“Now we are flesh,” they said simultaneously in a sinister voice. “Now we leave behind intangible shadow, no longer of the Other, but of the Übel. We have become one. We are I.”
They lifted their thumbs from the table and the flames died, leaving behind only a silver canary skeleton. Ecilám quickly pulled out the Infinity Satchel and, after placing the floating liquid in a cup, poured it inside, where it turned black and solid, floating atop the color and not merging with it. Then the Rider reached for the canary skeleton. “No, not in there,” the figure said. It grabbed the canary’s remains and tossed them in the trash.
“What of this girl?” Perow asked. “You’ve both seen her, is she a threat?”
“She is the key to unlimited power,” the figure said. “She will give us strength beyond that of the dragon Fafnir or the Great Wolf Fenrir. We will be God.”
“I will get her,” the Pale Rider said.
“No need,” the figure replied, pointing at the fox and the shallow puddle of blood forming at its feet. “We have our bait.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Türul
Awaking in total darkness, Clementine felt hard stone against her cheek. As she pulled herself up, her hand grasped a craggy rock. The ground felt damp and sticky. Her bones and muscles ached. “My head,” she thought and leaned against the wall. Giving herself a moment, she took in a deep breath and felt her brow. “A cut,” she though, feeling a tender laceration hidden in her hair. Her mind still muddled, she felt her way around using the walls. The ground took a steep dive; she slipped and slid down a rough decline, landing face first on a wet ground.
“This feels nice,” she thought. “Just laying here.” Exhausted, she lay still. A faint light flashed in the near distance. She ignored it. Demanding attention, the light flashed brighter. Reluctantly, she turned her head. Half submerged in gray water, the handkerchief sat on a notched stone. The black lines scrambled on the cloth forming the words, stand up.
“My body aches,” Clementine whispered.
Now! the letters formed. A great screeching thundered above her. She grabbed the handkerchief and stood up. Following the wall, she heard the slithering of appendages drawing near. “Come,” sinister voices said from the dark. With the next step, Clementine realized that the ground ended. While struggling to regain her balance, she slid down a cylindrical tunnel and fell a dozen yards onto a pile of dry leaves and twigs. A plume of dust shot up in the air.
“Enough with the falls,” she said and stood up to find herself in a dimly lit room. Several torches flickered along the wall while a lamppost sat in its middle. “Are the walls moving?” she asked herself. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she realized that hundreds of stone hands gently swayed on the walls, continually passing torches between each other.
Clementine clenched the handkerchief and walked deeper into the room. Intrigued by the wall hands, she walked up to and examined them. Each one was composed from hundreds of black worms. She moved in to look at them closer and a hand reached for her. She stepped back in time, but fell on her behind. That’s when she noticed that above on the ceiling, the hands were passing and stripping a deer carcass between each other.
“Must have stumbled in here by accident,” she said and stood up.
After scanning the room, she walked over to the lamppost, which under closer inspection, composed of stone hands holding one another with the topmost two cupping flames. She stared into the flickering redness and saw in it a figure pointing to somewhere behind her. Clementine turned and saw that opposite the pile of leaves sat a narrow slit in the stone. She squeezed through the opening and after going through a low-ceilinged corridor, she found herself in a well lit room with azure walls and a floor covered in ankle deep water. Cross legged, hovering a centimeter above the water, sat Rickerty, the colorful wizard.
“Here you are,” he said, “in the depths of the belly of the beast.”
“How did you get in here?” she asked with surprise.
“Much like you, I used the front door,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Just a bit battered from the fall,” she said.
“To fall is to know that you’ve got legs to stand on,” Rickerty said, “and legs to get back up again.” She stared at him for a moment, his multicolored robes and blade harp. “Are you ready for what lies ahead?” he asked.
“I haven’t been ready for anything that’s come up so far. Not one thing. I don’t know what lies ahead, so how can I be ready for that?” she said. “I’ve been trying to be careful, take it one step at a time like you counseled, but I don’t think one can really be careful, not on this journey, not in life.”
“You’ve climbed these mountains, did you not?” the wizard asked. “A journey through a wasteland, of the body, of the soul, is a grand teacher. It teaches persistence and vigilance, diligence and cunning but above all, it teaches hope.”
“Are you here to help me?” she asked, annoyed by his optimism and staleness.
“I am more of a tour guide, a shepherd leading a lost lamb to stable, no offence.”
Clementine ignored him and looked over at the exit.
“Am I boring you?” he asked.
“You may not realize where we are or what horrid things lurk above, but I do. I am anxious to get out,” Clementine said, clenching the handkerchief.
“That is a nice jacket, bright orange,” Rickerty said, his pupils dilating. “And you have shoes on now, its—
“What are you talking about?” Clementine interrupted. “There is a damn monster in these tunnels and you’re talking about what I’m wearing?”
A long silence reigned between them. They stared into each other eyes until Rickerty spoke, “As you descended into these depths, your friends descended into different ones. The Pale Rider came and snatched them all up.”
Clementine clenched her hand into a fist. “Where did he take them?”
“To the castle in Vivéret’s Capital,” Rickerty said.
“I need to go,” Clementine said, anger and fear fueling her. “There is no time.”
“Don’t act in haste, Clementine. Finish what you came here to do and tread carefully. Repeating a mistake is like jumping into a pit of vipers, expecting not to be bit. You either act or you give up.”
She observed his eyes and felt intense warmth coming from the handkerchief, crawling up her arm and spreading throughout her body.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
The warmth grew comforting. For a moment, Rickerty looked different, as if a smear of ink upon a blank page. Clementine blinked and for a split second, the strange boy stood behind Rickerty, his eyes holes of TV static.
“Clementine?” the wizard asked. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Clementine thought but answered, “No.”
The wizard smiled and spoke, “All things of the mind are dreams and disillusions; life is war and a visit to a strange land.”
“Book two of Meditations,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“Fortunately, it’s just a book,” she said and the orange of her jacket grew vibrant. “Life is more than drab text; it’s the green of the grass, the blue of the sky and the comfort of a full belly after a delicious meal. It’s people in restaurants, sand on the beach and music pirouetting through a mountain cabin. It’s smiles, hugs and dancing. It’s talking with strangers about things unknown in places yet unfelt; its otherness.” As she came to a great realization, her personal moment of eureka, her lip trembled momentarily and she felt immense satisfaction from knowing that she no longer needed Meditations to understand her place in the world, she only needed confidence and the willingness to appreciate that and those whom she deemed different and other from herself.
“You should hurry, dear,” Rickerty said, eyeing her face and eyes. “I hear it slithering above, searching for you.”
Without as much as a glance, Clementine walked right past the wizard and entered a large cylindrical
cavern with numerous bridges, open air corridors and staircases. A bright light shone from beyond an arched doorway at the top of the chamber. Clementine scrutinized the door, noticing color as it dripped down, running onto the staircases below. Quickly, made her way through the cavern until she reached a pathway with a mosaic of a colorful bird with outstretched wings and a crawling mass below it reaching for its head.
“Clementine,” a voice said and the sound of slithering appendages filled the chamber. Reflexively, she ducked down and pressed her back against the mosaic, disappearing from view to anyone looking up from below. A leeching sorrow accompanied by a physical heaviness blanked her. As dozens of appendages slithered in through the lowest door, the room grew dark.
“Clementine,” the Other whispered. Its shapeless black mass moved below, probing each inch of the room. A deep sensation of submission stirred in her. Voices whispered of her weakness and frailty, of her lonesomeness. Suddenly, she stood before a middle-aged woman sitting on a jagged stone. Sprawled across her lap lay the still body of a high school boy. The woman’s gray hair matched her eyes. An unending stream of tears ran down her cheeks, soaking the collar of her orange shirt. Her eyes strictly focused on the boy’s face and she gently caressed his hair.
A desolate loneliness overtook Clementine and she wept. Looking at the boy awoke an immense sense of familiarity toward him and she knelt before the woman. She examined his face only to forget how it looked a moment later. “You’re not dead,” she said. “Wake up.” Her mood changed and she felt guilty, she felt like a failure. “I could’ve stopped this,” Clementine said caressing the boy’s hair. Without realizing it, Clementine and the woman’s hands merged, acting as one. Fear surged up her spine and she clenched the handkerchief. She leaned back against the mosaic. The Other slithered below. She felt it was time to walk out of her hiding spot and have the appendages consume her. Just as she stood up to do so, the handkerchief grew hot.
Clementine stood in an unending plane, a blizzard raged all around her. She heard voices in the near distance and decided to investigate. Silhouettes appeared before her, several were of people and one of a large animal, a dog or a wolf, but she could not make it out through the falling snow. A loud boom thundered around them. A flash of light later and they were gone, replaced with a gaunt man, dressed in a fine shiny suit.
“Where is my chaplet?” he asked her.
“What?”
“My damn chaplet,” he said. “You’re taking way too long to finish this journey of yours, I need my chaplet back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clementine said dumbfounded.
“I knew I should’ve given it to the Crow Witch’s son,” he snapped. “You’re too stupid to realize what you have in your hands. All this damn talk of love and kindness and bringing color back has muddled your mind. That damn fox was supposed to save you not the other way around. Give me back my chaplet. It’s over.”
Clementine took a step back. The man’s face contorted and grew twisted and misshapen. “My chaplet!” he screamed and put out his hand, which decayed and grew healthy repeatedly.
“You have the wrong person mister,” Clementine said.
“This is not a damn fairy tale, Clementine,” the man said with disdain. “Enough with etiquette.” He punched Clementine in the stomach and as she fell, he kicked her in the face. She tried to stand up but he stomped her back and kicked her several more times. “My chaplet Clementine, give it to me!”
Determined, Clementine stood up. “Get away from me!” she screamed, tears running down her cheeks, blood down her chin. The man walked up to her, his shape changing to resemble a gaunt humanoid rabbit with four ears.
“My chaplet!” he said, grabbed Clementine by the neck and picked her up so that she hung eye level with him. Then he squeezed. Clementine struggled to breath, her feet dangling a yard off the ground.
“Please,” she struggled to speak. Her mind grew foggy, her muscles eased and she let go of the handkerchief and it drifted to the floor. The rabbit’s eyes flashed purple and he tossed Clementine aside. She fell face first onto the handkerchief. Her blood and tears stained the cloth, spreading across its surface. When the stain reached the black lines, a flash of color erupted from the handkerchief and Clementine felt cold glass on her cheek.
“Was that difficult?” the rabbit asked. He shoved Clementine aside and picked up the Arcenciel Chaplet. While playing around with the beads, he stared at Clementine, a twisted smile spreading across his face. “This Übel fella sure is an interesting one,” the rabbit said. “Power hungry and ambitious, of a regular, by-the-numbers villain variety, wouldn’t you say? All he needs is a black top hat and he’d fit the mold of a western villain.” The rabbit played around with the beads for a moment, smiled and tossed the Chaplet to Clementine. “Boring villains bore me,” he said. “They make the story predictable and trite. Villains, ya know, they often don’t know they’re villains, they’re always in denial. I don’t like that. I like when they know, when there is a goal to their villainy. Power is not a goal, it’s a cliché. Now, go out there and act a proper heroin.”
The rabbit turned around and walked off into the blizzard, but not before turning and saying, “I’ll need that Chaplet back though. Good day, Clementine.”
Bloody and battered Clementine blinked and returned to her senses. Quickly, she realized that her hand held more than just the handkerchief. She glanced down to see a beautiful chaplet made of rowan fruit, glimmering tears, glass, and lotus flowers. She stared at the radiance coming from the clear beads and saw in them countless happy faces, tears streaming down their cheeks.
“Happiness,” she thought and, for a moment, felt utmost calm. She felt no strain, no pressure, just pure, unadulterated contentment. Images of parents hugging their children, of couples holding hands, of children playing with a puppy, of people reconnecting after a fight or time apart, twirled around her. All these smiles and tears associated with their joy were so powerful, so real, that Clementine did not realize that the Other, unable to see her in this blanket of bliss, passed onwards.
When it all faded, she looked around the chamber through the eyes of a newborn, taking in the world as if it just bloomed from an abyss. Smiling at the awareness, at the knowledge that a dark cavern held so much joy, she stood up and—after placing the Chaplet around her wrist—climbed up to the door overflowing with color.
On the other side, she discovered a wonderful sight: the walls were luminescent, radiating warmth, happiness and delight. In the room’s middle, atop a metal perch, sat a magnificent bird. All the colors of the world ran etched into its glorious plumage and with each blink, the color of its eyes and feathers changed. A mix of a toucan, peacock and Himalayan monal, the rainbow bird stood tall like a full grown cherry tree. It towered over Clementine and upon seeing her it smiled. “Well bless my beak,” the bird said in a musical voice. “If it’s not you, kindness embodied.”
“Clementine,” is all she mustered to say.
“Clementine,” the bird repeated. “Pleased to meet you. I am Türul. Many moons ago, I was one of the plentiful rainbow birds, shepherds of the land of Iridis, what is now commonly referred to as Mundialis. But as you can see,” the Türul raised its talon, a great shadow chain hanging from it, “I am neither great, nor in a position to lead anyone.”
“You are,” Clementine said. “You just forgot about it.”
The Türul smiled. “You’ve so much of your parents in you,” he said. “The memory of them has kept me company.” The great bird gestured toward a corner of the room where two hyssop flowers grew. Clementine smiled, knowing that where the flowers bloomed, so too sprang forth her parents’ love.
“I am glad to know they kept you company,” she said.
“As am I,” the Türul said. “When the Other comes to feed on my color, and its pain and suffering surge through me, the thought of their sacrifice gives me strength, and the memory of their kindness keeps me hopeful. Kindn
ess is invincible, its power greater than that of any number of armies, scholars or merchants.”
Clementine walked up to the shadow chain and so that she could see it clearly, the Türul moved its long tail aside. A smoke, like that of condensation from the morning ice thawing under the winter sun, drifted off the chain. She touched one of its links and images of countless horrors flashed before her eyes: a great aquamarine dragon in flames, a ruined city that stretched into the atmosphere, the sky crashing and falling upon the Earth, and men, women and children walking dazed through the rubble. She saw what looked like men garbed in armors of feathers, fleshy helmets resembling bird skulls sat top their heads. She saw a man in black, a man with no nose, and a skeletal man in the rabbit suit. She saw a young man weeping over a girl’s body. She saw a white ocelot with pied paws, a little girl with moving tattoos of butterflies, and they all stood before a great black wolf. She saw a great obsidian gate carved into a mountain. Emerging from it were a man in a white suit and a familiar youth, her son.
She let go of the chain and looked up at the Türul.
“Was that the future?” she asked.
“Worry not about the future but about the present,” the Türul said. “Focus. Keep the book that you call life open to the pages that you are reading now. Do not skip ahead. Hold your thoughts and ideals firmly for if they fall they shall turn to cinder. Keep in mind always that a book in flame is an idea in Hell.”
Clementine disagreed or at least was indifferent to the Türul’s words. She wanted to know what it is she saw but before she could voice her query, the Chaplet felt warm upon her skin and her mind spoke what she needed to hear, “Worry not about when a storm will come but if you’re ready for one.”
“I’ve come to find my parents,” she told the bird.
“And have you?”
“There was no one to find,” she began, placing her palm on her chest, “because I didn’t lose anyone. They were always here.”
The Auburn Prince Page 26