by Aaron Bunce
Self-consciously, Luca crawled into the bathing tub, bare to the world, save Juna’s gifted necklet. The water was blissfully warm, herbs and flower petals floating on the surface. Steam rose up around him, its scent a complicated mixture of earthy and sweet.
He scrubbed his body, toweling off when he was done and slipped into the clothes left on the bed. The shirt and trousers fit him well, resting gently against his sore skin, and thankfully smelled clean.
Luca slipped into the bed, the mattress as soft as a cloud. He squirmed into a comfortable position, pulling the warm blankets up to his chin. The bed was nothing like the cot he slept on at the Chapterhouse in Pinehall. That mattress was as stiff as a board, the straw and goose feathers constantly poking him when he moved.
He let out a breath, enjoying the rare comfort. Nothing hurt for the moment, and for Luca, that was enough. With his insides still empty, but his tears thankfully shed, Luca closed his eyes and welcomed sleep. He shifted and turned for a while, his mind wandering back to comfortable places.
The necklet grew heavy around his neck. He tried to adjust it, but no matter how he turned the chain or shifted it, the charm always seemed to pull. Sleep beckoned him, his eyes finally too heavy to hold open. Luca gave in, tumbling back into the world of dreams.
* * * *
Emma stood at the windows, the top two buttons of her dress undone and the scarf Luca gave her clutched tightly in hand. She stared out the windows, letting her gaze drift over the strange landscape. The bath sat behind her, the scented water somehow still steaming. It should have gone cold long ago, just another oddity in this strange land of oddities.
The sunset came and went, darkness settling on the island forest without any fanfare. No bells rang, or gongs sounded, signally the change in shifts for servants. She felt out of place, without a purpose, and worse, no obvious path before her. What would she do? Who would she be?
Emma tried to cry, to give in to despair and feed the anger festering inside her, but even those emotions resisted. She felt numb, confusion and apprehension leaving her stuck in a hole. She thought of Luca and felt angry, then of Cassendyra, and the anger shifted towards the strange woman. Who was she, and why did she lie to them?
The darkness deepened beyond the window, lanterns glowing to life, bathing the spectacular and bizarre city in warm light. The community seemed to come to life once darkness fell, the strange people moving about, socializing and continuing on like all the ordinary folk she’d ever known. And yet, they weren’t like ordinary folk, but more like the shadow of people trying hard to act as regular people might. There was a side to them she didn’t understand.
Her memories slid to her frantic run through the forest, her recollection broken and fragmented. The dalan man stood out, his impossibly long body and gross multitude of arms making goose pimples rise on her flesh even now.
Shaking her head, Emma turned away from the window, finally unbuttoning her dress and pulling it off. She dropped into the tub and simply sat, her mind spinning around in frustrating circles. The necklet slipped between her fingers, the shiny metal now slightly pitted and rough against her skin. She didn’t remember picking it up.
Deep inside, beyond her anger and confusion, Emma felt the animal, clawing at her resolve and waiting to take control again. The necklet held it back, but for how long? Emma feared losing control again, the descent into primal fear stripping her bare, leaving her frightfully exposed. Everything around her turned into danger and potential death, blood turning to fear in her veins.
A noise echoed out in the hall, quiet and just on the edge of her hearing. Emma sat up straighter in the tub and turned to the door, her eyes falling fearfully to the curving handle. Nothing moved. A lengthy silence ensued, and she heard the noise again.
Quietly, Emma dropped beneath the water, rinsing her body and climbed out, toweling off before slipping into the garments Juna left for her. They fit well… almost too well, falling just beneath the knee and hugging her body in all the right places. Emma pulled the padded slippers on and tread quietly to the door, turning the handle and prizing it open with only the whisper of a click.
The hallway was dark, save for a number of lanterns hanging overhead, their gentle glow radiating limited pools of light. She held her breath, turning her head as she listened, her own heart beating loud and fast. Emma stopped just outside the next room, the door closed and latched. She pressed her ear up against the smooth wood and listened.
Several labored moments passed before she heard anything, Luca’s voice rising from a whisper. He didn’t sound strained or scared, his tone strangely conversational.
Is he talking to someone? she wondered, but quickly dispelled that notion, as it was quite late.
Before she could second-guess her decision, Emma reached down and slowly turned the handle. The latch clicked quietly, the noise sounding far louder than it should in the quiet space, and the door slowly swung open.
Emma stepped inside, tiptoeing forward. Light from the massive, arched windows spilled into the room, cutting a near perfect likeness of the curved glass into the darkness. She slipped through shadow, avoiding the light and approached the bed.
Luca lay on his side, his chest moving with rapid breaths. She froze as he abruptly sat up, light from the windows splaying across half of his face. His eyes were open, searching the space before him, his words gibberish to her ears. She reached out to shake him awake when a growl split the darkness behind her.
Emma recoiled and spun, catching sight of a massive, dark form moving out of the shadow behind the door. The growl split the air again as a paw emerged into the light, then a snout and two pointed ears. The wolf moved towards her, its eyes catching the window’s light and sending her back into the chest. Luca roused suddenly, his gibberish slurring into sleep-slurred fear.
“Wha…at’s the…that?” he stuttered, wide eyes catching on the wolf, and then Emma.
She threw herself onto the bed, half covering Luca as the wolf took another step forward, its teeth exposed in an unmistakable warning.
“Get away!” Emma yelped, her challenge falling flat.
The wolf sniffed the air, went silent, and slowly stepped back into the shadow. It emerged once again, standing upright, its form changing in the darkness.
Poe strode out of the darkness a heartbeat later, his bare feet slapping quietly against the ground.
“Poe?” Luca asked, confused.
The small dalan approached the bed quietly, his eyes still glimmering like the hunter.
“I apologies for startling younglings,” he said, his voice gruff. “I watch you during sleep, guard you against bad ones that want you harm.”
“We aren’t safe here?” Emma asked, sliding back off the bed.
Poe shrugged his shoulders, his gaze moving between them.
“Altair?” Emma guessed.
Poe shrugged again, “Altair dangerous. Luca dangerous. I watch you to keep safe.”
Luca looked stricken, but before he could speak, Emma cut in.
“Why is Luca dangerous? He’s just a boy. He hasn’t hurt anyone,” she argued.
“Juna spoke with Luca, not the same since. Something wrong with her, and she will not tell Poe what it is. Poe thinks boy knows why,” the small dalan said.
“Wrong with her?” Luca and Emma asked together.
“Come. Poe will show you,” he said, and promptly turned and slipped out of the room.
Emma moved forward, Luca hovering just behind her. They followed the small figure out into the hall, his form seeming to disappear between pools of lantern light. They padded down the stairs, through another hall lined with relics and strange artifacts, and into a most peculiar, circular room. Pillars lined the outside walls, faces sculpted into the stone. A wide circle of wood sat on the floor, a dais of polish stone sitting inside it. Juna stood in the middle, facing away from them.
Luca and Emma hovered just inside the door, while Poe, only dressed in a dark pair of pants, circ
led around the still woman. He cleared his throat and she seemed to snap to.
“I told you, Poe, I told you, it’s not right. I am sure of it…have never been more sure of anything.
Emma listened to the woman speak, a chill creeping over her skin. She had changed, her normally soothing, refined manner of speech replaced by a more frantic, rushed cadence. She reached out and grabbed Luca’s hand, pulling him closer.
Poe’s gaze darted from Juna, back to them. The matrona flinched and spun in place. Her hands snapped up to her face when she spotted them, and she rushed forward.
Emma pulled back as the elegant woman skidded to a halt before them, her slippers sliding on the smooth stone. Juna’s hair, previously pulled back and meticulously kempt, was disheveled. Her cheeks were wet, but it was her eyes that struck Emma so. They appeared dark in the shadowy room, almost black.
“I am so glad that you are here, Luca,” she said, half-bowing and moving as if she wanted to grasp him. She pulled back and wiped at her face.
“Are you okay?” Luca asked, shaking slightly against Emma.
“Okay?” Juna laughed, and turned towards Poe. The small man didn’t return the smile.
“Luca, you have opened my eyes! You helped me realize that I had built walls around my heart, and how numb I had become. Once I talked to you something broke open inside me, and…and I couldn’t hold it back any longer. Do you see?” she asked, kneeling before him and grasping his free hand.
Luca flinched, but didn’t pull away, his eyes widening. He stuttered, took a deep breath, and tried again.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, dear Luca, that when Poe first told me of your arrival, I felt that I knew what needed to happen. I felt that we needed to take you to the Matron Assembly, because their wisdom is our wisdom in all things, as it has been for time beyond memory. I accepted their wisdom and believed in it, accepting that I would fulfill my part in their vision. But then you shared your burden with me, your pain and loss… it changed me. It felt as if a shroud had been pulled from over my head. I saw light inside you, but also the darkness inflicted upon you. I knew then that the Matrons’ wisdom was not wisdom after all. You two are innocents, as our people once were, even if we have forgotten. I knew that we should not just protect you, but do what we could to right the wrongs committed against you, and if Cassendyra is right, then the dalan need to know,” Juna said, clutching Luca’s hand.
Emma felt Luca’s hand shaking in hers.
“Does that mean…that I can go home?” he asked, simply.
“Oh, my dear child. It means that and so much more. So very much more!” Juna said, standing suddenly and sweeping towards Poe.
Luca turned and caught Emma’s gaze, a bewildered and shocked look frozen on his face. Slowly, a hopeful smile curled his lip and he smashed into her, pulling Emma into a tight hug.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Memories In Blood
El’bryliz stopped, signaled behind him for the others to stop, and listened. A droplet of water fell from the ceiling ahead and something scurried in the dust-covered stone, but other than that, the tunnel was silent. He turned his head, dreading, waiting for the sound of breaking wood to fill the passage behind them. The beasts would find the hidden door eventually, and when they did, they would fill the passage like stinking death, and there was nowhere for them to go. They would all die in the darkness.
How do I tell them? How do I tell them there is no way out…?”
“It is so dark. I can’t see my nose…how do you know where you are going?” Tristan whispered behind him, interrupting his worries.
“I’ve been in here before,” he hissed back.
El’bryliz led them past doors frozen half open, past small rooms full of rat shit, decomposing barrels, and moldering parchment. The air smelled heavier than the last time he’d been there, tainted oppressively by the damp, mold, and time. He remembered the word Tanea used when he first led her to this place, just after he’d stopped Father Pallum from killing her. Unpleasant, she’d said. Yes, most unpleasant.
He turned right, and then left, past tunnels ending in dead-ends or collapses. He saw them in his mind’s eye, recounting each step and recreating the space in his mind. It was his talent – capture something in a moment, and save it almost perfectly to memory.
“I hope you know where you are going,” Tristan whispered behind him, grunting in pain with almost each step.
El’bryliz kicked something, hearing a dozen objects scatter out before him. He stooped over and promptly scooped a handful of the stubby candles off the ground. In another eight paces he came to the end of the passage, and the door to the sacrificial chamber. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed. The hinges groaned, but stuck. When he tried again, the door jammed fast. He could no longer differentiate the throbbing in his missing fingers from the pain in the rest of his body. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing either.
“I need help,” he whispered, ambling aside.
Someone large pressed forward and he felt Tristan’s arm fall over his shoulder as Nirnan passed him off. Then the large man put his not inconsiderable weight into the door, swinging it inward, the corroded barrel hinges screeching like banshees in the tight confines. The group filed past El’bryliz and Tristan, moving in utter darkness, the scuffle of blind, tentative footsteps, sniffles, and moans of pain filling the space beyond.
Tristan and El’bryliz moved into the room last, Nirnan forcing the door closed behind them. He settled Tristan to the ground and knelt down, pulling his leather pouch from around his neck. It took a monumental effort, and some cursing, but El’bryliz managed to get a number of the stubby candles lit, their gentle light filling the space.
The group looked wretched, the low light drawing heavy shadows over already bruised, bloodied, and dust covered flesh. He didn’t look any better. Mostly naked, save for his britches, El’bryliz looked thin and battered, his ribs showing just above his shrunken belly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
He eyed his hand. The bandage covering his severed fingers was brown from dried blood. An itch plagued him, between two of his missing digits, and he desperately wanted to tear the bandage off and scratch it, but knew he wouldn’t be able to stomach the sight of what lay beneath.
“This place stinks like rat shit and death,” Banner muttered, dropping a hand onto a pile of scrolls and watching them crumple into dust. “It stinks and I don’t see any more doors. It looks like a dead end. Why does it look like a dead end?”
Nirnan quieted the archer with a look, and knelt down in front of El’bryliz, large dark circles ringing his eyes. “Where to now, boy?” he asked, quietly.
El’bryliz dropped his gaze to the ground and took a deep, steadying breath, his shoulders shaking with the effort. How could he tell them that there wasn’t a way out? Without meeting Nirnan’s gaze, El’bryliz shrugged his shoulders, and slumped towards the ground, his weariness deepening. He wanted the stone to open up and swallow him.
“What’s that?” Banner hissed angrily, “we couldn’t hear you.”
“That’s enough, Banner!” Nirnan turned, snapping at the smaller man, but the archer wasn’t done.
“…the beasts overran us. Everyone that was left up there,” he said, pointing upwards, “is dead. They’re all dead by now. He told us to get everyone to the library. That there was a way out through the library. We’re here now. But there is no way out. If we’d stayed up there, we might have been able to fight our way out. Maybe find a way around them,” Banner said, his anger flaring and his voice rising to a shout.
El’bryliz lifted his head in alarm, a number of the clerics standing around the archer nodded, adding their voices in support.
“We’re still alive, Ban. Can’t we just count that as enough, right now,” Tristan asked, slumping against the wall by the door.
“Alive...? And for how long? Until these candle stubs burn out? Then we can starve to death in the darkne
ss. Or, wait… maybe when those savages break through the door in the library and find us in here. And they will!” Banner countered, pacing forward and pointing a blood and dirt covered finger at the door.
“He lied!” one of the clerics yelled in support.
“Tanea supported him, said the priest knew of tunnels down here connecting the whole city. Perhaps you heard wrong?” Nirnan asked, trying to back the others down.
“Ishmandi scum. He did it on purpose!” a cleric chimed in. The group moved forward, Banner at their lead, their faces scrunched up into ugly masks of anger and fear.
El’bryliz clutched his mangled hand close and slid back, pushing away from the group. Nirnan stood up and turned, Banner flinching back a step.
“And yer yellin’ is going to tell those beasts exactly where we are! The boy has kept us alive this long. If we were still out there, we’d be torn apart by now. Here, we have a chance,” the big man growled, his hands now balled up into fists.
“A chance!” Banner scoffed, mockingly, moving forward again.
Nirnan put a meaty finger into the archer’s chest and pushed him back, a warning that didn’t need words.
“A chance sounds better than being dead, if I’m to be honest,” Asofel said, appearing from behind the throng of clerics.
“Agreed! Mani’s miracle that we are still alive!” A female cleric added, standing next to him. A child huddled between her feet, her arms pulled protectively around her body.
El’bryliz felt a bit of warmth trickle back into his body. The girl Tanea found in the city. He feared that she had been left above with the rest when the building started to break apart.
“Shut up, Jandi. A woman’s got no say in all of this,” another cleric quipped. He was stalky, with mousy brown hair and a short, piggish nose.