Commandment

by Daryl Chestney

  The Acaanan was inundated with questions but knew that further pestering would arouse the High-man’s suspicions.

  “You believed her?”

  “Not precisely. But she was such a miserable sight that I returned shortly thereafter, armed with a food offering. But she was gone.”

  “What happened?” Electricity crackled down Lakif’s spine.

  “That was curious. There were the remains of the broken ship with a statue of a woman jutting from the ruined prow. It was all banged up and covered with grime and barnacles. But the crock herself had disappeared! Maybe I had erred in the spot; there were many similar wrecked vessels along that stretch. Or maybe she was carried away by a wave, vanishing between the surf and water.”

  “Perhaps you hallucinated,” Lakif pressed.

  “It occurred to me that the salty air had rusted my mind, but then I found a bracelet of shells bobbing against the sand bank. She had been wearing them! And I noted the ship’s name etched into the prow. It was pomegranate, a fruit. I recall the crock had referred to the Rare Earth Stone as a fruit.”

  “Her claims proved true?” Lakif swooned, spellbound following the revelation.

  “To the letter. After much ado, I rescued the Stone from a sunken cave. It was the lair of a sea serpent. The place was littered with bones of unfortunate sailors, but the Stone was there, nestled among her eggs.”

  “Eggs!” Lakif shouted. “Just like the moorhen!”

  “Pardon?” Bael looked confused.

  “Never mind.” Lakif composed herself. “Did the beldam oblige you with her name?”

  “I think so, but it was difficult to hear her speak at times. I actually thought she was drowning.”

  “That is a most peculiar story.” Lakif brooded.

  “And you?” her friend asked. “How did you find Ebon Myre?”

  “There’s not much to it,” Lakif replied nonchalantly. “I just wished on a falling star.”

  Despite her limp reply, Lakif trembled with curiosity. Bael’s account was strikingly reminiscent of her own with Lucretia. Could the two soothsayers be related, even one and the same? Although there were clear differences, the similarities couldn’t be ignored. Each beldam was spectacularly hideous, lipped a cryptic code, and disappeared without a trace. Both even had a pet familiar! There must be a connection! But if so, what was the reason for the interference? Lakif could rack her brains and never know the truth of it.

  The time had arrived to craft the fire. They laid out the requisite ingredients on the dolmen. The contrary vine was a stringy weed with numerous hairy knots. The lock of hair was likewise from a brunette. The bones rescued from Ixion lay in a jumbled heap. Two small vials with the liquid components twinkled in the light. Next to them lay the goat’s spleen, a walnut-shaped object that resembled a shriveled plum. Then there was a small sack that housed the scorpions. It slightly shifted, and Lakif was reminded of Lucretia’s sack of wonders.

  The Acaanan set about binding the bones together with the vine and hair, forming a cone-shaped skeleton resembling a tepee.

  Meanwhile, Bael found a bag of coals. He laid them into a soft bed within the furnace and drenched them in starter oil. Lakif carefully placed the bone contraption within the fuel and, with the use of her lighter, set it ablaze. Thus, despite the mystical marvels squirreled away in the lab, the fire was lit by the most conventional of means. Its modest glow looked small indeed in the mammoth furnace, like a single match within a giant cavern. Leveraging the bellows, Bael forced air into the furnace, and the bones burst into flames.

  Within a minute, the fire tripled in size and burned steadily. The iron furnace groaned, as if the lab’s chill was so firmly settled in its metallic ribs that it had to be forcibly ousted by the heat.

  With another press, Bael sent more life-giving air into the contraption. The burning pyre suddenly billowed with life; flames erupted with anger. Lakif stared at the dancing fire, entranced. She feared that they had rekindled some dormant force. Had they awakened a sleeping goliath that now yawned at them with gaping jaws?

  With a flick of the wrist, Lakif emptied the contents of the vials onto the burning bones. First went in the toad’s spit, then the oil of teal. Or had she reversed the order? She wasn’t sure. In any event, the liquids vaporized before the fire. Almost instantly, the flame’s yellowed hue metamorphosed to a brilliant red sheet. Accompanying the change, a wave of heat blasted from the furnace. Its force was sufficient to blow the Acaanan’s straw hair like a sheet in the wind.

  Lakif knew that with the terrific transformation, they had transgressed beyond the ordinary and into the realm of the extraordinary. She admired the new color. Its pure ruby hue reminded the Acaanan of her companion’s princely eyes.

  Meanwhile, Bael had ripped the spleen up into morsels. With a gesture, he flung the specks at the pyre as if he were feeding bread to pigeons. As the pieces rained down, the flames changed to a coffee color.

  Again, a blast of heat heralded the chromatic change. The pyre now roared into a conflagration of wildly turbulent flames. Lakif had the feeling the coal was now superfluous fuel. The alchemical ingredients alone sustained the blaze.

  Next, Bael tilted the sack and shook it, careful not to scorch his hands. Black scorpions spilled out into the blaze. With a pop and hiss, they curled up like burnt pieces of paper. The fickle flames once again changed, this time to a steely gray as they were fed the critters. Lakif was attracted to her friend’s face in the shifting lighting. It looked feline.

  “The laen.” Lakif held up the precious vial. As she unscrewed the lid, the Acaanan eagerly anticipated the final change. She imagined a myriad of colors, all scintillating like a lonely rainbow within the hellish furnace. The final ingredient, powdered laen, was readily dispersed. The golden crystals shimmered in the inferno.

  In response to the last ingredient, the flames turned lily white. But what startled the Acaanan more was that the fire instantly attenuated in size, shrinking down into a tight cone. In addition, it was perfectly still, as if frozen in place. The light was so brilliant that she could only look safely at it from the corner of her eye. It was akin to a brilliant star struggling within the metallic beast.

  But this final change produced no heat wave whatsoever. Lakif leaned in toward the furnace, wondering if the fire was somehow ebbing.

  Then she observed the frosty rime developing over the forge’s interior. As she watched, it slowly crept toward the outer rim. Suddenly, she lurched back, snapping her arm from the furnace sill with a stifled cry. Excruciating pain blistered her flesh. The agony was not from heat, however. Her hand had ever so briefly brushed against the lip of the furnace and was smote with a cryogenic freeze.

  She rubbed her hand vigorously in an attempt to restore circulation. Thank heavens she hadn’t rested her entire palm on the rim! Her hand would have shattered into hundreds of pieces. She now knew the virtue of the alchemist’s forge. It was not that it could resist the fiercest flame. Instead, it could endure the most stygian, ineluctable cold that would crush any lesser furnace like a tin can.

  Using steel tongs, Bael took his Stone and dropped it within the silver cone. Lakif followed suit. Then, acting on instinct, both warlock hopefuls backed up several steps.

  From the pearly cone, a mist rolled out and curled around the inner hulk. Even at this safe distance, Lakif was disquieted. What they were witnessing was completely divorced from any earthly phenomenon.

  Both watched with bated breath. The Stones were well within the confines of the cone, so Lakif couldn’t clearly see what was happening to them. The green light of her own treasure was totally eclipsed within the silvery brightness.

  Before their eyes, the brilliance thinned. Then, in a blink, it was gone. The cone disappeared so suddenly that Lakif had the impression it had been siphoned off. Perhaps the Rare Earth Stones themselves had drained away the energy.

  Whatever the cause, the furnace was once again lost in a sightless void. The cellar’s sole i
llumination was the lantern behind them. It cast their shadows hard on the crematorium.

  Before them, the furnace looked as derelict and useless as it had initially, as if whatever spirit they had summoned up was banished back to purgatory. Within idled only the twin Stones. No trace of the ingredients, alchemical or mundane, remained on the evil coliseum.

  The two camped in front of the furnace for some time. For Lakif’s part, she was loath to touch the apparatus and test its temperature.

  “I saw him die,” Lakif whispered.

  “Who?” Bael was nearly invisible next to her.

  “Vassag.”

  “Vassag?”

  “You mentioned that you sought him as well. He was in Grimpkin, and our paths did cross in one terrible instant. He was murdered, virtually right before my eyes. I believe the Seekers were behind it, although I never identified the assailant.”

  “Now more than ever our enemies are legion.” Bael reflected. “The chariots of the Seekers will pursue us to the ends of the earth.”

  “I wonder if Vassag was able to crack the Stone? I would wish so, so that he could have experienced this spectacle before his untimely end.”

  After several minutes it was clear that the glacial rime had vanished from the furnace. Picking up the lantern, she inched forward, shadowed by Bael. Lakif waved her hand around the Stone to gauge its state. She wasn’t sure if she was testing for coldness, heat, or any other peculiarity. Somehow, she knew what she had to do. It was not the nursery rhyme dictating her actions. Instead, it came to her like a faint commandment in her ear.

  She echoed her friend’s action and picked up her own Stone. The green glare she was accustomed to didn’t spring to life as was usual. It had completely vanished. Rather, a mist clouded that inner light. She momentarily feared that the inner charge had been burned out.

  Taking a deep breath, she clenched her fist. The Stone crumbled into a fine powder under the mildest pressure. The dust was immediately sucked into the furnace as if inhaled by powerful lungs.

  Before her eyes, a scintillating aura formed. She couldn’t say where it came from. It seemed to materialize right from the air between her fingers. In seconds, it began swirling in her palm like a diminutive green snowstorm, spinning around an invisible axis. But it quickly spread. From the cyclone a liquid coursed up her hand.

  Within seconds, it covered her palm. Before she could gasp, her entire forearm was bathed in the verdant storm. The blizzard swarmed over her. Before her heart could thump again, the presence had wrapped her entire body in its emerald tendrils. The storm impregnated her skin and invaded her lungs with each breath.

  Lakif choked as the gas blasted her face. Strangely, she felt as if she were running through sparkling foliage. Her feet were floating away from her. Or perhaps they were being pulled away. The dirt floor rushed up, and all went dark.

  XXXVI

  The Maelstrom

  THE ACAANAN FOUND HERSELF STANDING ALONE ON A BARE, ROCKY promontory. A yard away the earth fell away at a cliff. The brink overlooked a canyon. The term canyon, however, was a paltry label given its vast dimensions, but one for which the Acaanan could offer no substitute. In fact, she was denied any glimpse of the distant shore. Indeed, the canyon was so immense as to blot out the entire horizon. There, where there should be distant land, was only sheer sky, streaked with brilliant hues of orange and red.

  She leaned in to look down into the void. The earth precipitously plunged down into unspeakable depths. At first she believed she could discern the bottom, but on second inspection what she had assumed was ground proved to be swirling clouds. She knew that the chasm’s nadir was much, much farther below, if even it had one. She had the base feeling that she stood at the edge of the world.

  A noise, which she felt in her mind’s eye, prompted her to turn from the awesome vista. Behind, a terrific plain stretched into the limit of her sight. It was abnormally flat. In the extreme distance, the earth and sky merged. Perhaps they literally became one.

  The plain was charred, like a great fire had swept across a prairie, razing it completely. Hissing tendrils of smoke curled up, suggesting that the grass had been completely incinerated. Shadowy forms dotted the smoldering landscape. Each rose high, spreading many arms wide, as if embracing the sky. More specific details were lacking, for the forms existed only in the periphery of her sight. Should she draw her attention to one specifically, it vanished.

  A pernicious odor assaulted her senses. She felt that it issued from the smoke seeping from the earth. She could only place the smell as decaying carrion.

  Brief flashes of light began rippling across the plain, not in the air, but within the earth itself. They sparkled so that Lakif felt the earth was but a grand mirror reflecting the stars above. But she could not see any stars above. The conspicuous absence of heavenly lights suggested that the stars had in fact been trapped in the earth. If they were indeed stars, they were struggling for life. The twinkling lights were not constant but appeared and disappeared randomly, like fireflies.

  A pounding rain hammered the Acaanan. Curiously, the precipitation was silver, which at first looked like hail. She couldn’t tell if it just abruptly started or had been there from the beginning. It crashed down at an oblique angle, sweeping across the plain in her direction. The drops didn’t merely fall, however, but plunged with deadly velocity as if the torrent was thrown down in anger, like sheets of screaming metal. As the rain struck the plain, a brief flash of light sparkled then vanished in a wink. Under the continued onslaught, the spectral forms she had noted before thinned out and eventually disappeared altogether.

  A pounding din rang in her ears, but she wasn’t convinced it was from the torrent. The constant drone reminded her of an endless horde of locusts.

  She found that she was completely naked. Being so vulnerable, she felt she should be shivering in the rain. Although it fell like hail, it was far from cold. As it spattered her face she licked her lips. It tasted like blood. But the rain seared her skin, each splash burned like the bite of an ant or the sting of a wasp. She crouched into a huddle to minimize her exposure to the caustic downpour.

  Just as she did so, lightning flashed in the gloomy distance. In the brief illumination, she could see massive clouds gathering. They billowed across the horizon like the dust of an endless army marching to war.

  A fierce gale swept across the plain, as if driven forward by the lightning strike. It roared toward the huddling Acaanan, howling like a legion of crazed angels. Behind her came a scraping sound. She suspected that something was climbing up the cliff face.

  She was about to peer over the precipice when she noted her clenched hand. The silvery rain was streaming through her fingers like mercury and splattered to the ground like sludge. Where the slime landed, it emitted a spark and then froze.

  She looked back toward the precipice from where the sound had issued. A form had appeared at the brink. It too was now subject to the unrelenting elements. But the Acaanan couldn’t make out its features through the tempest. The form cleared the edge and crawled toward her slowly. It was using its arms to navigate across the rocky terrain, as if its legs were broken.

  Lakif felt like running away but found she was unable. The sludge had welded her immobile to the earth.

  Suddenly, an earth-shattering thunderclap rocked the plain, nearly toppling the tenuously balanced Acaanan. She swooned before the blast—half of the earth must have exploded! She felt that her own mind would split open as well. In fact, the sheer magnitude of the blast sent her eyes rolling around in her skull.

  After gathering her senses, she turned back to the distant horizon. Countless flashes of lightning rippled. The electrical artillery lit up the horizon, forming a furious stairway opening into the heavens. Ferns of lightning danced on violent clouds.

  Accompanying the discharges were an incalculable series of thunder blasts. Lakif likened it to a galaxy of cannons blazing. The Herculean peals tore the sky asunder with the might of a
million blaring trumpets.

  Right before her charged eyes, a chromatic streak tore open the heavens, leaving a black fissure in the sky. From the rift, thousands of meteors streaked out. Even from this distance, Lakif could admire their marvelous colors. They dispersed all across the firmament and plunged to earth like the glitter from an exploding sparkler.

  In those brief bursts of orange and gold, she beheld the distant clouds now racing toward her. She knew the rushing storm was far more than swirling natural elements. They masked something immense. Something unspeakable, something unfathomable, was stirring to life within the maelstrom.

  Looking back, she found the crawling form was nearly at her foot. She had been so riveted by the heavenly drama that it had slithered dangerously close. The figure was blurred, as if she were looking at it under water. A skeletal arm reached out.

  Lakif tried to scream, but her cry was dwarfed by a stentorian boom of thunder that again shook the heavens and earth. The force teetered the Acaanan, and she fell backward on her rump. A cold hand closed upon her wrist as she screamed out in terror.

  XXXVII

  The Aftermath

  LAKIF OPENED HER EYES, BUT FEARED TO STIR. FAINT SUNLIGHT SLANTED through a boarded-up window overhead. She felt cold, although she was covered by cloaks. The terrific dream still echoed freshly in her mind.