by A. E. Shaw
“But it’s so beautiful. The palace. It’s his.”
Alej isn’t capable of the conversation Selina needs. She has so many what-ifs. So many nerves. But then she thinks back on Aiden’s words, on his face, his confidence, his eyes, staring at her as if he was right about her. She never doubted him before.
Why do it now?
Selina has to fill in the gaps for herself. Alej can hold her, and can be with her, and can bring her things - can irritate Tabatha like crazy, bringing the wrong things, losing his sense of time and schedule as he falls further in love with the laboratory and its contents, but she’ll grow to like him and his curious ways in time. It doesn’t matter that he can’t be everything. What’s most important is that he’s there, constantly himself, with no interest in being anything he isn’t. What it comes down to is that Selina can trust him, completely. They can build a life together.
They do.
This is what it looks like:
Every morning, Tabatha helps her dress. It isn’t so much that Selina needs her help dressing (Tabatha has made her sleek tan-leather trousers, and smoked cotton tunics that give her such comfort and ease of movement, it’s as if she were dancing, even when walking) but more that Selina needs time with her. What they have, it’s not quite friendship, not yet. But it might be, one day. It’s talking, communication, learning the little things, knowing more about where she is and who she presides over - for she does, indeed, preside, quietly and calmly, adhering to the old ways of meetings and speeches, but never monopolising them as Den Huo did, always sharing her platform, always hearing all the sides, hoping conclusions will work themselves out, as they most often do. Talking with Tabatha in the morning sets her up perfectly for the longer, harder talks that come later.
“How are you, Tabatha?”
“I’m well, indeed. It is a beautiful day outside.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course, else I wouldn’t say it, would I?”
And Selina smiles, and nods, because, of course.
“I had these berries to eat this morning. They were exceptional. I’ve had some prepared for you, too.”
“Prepared?”
“Stewed, with some tubers for sweetness.”
“Tubers?”
Tabatha rolls her eyes. “You’ll have to come back to the kitchens, and Nishan will teach you all the things about the cooking. And you should have Alej teach you about the plants, the fruits, the animals.”
“It wouldn’t be any good…”
“I know, I know, you’d never convince Alej you could cook so much as a bean.”
Selina smiles more, because she hasn’t had these gentle, insignificant conversations since her brothers were near, and, in their absence, she hadn’t imagined such comfort, not at all. Aiden’s conversations seemed so vital, so necessary, she was always learning, and those conversations were comfort too. She misses his authority, the way that she assumed correctly that it was all about him, because he so clearly believed the world to be all about him. There is a sense in which the world Selina wishes she lived in would indeed be all about Aiden.
Selina fears that that discussion exists, that it’s being carried out in corners, behind her, and Alej, and even now behind Tabatha and Nishan and Katya and the others they have come to know best. It’s that fear that jeopardises all leaders. We can only hope Selina is not as prey to paranoia as, well, any other leader in history. She has a good chance. She presumes nothing, and hopes for the best, and tries to address her fears to all. She is loved. She need not have that fear. Let us hope further that she can work that one out for herself, just as she has worked out so many things, in the season that’s passed since Aiden left.
No-one goes to the mountain. Alej tries, once, to return. A part of him remains curious for the sense of ‘home’ that pulls at him occasionally, the concept of nostalgia fostering deep in his guts in the months during which they settle into the new regime. And he gets as far as the foot of the mountain - goes alone, with no ceremony and no word as to where he’s wandering, for it’s still less than a full arc of the sun to get from their little home to the foot of the mountain, and then when he arrives, it is…not as he remembers.
Indeed, the mountain remains, and yes, it is as vast and tall as logic and memory tell him it must have been: if not more so. But the urge to scale it, to see if the ruins remain, to see if anything might be salvaged…that idea fills him with a terrible sadness, and then a new longing. He tries to fight that, reads it first as stupidity, as nerves, as misplaced anxiety based on his memories - for Alej works hard to understand himself now, as they all do, in this new context - and he crosses the barrier which is no barrier at all, if true barrier it ever was, and he sets a foot upon the slope, and then another, and then repeats himself, but he is not more than a few paces gone when he stops and looks up again, and then back, and repeats that a little more, and lets his feelings settle. There, Alej, don’t be afraid of it, and don’t ignore it on purpose.
A desire only to be back with Selina, where he has no designated role, save the one he’s decided for himself.
“I won’t ever leave you,” Alej says, at night.
“I would never ask you to,” Selina replies, as if that were the only reason he might ever consider going.
There are things about Selina that will never change, just as there are ways that Alej will never understand. Between them, there lies a midpoint which is precisely the right place to map a lifetime from.
But Aiden is always missing, in ways neither can, nor should discuss with each other. With anyone. They both see it, and they both see each other thinking it, that part of themselves they shared with him, the impact he had upon them.
Selina tells of their times in the castle, and even Alej speaks of these when called on to do so. He talks at length of his own experiences - at such times, Selina is surprised there are still aspects of his life she didn’t know about.
There are some changes to the land, some to its structure, many ways in which the collective try to live not simply harmoniously now, but to prepare for the inevitable expansion of society, to structure to survive together, rather than apart.
Selina is not naive enough to think that this way will always be so, but she is determined to set things as best she can, with the collected knowledge of everyone.
The most important thing for now, is that she reads that book, that book, the one that Den Huo (whose name is always used, if he must be spoken of, and whose self-imposed title is only a mockery, the thing children call each other when they think they’re getting above themselves) left Aiden as a handbook of his own insanity. Its unpleasantry mustn’t be forgotten.
They don’t dine in high fantasy any more, no, they eat alone, or in groups, and the food is simple and good and clean, and occasions are made every day with good humour and grace and the sharing of stories, rather than with rules and hierarchies and a thousand complex demands.
Sometimes she thinks of Kit and Ali. And Eliza. And wonders where they are. And of these other worlds. Sometimes she and Alej talk of all these things, and what they might be like. They wonder to each other about how life in these lands might be, about what Eliza might be doing there, about where the Caracaras has taken Kit and Ali, and if they will ever cross paths again.
And, of course, they will.
But that is another story.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Leaving
Step back a little from that end to the minor characters’ stories - minor in Aiden’s mind, anyway - to see where Aiden’s story concludes, for now, at least. As he walked away from the complex, relief flooded every cell of his body. The landscape itself seemed to vibrate with hope and positivity.
It’s a two-day walk back to the edge of this world. Aiden sees no-one. He hears no-one. Nothing moves; not an insect, not an animal. As he leaves the glow and thrum of the complex for the scrub and dirt of the landlay, he’s not sorry. He has gold and jewels enough for now, his little c
ollection slightly enhanced by trinkety stones he’s thumbed from settings during his travels.
He wants to climb the highest peaks again, such as they are, and stand atop them held aloft by confidence and self-assurance. To shout, into the void, that it’s okay, that he’s ready. He’s here.
Aiden looks left, right, forwards, backwards, up and down, and thinks, that, at last, this is his alone.
And it was always all meant for him.
Alone.
Alone?
Alone.
He rounds the foot of the mountain, the mountain, at the top of which lies his beginning and his middle, on the third day. He hasn’t even the smallest desire to go back, nor even to contemplate it; indeed, he only remembers it’s this particular mountain when he recalls the angle of the view of the sea, the shimmer of the sun on the waves.
The water beckons to him, and he hangs, briefly, from the rocks, letting his legs flutter in their thrust and pull. Foam splashes at his back. It is warm and cool all at once. It is everything.
Aiden thinks himself wise, now. Experienced. His brief foray into a world is, he thinks, all he needs. He has known family, war, murder, hatred, foolishness, betrayal. What else is there? He has studied all that there could be, and now he has lived it.
He takes his wisdom, and backs up a little, spends time at the edge of the strange and sparse forest that joins sands to slope. With his knife, this bone and metal knife that he earnt (there’s that tendency to rewrite terrible pasts, there, watch that, Aiden, watch that) that shines and cuts infinitely better than the old slip of tin he once had that he used to think was beautiful, he breaks and whittles and notches wood together.
In time, he’s made a raft.
His motions are instinctive, based on recollections, learnt descriptions.
His fingers split at the quick and his cuticles bleed with a ferocity he’s never known as he ties and carves and coaxes wood together. It seems that, despite his insistence that such physical work was never for him, when needs’ must, he is proficient at it, gifted at it, even.
Saving his provisions for the time at which he will have no others, he eats grasses and leaves, which make his stomach crunch and coil in a way that he can’t quite find unpleasant, a way that makes him feel alive. He drinks water that collects in spoon-sized flat leaves in the early mornings, and later, he scrapes and sucks the sticky stems of spiny vines. He feels as if he has some duty to absorb and imbibe everything he can from the nature all around him. He’s no idea when - if - he’ll see such a thing again. He wants to keep a memory of that greenery inside him.
He collects and packs sprigs of dryish flowers, which have a mouth-wateringly savoury flavour. He strips seeds from transparent beige tickets which grow sporadically along tough ropey lines that trail their way through the dust. He spent so long learning about botany, and never so much as touched such things. It would be sad to let that knowledge go to waste. Maybe he can work out a way to grow them on his raft. To become his own island. Maybe.
He makes a fire, and he digs into the mud, and he lays out the silk and the leather, which he’ll have all the time in the world to wash in the months to come, in the dirt, the bedspread atop them all, and he nestles in, diamonds and rubies in his hand, clickety against the warm gold and platinum of his father’s rings, loose around his slender, bloody fingers.
He feels completely safe, completely at peace again.
He drifts off, to the sound of the trees, contrasting and complimenting the roll of the sea. The air tastes of salt and dirt and the greenery he ate, and his body feels as if it’s growing and changing, soaking itself into the soil.
This time he dreams of space, and emptiness, of peace. There are no screams, any more, no-one yells at him, no-one fights for his attention. There’s no more burning, no more rivers of blood. There’s no army, here, and only one language comes from his lips.
In the dream distance, he knows that Selina and Alej are having a picnic. He is happy for them. He cannot see or hear them, but he knows they are there, somewhere far behind him. Dream-Aiden walks away, into a woodland sparkling with sunshine and dew. He sits by a stream, crisp and cold and fresh. It sings for him.
The stars that spell his name are reflected in a thousand ways, everywhere he looks; the world was designed for him and to his name, and he, at last, is free to inhabit it all.
He is always walking away, just as he has done for the last few days. From a vantage point, he imagines himself leaving all the places he’s seen and known, as well as the many imaginary ones he never saw the like of in this world. He does the same with people, too, rids himself of person until there is no-one left. He says goodbye to the thought of his father, to the elders, to Alej, to Selina. To all his memories, his dreams, his learnings. He says a thousand farewells in a hundred languages, ever fluent, ever capable, charmed and charming to the last.
In his dream, the landscape is diamonds, at the end, and at the end of the world when he stares into the sea, as night has fallen and he is truly alone, it is an infinity of shifting diamonds, crashing and rolling, a dense and vast wave that begs him to throw himself upon its undulations.
There is no danger of sinking, he knows, and it is that moment, hovering, poised to oblige the request, it is that moment at which he is ready.
He wakes up so full of new energy he might burst into a star himself. It’s time.
He drags the raft down, its heft no struggle for him, not now. Jewels and all, he is complete with his knife at his side. The world is silent but for the waves, their endless journey to shore completed with each splash and rush. There’s no breeze.
Aiden floats the raft on the edge of the shore. Resplendent in his first clothes, holes torn and singes still apparent, he considers himself finished. He is perfect. This world is not. He must leave it.
He wades into the water, feeling the cold swell around his body and shrink at his muscles. The raft kicks and thrashes in a brief, ineffectual protest against leaving the land, but Aiden persists, arrogant towards the sea.
Eventually, the waves are breaking at his head, and his knuckles are white-turning-blue with the force of his grip on the raft. It’s time. He’s strong enough, now, to heave himself up there. He is ungraceful, but emphatic, in his ascent.
This is it.
Here he is.
The raft laps back and forth a little. Aiden has plenty here. He has made a fine platform; he has everything he needs. He has silk to wrap himself in, good enough to keep him warm, he’s sure, and he has a pail in which to make a fire with the wood he’s brought. Has his sparkmaker from so long ago; it fits his hand as well as it ever did, even though his hand is stronger now. He’s gathered food to last some time. He has his jewels, his collar, the essence of himself as essential to his existence as his heartbeat. He has plenty to take him into his next life.
Whatever that might be, wherever it is.
He needs followers, needs to be heard. He needs to be loved by masses who are not fools, who have not been chosen and coddled, who understand that he is automatically wondrous, who do not need him to provide false promises and commit terrible acts to believe in him. He is ready for so much more, and at the same time if it is only that he’s to be alone for all eternity, then, compared with everything he’s experienced of late, he can think of nothing better.
The water is smooth, accepting. Aiden need do nothing at all to be caught in its gentle motion, as the raft and he are sucked out into the vastness of the horizon.
He doesn’t look back.
He doesn’t think of Alej, nor of Selina. Nor even of the elders, or his father. Nothing is relevant. Nothing is necessary. They’re all gone. Everything is behind him.
Aiden smiles.
The sea folds out ahead, behind, and to the sides.
As the stars come out, Aiden reads his name writ large across the heavens, and bathes in the light of the universe. He lies back on the smooth wood, the night cool already finding its way through his silk cover.
He doesn’t care. Destiny calls.
“I’m coming,” he whispers to the stars, assuring. “I’m coming.”
THE END.
Acknowledgments.
This book began during NaNoWriMo 2010. My considerable thanks to the entire glorious project. The first 60,000 words of this were written in ten thrilling days. The rest of it’s taken me a very, very long time.
To Malin, to Kelly, to Del, thank you for your friendship, your time, and your wisdom.
To everyone I know and have met both on and offline who’s listened to me complain and panic, enthuse and kerfuffle, thank you for always being kind and encouraging, even when you really could’ve told me to be quiet.