The Auburn Prince
Page 27
“Now what?”
“Now we set you free,” Clementine said. “We set everything right.”
“Will that satisfy you? Will it make you well?” the Türul asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Satisfaction is a trait of someone who has given up,” the Türul said. “This is not a place of satisfaction.”
“But it is a place to build one’s strength against vile Men.”
“People aren’t mean or vile, they are simply tired and scared, frightened by the possibility of asking for help. In the end, people are mean out of pretending to be strong, out of weakness,” the Türul said. Clementine looked down at the shadow chain.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“While your parents negotiated with the Other, I flew above the peaks and valleys, spreading all the color I could to strengthen their position and in case of an unfavorable outcome, get the land ready for further isolation. Auden—who I assume you’ve met, otherwise you’d be part of a wall decoration—helped me with securing the borders of the cursed city. He did what he could to thwart the Übel—about whose role in the war we were unaware of—but as you’ve seen, it was too little, too late. You know, your parents’ sacrifice was immeasurable but it didn’t go as it should have. The Other was to be trapped in the mountain. His influence contained by the thick stone. They would’ve survived the incantation. It is my fault that the dome over Mundialis is as large as it is.
“I was tricked. My belief in goodness too great. My bird brain too naïve. I saw two men, one in white, the other in a multicolored cloak, battling a gang of bühos upon a mountaintop. After swatting the feathered vermin away, I landed to see if these men were injured. I was unaware that I helped the embodiment of trickery and malice.
“You see, the Other, the creature, the idea that it represents, is not foul. The Other has its own redeeming qualities, but when malice, trickery, and power overtake it, when its being becomes corrupted by the echoes of demagoguery, its charm, its difference become an unnatural horridity. The thing your parents fought here below the mountain overpowered me above it, the something that hides just beneath the surface, evil. I remember very little after landing: flashes of color, a great figure of a featureless man and an echo of something being torn.
“Acting as nourishment for the Other, I’ve been imprisoned in this room for years now. Three splinted shadows shackled me. Their endgame is for my color to strengthen the Other enough so that it breaks free from Mundialis and spreads suffering elsewhere, but with you here, that will not happen.”
“Let’s get you unshackled then,” Clementine said.
“Man is only the sum of the breaths he takes and you, dear girl, are an infinite breath.”
“How do I set you free?” she asked after tugging at the chain.
“Where did you get that Arcenciel Chaplet from?” the Türul asked, surprised by the tears and rowan fruit upon her wrist.
Clementine smiled shyly. “When I was most afraid,” she said and it all became very clear to her. She took the handkerchief and looked down at the lines; they spiraled like a helix, like a chain. “It’s always so simple, isn’t it?” she asked herself and with one wipe, she erased the shadow chain, its darkness absorbed by the whiteness of the handkerchief. The Türul’s color grew more vibrant. It smiled and for the first time in years, spread its wings.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she answered. The bird gave off a beautiful call and music burst from its throat. The walls shook and, like grime on a window, a waterfall of melody washed them off and away.
“Come,” the Türul said and Clementine climbed up onto its back. It rose high into the air and, spiraling between staircases as the walls burst into flower petals, flew upwards through the massive room until it reached the platform above the pit. The hyssops growing in the central puddle blossomed purple, illuminating the room. A great shriek pierced the air and the faces on the walls burst into a wail. Hundreds of appendages emerged from the shadows both below and above them. The Other had arrived.
The Türul dodged the swiping appendages and as he did, the boundless ever-changing face emerged from the darkness. The bird beat its wings and a spiraling ray of color struck the Other, singeing the darkness of its cheek. The beast grew furious and swiped at the Türul en mass. The bird held out for a while, but no matter how much he tried, he could not dodge the Other’s attacks forever. Eventually struck from above, The Türul crashed onto the platform. Clementine fell off his feathered back and quickly rolled out of the way of an incoming appendage meant to crush her. As several more of them rushed at her, she slipped and fell and knowing she was not able to dodge them, she closed her eyes.
A flash of color turned the appendages into ash, which fell upon the platform like snow. The Türul stood with its wings in the air, a great glow of warmth radiating from him. The Other shrieked and brought all its appendages, thousands of them, down onto him. The faces on the walls screamed in agony and as the Other was about to deliver its final blow, Clementine stood up beside the Türul and raised her hand. The Arcenciel Chaplet shined brighter and brighter still until it looked as if the sun itself has come down from the sky. A radiance of heat and bliss spread through the chamber, encompassing everything. When the light died away, the cavern stood overgrown with purple hyssops.
The once great Other shriveled away until it became a shadow tadpole which slithered along the platform and after shrieking at Clementine, disappeared into the darkness below. Drunk on victory, the girl wanted to give chase but the Türul grabbed her jacket’s collar with his beak. “Let it go,” he said. “It’s too weak to bring out rage in others and too small to harm anyone.”
After meandering through the tunnels, the two of them walked outside of the mountain, where instead of grim stones there stretched green hills. The gray began to fade replaced with color. The sky began to clear: black faded out and blue faded in. The büho’s fled en mass, their red eyes blared anger and fear.
Mundialis became what it once was: a true land of vibrant color, Iridis.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There are Always Three
Mika and Talin Scourgeworth lay, as if in a trance, on a patch of grass not too far from the Soundsmith’s Tower. They did not notice the Türul—with Clementine on his back—landing beside them. Only when the girl shook them awake, speaking in her sweet voice, “I though he took you. Are you all right?” did they come to.
“Clementine?” Mika said, blinking a dozen times as if to make sure that the girl who stood in front of her was real.
“It’s me, Mika,” Clementine said. “What happened?”
A piercing screech sounded from beyond a hillside and a massive raven rose into the sky. A cluster of reddish eyes sat where its head should have been. Large gashes, light shining from within them, littered its body. The creature circled around them before flying off into the horizon.
“The Pale Rider,” Mika said. “He came. Then the feathered man…” Mika began shaking. “…they fought and…and feathered man did something horrid…his eyes…they saw everything, then the Rider he…there was a shapeless man, pure white, frightening…an abomination.” Upon saying those words, a memory returned to her and she quickly sat up. “He took Gideon,” she continued. “We need to free him. We need to—
“We will,” Clementine said and looked over at the crying gecko, “I promise.”
“All is not well,” Talin said and looked behind him. Clementine gasped at the sight. A dozen büho’s lay dead on the ground. The Soundsmith’s Tower lay in ruin, half of it in flames, the other torn off, destroyed and scattered across a hillside. Music notes and shattered instruments lay everywhere.
“The Pale Rider,” the gecko began. “The power…its shadow grew and…and it did that.”
As Clementine ran toward the destruction, the Türul’s eyes grew wide. Passing twitching bühos, she went through a large window frame. Shattered glass and chunks of stone covered
the knoll. Carefully, she moved through the debris, her gaze taking in the carnage: the broken instruments and crushed tomes of music.
“Claret!” she cheered upon seeing the mandolin stumble out from beyond a chunk of stone. The instrument looked her way and in a dazed voice it inquired, “Miss Clementine?”
“Where is the Soundsmith?” Clementine asked.
The mandolin looked over at the part of the tower that lay destroyed and scattered.
“He was in his workshop,” Claret said. The music notes to Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor and Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs swirled through the air. The crackle of fire echoed in the background.
“There’s nothing left,” Claret said, defeated.
“But…but,” Clementine whimpered, “there was so much beauty on the inside…the music, the art, the emotion…it…”
She turned and looked back at the Türul.
“Everything was supposed to be better, everyone happy, when the Other left,” she said. “This was supposed to end well.”
“There are other evils in this world beside the ones you’ve seen,” the Türul said. “And when you see them, when you see the horror and sorrow and pain that they bring, you ask yourselves in disbelief: how can it be that such great harm exists? How can one be so cruel to another? How does one live in peace knowing that bellum is found but under our skin?”
Clementine scanned the hillside. A xylophone stumbled about, picking up its torn keys. Pierced upon a jagged stone, a guitar tried tying together its broken strings. Four tiny triangles shook a larger, motionless one. “Miss Isosceles,” one of the tiny triangles said. “Wake up, Miss Isosceles.” Like a leech, grief attached itself to Clementine, her insides felt sore, her head ached and a sudden surge of fatigue washed over her. Suddenly, her legs grew weak and she sat down on the nearest chunk of stone.
“All that goodness set aflame by a single match,” she thought and, through the tears, stared at the mandolin, at its smooth neck, polished pear shaped body and silver strings. Claret watched Clementine then walked up to her. She placed her hand on the girl’s and said, “Cry, let it all out.” And she did. “Human tears are an amazing thing: on the one hand, they are an expression of the enormity of suffering, on the other, a most beautiful manifestation of relief. They are the greatest human conundrum for as long as tears escape your soul, so too does suffering only to make room for another wave of pain to come in the future. Otherwise, the pain would cease with the fall, with the shedding of woe.”
Clementine hugged the mandolin and wiped the tears away with her sleeve.
“When did he take the fox?” Clementine asked.
“Hours ago,” Talin said.
“Türul,” Clementine said. “Will you fly us to Vivéret? To the Capital?”
“Of course,” the rainbow bird replied. “It is the way I must fly as well, to inner Khazaz, to speak with the mighty bird king, Simurgh. He must know what transpired here.”
“What of this tower, of the instruments?” the gecko asked.
“We will make due,” Claret said.
“We must go, Clementine,” the Türul said offering its wing as a staircase up onto its back. Clementine scooped up the gecko and, along with Mika, climbed up.
The great bird beat its wings and they flew through the air. Clementine held Mika between her legs and as they passed Olland’s remains, she saw that a gray dome still enveloped it. “Auden’s still down there,” she though. “The evil from the Infinity Satchel is still here.” As they soared, they saw color returning to the land below. Instead of gray, the rivers glistened blue, the forests blossomed green and fields of flowers sprang forth from the once rotten earth. The great dome that hung over Mundialis was gone, only the clear sky remained. Beauty returned to the land and while Clementine yearned for satisfaction, a grueling sadness and heavy anxiety ate away at her insides, something was wrong.
“Look,” the Türul said when, after several hours of flight, he saw a column of blackness meander like a river through the land below. Like a barge upon a stormy lake, a boom resonated from the winding serpent below.
“What is that?” Mika asked.
“War,” the Türul said. He dipped lower to get a closer look, flying just above the heads of men, horses and oxen. Many stopped their march to point up at the rainbow bird.
“That’s an army,” Clementine said. The Türul rose high, turned north and after an hour’s flight, landed upon a green hill not far from the capital: a great and sprawling city lay before the feet of a mighty castle.
“Best of luck,” the Türul said. “You enter a trickster’s keep, so keep your wits about you. I will return, but first I must speak to the head of the war snake that we passed. It seems, my dear friends, a great beast of indifference was bred and fed to the people beyond those thick castle walls and now they march to war like happy zombies drunk on the mead of righteousness.”
“All the best,” Clementine said. “And thank you.” The Türul tipped its head and sprang into the air. In a moment, he vanished beyond the horizon.
They descended the hill, and used the cobbled road to enter the capital of Vivéret, Mérida. The streets were narrow, yet sundrenched with colorful, elaborately ornamental, Baroque building facades topped with red ceramic roof tiles. Houses of worship, glorifying the Windcallers, the bird king Simurgh and even Dulmadum, the crucified spider of patience, sat nestled in small medieval squares. Luscious green parks peppered the city. Musicians, street performers and vendors showed off their talents and wares. Locals and visitors moved from place to place giving the city’s streets the feel of a flowing river.
Unfortunately, due to Clementine’s attire, several locals glared at her. Because of the warm, Mediterranean climate, the city was a bastion of fashion: women wore decorative sundresses populated with flowers, and bonnets of budding florae that blossomed with the rising sun; most men wore slightly baggy white pants, multicolored shirts with exaggerated and overtly decorative collars, and cream-colored moccasins. A foreigner was quick to notice the differences between various citizen classes: the low of whom often wore baggy, comfortable clothes, while the high ones dressed in an overabundance of showy garments with high collared suits or heavy, multi-layered dresses.
“I’d be dying in that thing,” Clementine said, looking at a woman robed in a green dress with three under-layers of yellow, orange and red.
“How is that even comfortable?” Mika asked. “I guarantee she has a sweaty rear end.”
“Which way do you think we should go?” Clementine asked Talin. Several passersby glanced at her with pity.
“Ask someone how to reach the castle,” Talin said.
“Excuse me,” Clementine began. “Sir. Ma’am. Excuse me.” People ignored her, eyeing her and passing judgment as they walked by. “Sir. Sir. Ma’am. I don’t think this is going to work,” she said to Mika.
“Silly girl, animals are dumb. They don’t know what you’re saying to them,” a woman, with a garden in her hair, wearing what looked like a dress of colorful umbrellas, said as she walked by.
“People,” Clementine told Talin and looked around to see, sitting on a wooden bench in front of a butcher’s shop, a small boy wearing a white cotton blouse holding a large rabbit. The boy stared at her, his left pupil damaged, and he waved for her to come over. Intrigued, she did.
The boy looked from the gecko to the beagle before finally resting his eyes on Clementine. “Excuse me,” she began. “Do you know how to get to the castle from here?”
Without saying a word, the boy nodded, stood up and walked away. Clementine quickly followed. They wandered through the streets, passing a marvelous fountain in the shape of a water lily, a bazaar overflowing with flamboyant textiles and aromatic spices, and a statue of Queen Gavrella and King Vos holding a newborn in their arms. Making their way past an aqueduct, they stood before a mighty castle built of heavy, white stone. Two guards stood before the large, slightly ajar, double door entrance.
“There are guards,” Clementine said. The boy gave her a scornful look, placed the rabbit on the ground and ran off.
“Your rabbit—” The creature turned to Clementine. Its eyes were black, fire burning inside them. Fear shook her as her throat constricted and she took a step back. The rabbit sprang forward, quickly hopped up to the guards and, slipping between the two of them, squeezed through the space in the double door. “Shit!” a guard said and they both ran in after the rabbit, leaving the front gate unattended.
“This is all strange,” Mika said. “What do you think?”
“We go in,” Clementine told her. They approached the door and quietly slipped in. Light passing through tall, stained glass windows flooded an empty grand hall while hanging from the high walls, banners fluttered slightly in an internal breeze. Keeping close to the walls, they silently made their way down the hall and after passing through several bright galleries and connecting corridors, they accidently stumbled into the throne room.
“I can make out Gideon’s scent,” Mika said. “He’s here.”
“Isn’t it odd that we haven’t seen anyone?” Talin asked. Clementine agreed. A feeling that someone was watching them crept over her. She looked at the ceiling, but saw nothing but frescos of decorative animals and ancient stories told in gold, red and purple. Prudently, they explored the room. Clementine checked the two doors behind the throne. They were locked. “Perhaps we missed a door,” Mika suggested. “I’m picking up a scent, but it’s in the hallway not—” A sound of a squeaking hinge echoed through the chamber and the door to the left slowly opened.
“That’s wrong,” they said in unison and, as if reading each other’s minds, they shook their heads no at one another, but although, they knew something vile was afoot, they had to go on. Cautiously, they slipped into a very long corridor. A dozen white doors lined the walls. Light came in through a small window, placed just below the ceiling, at the far end of the hallway.