“Uh, yeah. I guess… but still. All the way there just to learn how to dream? Seems ridiculous.”
“I think it’s a little more than just dreaming. Majira mentioned the magus could teach her how to hide from folk, which is the whole reason Dawn needs to learn. And I’m sure he knows a few other tricks that would be useful.”
“Hey, why don’t you teach her a few things, Ortham? I mean, you’re a battle-mage! You can shoot lightning and fire and stuff. Now that’s really useful,” I said. “Imagine if Dawn could shoot lightning!”
Ortham just sort of grimaced and settled deeper into his seat against the fallen tree.
“What, wouldn’t that be great? No need to hide from Witches or unmen,” I said. “She could just turn ‘em to a crisp.”
“I wish I never learned battle magick,” Ortham suddenly said. “I wish I never went to Auvale, never became a Black Cohort mercenary. I wish I never torched crops or smelled burning hair. Sometimes I wish I never left my farm.”
We sat in silence for a while. I wasn’t quite sure what to say; I felt like there was a great divide between us, not so much in what we had experienced, but how we had experienced it. Ortham didn’t like war. Maybe at heart he was just a farmer.
But I wasn’t. I was a knight. I relished the opportunity to use my spurs; revelled in the clash.
“Well, if you never became a mercenary, you never would have ended up here,” I said. “We never would have met. And you never would have met Dawn. So there’s that.”
“Yeah, I suppose so…” he relented after a moment.
“You suppose so? Ortham, if I had the attention of Princess Dawn the way you do, I’d be one happy dau.”
“What do you mean, ‘the way I do?’ She outright said we can never be… I don’t know. Together, I guess. But then she goes back on what she says… I’m not really sure what to make of it all, to be honest. Silly, isn’t it?”
I grabbed Ortham by the shoulders.
“Are you kidding? Ortham, you daft ur-man. You have so much to learn about ladies! If she’s told you that much already, you just need to keep going! And this journey is a perfect opportunity. You’ll have so many opportunities to impress her!”
“I don’t think it’s that easy, Herace. She’s the heiress apparent. One day she’ll be queen. We can never be together.”
I let go of him and thought hard. He had some pretty solid reasoning, which was frustrating. But I couldn’t let him know that; I couldn’t let him think that he should give up. He needed to believe in himself, in this most noble pursuit. He needed to stop watching sunsets alone and start trying to woo Princess Dawn at every opportunity!
“There’s a way. I know there’s a way,” I said fervently. “Don’t give up, Ortham. You may only have this one chance! There’s a reason you stayed in Naraya instead of heading back home, isn’t there? For Dawn, right?”
“Yeah… yeah, you’re right,” he said, slowly at first, then gaining volume. “You’re right!”
I stood, pulling him up with me, and shook him.
“You’re a battle-mage, damnit! And you’re here to protect Dawn from all the evil that hunts her. Not because you have to, but because you want to,” I said loudly. “Because, dare I say, you love her.”
Ortham grabbed me back and shook just as hard.
“You’re right! I need to quit wallowing. The past is past. There’s only today and a hope for tomorrow. And if I don’t grab it, it might just fade away…” he said, voice trailing off.
“That’s right,” I said, and we let go.
We both looked off to the final, fading patch of purple. Everywhere else in the sky was dark. The stars had long since appeared, sheparded in by the moons.
“Good,” I said, slapping his arm. “Now. Let’s go get a quick drink.”
And with that we walked back to the fire.
And I hoped that Princess Dawn had kept her window open. I hoped she heard it all.
24
Bram Tan Heth
The sun was freezing cold. I screamed.
My sweat was frigid, little pinpricks of solid ice upon my bare flesh.
Only moments before I had been boiling alive; I tore away my coat, my shirt, and now I froze beneath the cruel sun in this sand-scoured hellscape. I screamed, I screamed, I screamed -
And then it was over. I slumped forward, into the sand. I giggled. I didn’t want to, but I giggled. I was exhausted.
Ever since transporting Avaxenon through the aether, the Black Laughter hadn’t stopped. It was relentless. Few and far between were my moments of peace; moments where I could breathe easy, where my aching face could rest. And in that time the bouts of madness became more intense, more frequent.
In moments of lucidity I hoped that the damage to my soul wasn’t permanent; that overtaxing it by transporting the both of us hadn’t crippled me.
The first night had been the darkest. There were no moons in sight; I had no idea where I was. I was in a desert, a desert of orange sand and ochre rock. The rock seemed to stick out of the sand, smooth and misshapen, some like warped towers and others like bending trees. All smooth, featureless.
And on that first night, that darkest night, I had dug. With my bare hands I dug, scraped at the sand, sharp and gritty. I dug until I had a hole deep enough, long enough, wide enough to roll Avaxenon’s body into. Between laughing fits I sobbed like a child. It was awful, awful, awful to see his blanched face, his half-shut eyes. He was my last friend in the whole wide world. And I had to roll his stiffened body into a hole in the sand in some unknown land. I had no marker for his grave. I slept beside it with what little night remained.
In the morning I walked away, down into the barrows of a sloping dune. I didn’t get too far; I looked behind to see the vultures soaring, cavorting, circling Avaxenon’s grave. I ran back and scared them away but they wouldn’t leave. I stood guard for what seemed like forever, those dark shapes gliding in the clear blue sky, mocking me, knowing they could outlast me. Eventually I gave up. There was no use; there was no winning. I left defeated and didn’t look back. I hadn’t the heart to see his flesh rent apart by the beaks of scavenging birds.
Goodbye, Avaxenon. I impart your flesh to the sky. I’m sorry I was a coward.
I stumbled into the desert. Deeper or further, I know not – knew not – will know not – but onward, ever onward, down down down into the sand. I’m sinking into the sand. I’m floating up into the clear blue sky. I freeze and I burn. The vultures circled.
Ah, like the sun, like the moons, they circle in their half-known patterns, round and round they go; shadows casting shadows, onto the orange earth; I hate the sight. Those baleful feathered limbs, appendages ancient beyond reckoning, a curse from a bygone age. Beaks crooked and cruel. Feasting on undeserved flesh, on corpses still alive and grinning from the sand, rising out of an early tomb in a foreign place, both strangers in a stranger land…
“We really are lost, aren’t we?” Avaxenon asked.
“Very,” I replied, still looking dead ahead.
The horizon shimmered. How many dunes had I crawled up, stumbled back down? How many towering columns of twisted, unbroken rock had I passed under, each one waiting to be a marker for my grave? I couldn’t look behind me to count what I’d passed; the vultures were still gorging on Avaxenon’s corpse.
Avaxenon? But he was still right here, next to me. I laughed.
I looked beside me, either side, but never behind. Avaxenon wasn’t here. He was dead! Silly me. Silly, silly me…
Each time I raised my foot, the horizon rose with me. Each time I brought it down, the whole world fell. It made me sick. Sweat burned in my eyes. My mouth was dry, so dry; my tongue a hard and leathery thing. It was a strip of Avaxenon’s flesh, withered and blackened in the desert sun. I tried to spit it out. I bit down. I yelped. It was my tongue. I grinned and wiped my mouth. There was blood on the back of my hand.
And tomorrow was so
very far away…
* * *
There it was -
The voice on the wind.
It drifted, hummed like a living dust caught in the arid breeze toward my ear -
and there, and there it wormed its way in, turned around three times (like a dog about to go to sleep) before laying down and speaking, hushed; the thing, the voice on the wind was the size of a worm but as light as a butterfly, as unyielding as a stone – as inescapable as the ever-twisting moons whose eyes glared down day after d a y after D A Y…
The voice whispered.
It whispered to me alone,
and I alone -
alone -
alone in the desert,
I listened, a prisoner
but my head was the prison. My ears the shackles and it was all as real, all as substantial as the piles, the layers, the torrents of bones beneath my feet, bleached and cracked bones that when I reached down to touch them – to take them in my hand – they crumbled to dust, to dry sand and bits of pebbled stone and I struggled, struggled to resist the temptation, the URGE to stop up my ears with dust, to swallow the stones upon which I dashed my feet to halt the whispering voice on the wind.
LET ME DIE
L E T M E D I E
But no pleading, no screaming or shaking of my head to loose the parasite gnawing its way into the corrupted matter within my skull could halt that voice, that thunderous whisper, that thrumming murmur and so I heard it speak in a dry and reedy voice
Bram Tan Heth … Bram Tan Heth …
SPEAK NOT THAT NAME
you devil in the wilderness, you worm in the rotting apple
and still, yet still, I heard the insidious call…
Bram Tan Heth … Bram Tan Heth …
where are you, where are you, Bram Tan Heth …
And the whisper changed, it morphed and swelled like a tide running out to some briny, foreign sea to speak in a dozen tongues and a dozen pitches and lilts,
Don’t do it … do it … DON’T DO IT … DO IT… go while you still can … we will find you
I laughed into the empty sky, I cast up my hands and let the dust shower down in throat-parching plumes and the pebbled stones clatter into the sand and the hard-baked earth in the lonesome desert – jubilee!
If only I could remember why, if only I could remember why…
And the sun beat down, a merciless jailor. This prison without walls, stretching off in every direction – I fell to my knees, but was still standing.
I fell to my knees, but couldn’t fall.
I fell to my knees a thousand times before I hit the ground, and it wasn’t ground; it was bones, scattered bones, but felt like sand; it all crumbled to sand as I touched it, dissolved into orange grains whenever I looked at it.
The world wavered, wavered, wavered and I heard the laughter crawl out of my throat like a swarm of black-winged bats pouring forth from a cave -
and then it stopped.
All of it stopped.
I gasped, retched into the sand. My stomach was empty, there was nothing to throw up. A thin, sticky gob of saliva dripped out of my mouth. I wiped away the stringy spit with the back of my hand.
I could finally breathe. The laughter had stopped. My head was clear. I stood up. I didn’t know how long this would last; I didn’t know how long I would have a clear mind. With great effort I struggled to my feet; my legs ached. My whole body ached and I was slick with sweat. Sand stuck to my skin, chafing at my neck and arms.
I scanned my surroundings. I was in a low, sandy trough. There was nowhere to hide from the sun. I needed to find refuge.
The sun was still high in the sky; I gathered up two little piles of sand and watched the tiny shadows shift over the course of a few minutes. Then I knew what direction the sun was headed, and knew which way was west. Not that it helped me; I still didn’t know where I was. But I had a hunch; I had a hunch.
This was only the third time I had broken myself, aetherized myself, and travelled through the very stuff of creation. It was an extremely risky, extremely taxing process. It had taken almost all I had just to transport myself the first two times I ever tried it. But taking Avaxenon with me? That really pushed it over the edge. I think I was dying. Or worse.
I had to push the thought of Avaxenon out of my head. There could be time for grief later. But I had to survive first. I was the only one to carry his memory with me; if I died out here, his memory died too. No one would ever know what happened to Avaxenon Orn.
Plus, Majira needed me. I don’t know why, but I knew it was urgent. It must be.
I stumbled northward, up a low rise. The sand dragged at my feet; every step I took, I slid half a step back. The chafing grit got into my foot-wraps, rubbing painfully.
Finally I reached the top. I shielded my eyes from the bright sun. All around the land burned angry and orange, reflecting the unrelenting afternoon light. I scanned every direction. There was nothing; absolutely nothing. Not a glimmer of green upon that bronzed horizon. I gasped at the unforgiving landscape, gasped at the endless sea of emptiness.
I kept scanning. There had to be a place to hide from this tyrannical sun…
Straining my eyes I finally perceived a discoloured blotch in the hazy distance. It was a darker orange than its surroundings. I headed towards it.
Before long the hazy blotch sharpened into reality, solidifying against the endless sands. It was just another collecting of stone spires, pointing aimlessly at the sky. There were a few arches among them, connecting them like fantastical bridges. Relief flooded through me and I thanked the Maker; here was a place to hide.
I staggered onward. My limbs were so weak with fatigue that I fell to my knees every few steps. But eventually I got there, into the shady respite of the stone arches.
I collapsed at their base. I was exhausted. My head swam and I could feel the blood pounding in my skull. I tore off what little clothing I had left on and cast it all aside. For a long while I lay among the towering spires.
When I reopened my eyes the sun was further along in the sky, far away and small, but still ruthlessly angry. I gathered up my clothing, donning only my coat. I used my shirt to form a head-covering. My mouth was as dry as the sand around me. I knew that if I didn’t get a drink soon, I would die.
In my belt pouch was a handful of Kov Leaf. I couldn’t even think of chewing it. Chewing it would have turned it to nothing but dust between my teeth.
I looked out from the shade of the stone arch, into the ocean of sand. Beyond was another cluster of rock spires; this one looked bigger. I resolved that, once I had the energy, I would make my way there.
It dawned on me that the only real way out of this desert was to walk out. I had a nagging feeling that this desert was anti-magickal; it disrupted magick. That is why Avaxenon and I rematerialized here; our mortal forms reconstituted as we passed by in the other plane of creation. At least, that’s what I thought. I was a pioneer in this field; in fact, I think I was the only one to seriously try, and very likely the only one to ever succeed. I took some pride in that. Not only was I a Magus, not only was I a seer without parallel, I was in the midst of inventing a new discipline of spellcasting entirely.
Now all I had to do was survive long enough to teach another.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t; perhaps it was better if this form of sorcery was left unknown. There were so many wondrous possibilities that it presented – but an equal amount of dastardly ones. Yes, it was currently limited to use by those with immense magickal reserves and a highly elastic soul – but there were ways to offset those requirements. And it was just those type of folk, the ones who were willing and able to offset such a cost, that I did not want to learn this ground-breaking technique.
And I was fully aware that no secret stayed secret for long – if it was ever secret to begin with.
I contemplated my predicament. I supposed there were actually a few options open to
me. I could walk out, yes; but first I would have to dream delve. I needed to scout out this area, figure out what direction to go. Hopefully the anti-magickal properties of this desert would not prevent me from dream delving.
Then again, if I could dream delve, there was also the possibility that I could simply travel through the aether once more. I would have to be careful; my soul was badly frayed from the last time. It was a miracle I could think straight at all; I was fully aware that I could lose lucidity at any moment. Time was of the essence. But it would take quite some time for me to refill my reservoir sufficiently to cast the spell.
I also needed to contact Majira… but that could wait.
First, I needed water.
I got up slowly, painfully. I looked out to the next cluster of spires, just a smudge in the quivering desert heat.
I didn’t know exactly where I was; I wasn’t even sure what continent I was on. I just hoped there was something to drink out there.
I hobbled out into the desert wastes, the sun hard and hot behind me, glaring down with hatred. And the laughter, dark and bubbling, began anew.
25
Ortham
It took three days, but eventually we made it out of the forests and into the rolling pastures of the southlands. The landscape was splendid; gently undulating hills surrounded us and fields of deep green summer grass flanked the roadside. Shepherds watched their flocks amid the bucolic slopes.
I had taken Herace’s advice; every chance I got, I rode with Dawn. It was great company; the conversation was fun, and even the silence was comfortable. And every night, as she stayed in whatever roadside inn we stopped at, Herace and his noble friends and I sat around the fire telling wild stories.
The Royal Guard tended to keep to themselves. Centaurs aren’t great conversationalists.
And all the while, each night, Majira hid herself away to dream delve in search of the missing magus.
The journey was going well. The weather was sublime. And each evening I watched the sunset sink into the faraway hills, the west still shrouded in mystery.
Day of the Hunt (The Faun Quartet Book 2) Page 21