’s draining—”
“I know. It’s feeding off of me. I can feel it.” She winced again. “But this is the best way, the only way. I can influence it, where it goes, at least sometimes. I’ve saved some people from the dogs, from the other things. I brought them here to be safe.”
“This wasn’t how it should have been.” Kechua leaned in, wanting fully to leap across the light and slash at the feeding tendrils. “You should have a perception, something only you can see and understand, something that would have armed you against this. Tell me what it is, and maybe I can help you beat it.”
“Can’t.” She afforded a single twitching shake of her head, snapping back before too many of them severed. “Just know. Can’t tell, can’t fight.”
“I feel the rhythm of things, of the earth and of people. I can trace footsteps woven upon themselves; feel the history of places beaten by habits. I can even feel fresh tracks, new things, and right now, I can feel that this isn’t right to you. I don’t feel surrender in your bones. They rattle and echo with screams and fighting and clawing.”
“Another life,” she whispered.
“I fought the creature that came for me, my Aspect, but I needed help in the end. I lost to it too, lost loads of blood to it, but I won. Let me help you win.”
The shadows grew under her eyes. “I missed that. I haven’t seen anyone win,” she whispered. “I can see in the dark places, in the blackness darker than shade. I can see all the things lurking in wait, all the things reaching out from the unsure. It’s worse than before the wave, and I didn’t think it could be worse.” She opened her eyes again, looking ever more tired. “They didn’t believe me back then. Put me in hospitals even when I could prove it, even when I could move in and out of the shadows, escape the cells.” She shook her head. “I tried to fight back then. I tried to help people that the dark reached out for, but I got hurt just as bad as them. I died just as much as them.” She trembled.
“Here.” Kechua slid his clubs around the right side of the flame. “I didn’t carve these just now. I’ve carried them with me, recorded my story on them.”
She paused, the pale blue tracing their surfaces. For a moment, he feared she would be forced to reach down, but she merely muttered, “Turn them.”
He took them back and flipped them in turn, presenting them around the light again. “You see? It’s all there.”
“You missed the wave?” She betrayed a bemused look. “Charity, I think.” She closed her eyes again. “I believe you, Kechua, but I can’t.”
“But this is—”
“People die out there, people steal; people kill. You’ve seen it, but still your narrow path has been so blissfully blind. I see so much more. I can see all the way to the oceans at night, at least when I’m like this. I can save them, bring them here, until this ends.”
“But they need the chance!” Kechua bit, taking the clubs back. “They need the choice, the freedom to move. I’ve seen people die, but . . . ” He traced the clubs. “You can’t decide for them.” He landed upon the spot. “This one, he gave up. He called the wave to himself, I think, and it answered. He chose to be taken away.” He tapped the carving of Shawn dissipating.
She remained silent.
“The dirt is blooming, paths are being formed, the world isn’t the waste you saw those first few days any longer, and it’s getting better. It’s waiting for people like you and me, and like the ones trapped in here, waiting for all of us to shape it with our actions.”
“We can’t win. I’ve tried,” she whispered.
“But it’s worth trying,” he bit back. “We have to try.”
“We.” She smiled, continuing as the cloth’s grip renewed. “If I fight, if we fight and lose, then things get worse. It will change, get stronger. Maybe I won’t be able to influence it anymore. Maybe I can’t save people then. It wants the struggle. They all want the struggle.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be.” He leaned over the light. “It’s something that only you can see, some pinprick weakness in its armor and form, something that sings to you, something you just might not have seen because you were running.” He shifted across the light and swatted at the gripping tendrils. “I will be with you to my dying breath and more. You said you saw me fight the dogs.”
She sat with her eyes closed.
“You must be cold,” he offered. Seeing her swallow softly, he added, “Come out, and we can both see the sun again.”
She cracked a smile and even allowed a gentle, trembling laugh. He tore at the returning tendrils with his clubs, freeing and revealing more of her face. “Fine, it’s boring in here anyways.” She turned her head and locked her eyes onto his. Leaning forward, she burst out of the gripping cloth. Her hair trailed behind her with a luminescent and crystalline flow, the lines of blood becoming a hot, glowing red that elongated as she lurched to her feet.
“I hope you’re ready.” She smiled, gripping one of the suspended lines of blood in the air, and tugged it. “It isn’t one to give a running start.” She grinned with a surreal tinge of darkness.
The bloom burst out around them, dissipating like fog against the sun. They stood in darkness, back in the quieter woven memories of the attic in the house. “Down,” he muttered, stumbling in the dark and trying to find the memory of the stairs. “We need to move, need more room.” He grazed his face against a wall in his haste.
“Come on.” Her hand slipped to his shoulder and gripped his. “This way.” With a chuckle, she added, “I thought you said we were going to see the sun.”
He followed her down the stairs, almost falling and taking her with him twice before they arrived at the landing, the faint light of the moon streaming into the landing.
The static mothwing feeling bubbled up, pooling with a near curiosity at the top of the stairs. With a prolonged savor, tendrils snaked down the bannister after them.
Sarah’s form flinched halfway before they arrived at his waiting pack, and she leaned towards the bannister reflexively, putting Kechua between her and the ambushing pair of burning red eyes, which gaped down at them from the doorway. Wolf neither growled nor spoke, offering only the heat of his breath as they passed to the red mat and window, lo
oking into the night world.
“That’s mine, the wolf that’s been with me, like on the carvings,” he assured her, slowly trying to coax her down the stairwell.
“Its eyes . . . so much more so close.” Her voice trembled slightly, stalwart against the pouring cold dark, but shaken by the glowing red.
“So, it has let you go to chase; to hunt,” Wolf growled low, his maw and burning eyes slipping out of the door, the pouring static dark pausing at this interception. Kechua felt the woman’s grip tighten as she squeezed into the corner, as far from Wolf as she could manage. “The chase, the hunt, it is part of the cycle of the Aspect, and the empowerment.”
“It’s alright. He’s dangerous, but we have an understanding,” Kechua reassured her.
“If you’ve chosen to fight, then fight. If you’ve chosen to run, then run,” Wolf snarled, closing his eyes and merging into the darkness. “Either way, you know what you must do, boy.”
Kill her, free her from the burden. They were the words Kechua knew and rejected. This time would be different.
A hissing sounded from below, the buzzing mothwings beating against the palette of his mouth. The creature hinged on them like a jaw, preventing him from retracing his steps out through the cellar.
“Do you see anything yet?” he whispered to her, the slow dark pooling up the steps.
Sarah paused a moment. “I was distracted by the wolf, I’m sorry. We can’t hide from it, and I can’t see anything that—”
“Need more time then.” Kechua gripped her around the waist. “Let’s go outside.”
The numb buzzing teeth against the silhouette closed in on them from every side. He moved in the belabored pace of a nightmare against a pursuer, unknown and unseen, whose very presence thickened the air.
He pulled her close, and without hesitation, without any thought, he leapt through it. He nicked his arm on the way out, splintered wood cutting through, and one of his feet caught the opposite end’s splintered swords. They landed on the earth with a soft thud.