The WorldMight

by Cyril L. C. Bussiere

  “Yes, father, we sure did,” he said.

  He looked around the fire-pit, gave a small smile and then returned his attention to the piece of wood in his hands.

  “We heard quite a few tales, all a bit different, but they all agree on one thing: that the Undoer had something to do with Princess Aria’s disappearance. Some say that she was snatched out of thin air, while others say she was turned into moonlight.”

  “Hethens’s Breath upon us!” Berline whispered fearfully.

  She grabbed her husband’s arm.

  “That’s oldwives tales,” Burlkin said trying to be dismissive.

  “Might be. But that’s a whole lot of chatter going on in high circles along the coast for it to come from nothing.”

  They went on talking about it for a while and Cassien made a note to himself that no one would mention Cythra by name. He figured that it was considered bad omen in these parts to do so in the woods at night. Maybe there was something to the many jokes he had heard in Syndjya about country folks being excessively superstitious.

  Some time later, the fire having died down, his fellow travelers retreated to the travel-station for the night. Cassien felt awkward sleeping there and stayed by the warmth of the fire pit. He lay under his coat on the quickly cooling earth and tried to convince himself that his story was good, that no one had seen through his lies. But despite all the arguments he brought forth, he could not shake the guilty feeling that he would get caught, that one of them would make him out sooner rather than later.

  Of all the dreams that marred his sleep that night, the one about Aria was the only one he vaguely recalled upon waking the next morning. In that dream Aria looked pale and ethereal, just like she had in the instants before vanishing. She was calling for him from the peak of a tall mountain that was covered in frozen slabs and stormy clouds and her voice was thin and scared. As it often happens in dreams, Cassien was in two different spaces at once, simultaneously by Aria’s side and infinitely far from her, in a land where scarecrow-looking trees flashed by, turned into threatening, green waves, which quickly morphed into tall grass over an unending plain only to grow back into a dark, menacing forest. Despite the turmoil surrounding him, he knew that only by becoming whole again he would be able to truly be with her. Her call was haunting and resounded across the infinite stretches separating them. Her despair frightened him and he tried, in vain, to reach her.

  He woke up cold and alone in the small clearing. The smell of burnt wood filled his nostrils and the sinking feeling that his endeavor was doomed before it had truly begun nauseatingly welcomed him to the new day. Above him the sky was rosy with light-red clouds gently sweeping east. To the west, a fading gray-pink half-moon hovered low above the tree line. Cassien pulled his coat over his head, retreated his feet under it and waited for the ominous feeling to dissipate. Maybe he fell asleep again, or maybe he just lay there thinking muffled thoughts about Aria. Either way, some time later, it was with her name on his tongue and a bitter sadness in his throat that he got up.

  In the travel-station, the Longrooves were sharing some bread while Twim and Belim were tending to Frendzy. A few feet from there, the Graysprays had already readied their salt-fish wagons. Father and son each sat on one of their wagons, reins in hands. Behind them the two armed-hands waited for their departure atop their horses. The merchants and the farmers had probably already said their farewells because as Cassien approached the travel station, Lelond waved him goodbye.

  “Hethens’s Breath on your travels noble friend,” he said with a smile. “We have to hurry if we are to be in Syndjya by nightfall.”

  “On yours too,” Cassien barely had time to reply before Lelond snapped his reins with a loud ‘Y-ho’ and, wheels creaking loudly under the heavy load of fish, the small convoy set out at a trot down the dead-leaf ridden road.

  “Mornin’ Nikos!” Berline hailed him from the travel-station. “Care for some bread?”

  “That would be great,” Cassien said.

  He sat amongst the Longrooves and Elega handed him a slice of olive-and-meat bread. It was a bit dry but after having had mostly nuts for breakfast for the past few days, it was a delight.

  “I still can’t believe the Graysprays’ story,” Burlkin said somberly as Cassien chewed on his piece of bread. “Seems very unlikely that the temple runner would pass and both Prince Hobgard and Princess Aria disappear on the same day.”

  “Well, the city folks like gossip, especially the travelin’ kind, that’s well known!” Beveline said.

  “Rumors, like he said,” added Elega.

  “Do you recon it’s true?” Burlkin asked, pointing his chin toward Cassien.

  His chest contracted in a warm spike of shame. Master Baccus’s smiling face flashed in his mind and he instinctively repressed the sadness that he knew would follow before it showed on his face.

  “It might be,” he said, his mouth full of bread. “It’s hard to tell. But, I’d say it’s probably rumors.”

  “I think so too.”

  “That’d be too awful!” Elega added.

  Shortly after, Twim and Belim announced that they had taken care of Frendzy and that the wagon was good to go. Cassien wolfed down the rest of his bread and then picked up his pack and blade by the fire pit. He pulled a small leather flask out of his pack and went to the water barrel behind the travel-station and filled it up.

  Then, they walked together as they had the previous day until around midmorning when a smaller road revealed itself to their left.

  “That’s our way,” Burlkin announced.

  They stopped the time to say goodbye. Beveline stepped down from the wagon and gave Cassien a fierce hug.

  “You’re a brave young man, Nikos. May Hethens’s Breath guard you on your journey.”

  She smelled of horse and bread. Her hold was strong, soft, and strangely comfortable. For an instant Cassien felt the overwhelming urge to bury his troubles and worries in her embrace. It appealed to a void in his depths he was not truly aware of and when she let go of him he caught himself wishing she had not so soon. He bowed slightly to each of his impromptu travel companions.

  “Thank you for your kindness and a mild winter on you all,” he said.

  “And on you too,” they replied in one voice.

  Then the Longrooves headed west, down the smaller road. For a moment Cassien watched them walk away and waved back to Elega and Twim a few times. Afterward he looked up the road he was to follow. The day was slowly warming up and he was alone again.

  “Gray Arlung,” he thought, “east by way of north…”

  “But when is east going to come?” he wondered.

  He sighed heavily, adjusted the blade at his belt and anchoring himself in thoughts of Aria he headed north hoping the road would soon point toward the sea.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  “Sehin?”

  Someone was calling her.

  “Sehin, are you here?”

  The long train of thought she had been following refused to let her go. Images flashed at regular intervals. Vivid memories of her family, tweaked sceneries she half-remembered and fantasies she dreamed up all popped their heads in the mental construction her present state had fostered. She was onto something, she was sure of it.

  There was a fast succession of knocks. Then her name called out again.

  She drifted back in, the flow of arguments too strong for her to interrupt. She was almost there, she knew it. More thoughts joined in, expanding the churn of reasoning. More feelings coalesced, hinting subtly at new directions to be explored. She let her thoughts wander about, joining and separating, concepts refuting one another or supporting each other. The end of the golden thread was so close! A few novel ideas effortlessly made their way to the forefront. The picture of a green field briefly passed in her consciousness before another concept, fuzzy but emotionally-laden, pushed it away. It pinned itself to the thread of thoughts and glided away as well. It was all telling her something. It was
right there. Something she knew or had known and forgot. Just barely out of reach.

  “Sehin, where are you?”

  A door clicked open, hit a wall and shut closed again.

  Footsteps…

  Never mind that! She had to focus and protect the stream. It could not be perturbed. It would lead her there; she had no doubt about it.

  A hand, old but potent, flashed in her mind; more concept than picture.

  A never-aging face smiled to a thought.

  Another green field took center stage in her mind, darker than the first and broader too. It stuck itself to a thought about power.

  The face of her mother, or the feeling of it, was not too far away. More ideas showed up and she knew of them without necessarily thinking them. They twirled around, close to the surface of the flow, but remained out of grasp.

  “Sehin!”

  Annoyance in that demanding voice.

  She could not let go, not when she was so close. She had to relax. She was too intrusive. The process could not suffer close scrutiny. She retreated a bit, leaving more room to her thoughts. There was to be no friction from her; that could derail a thought, or freeze it in its tracks.

  The constructs, images, and feelings kept coming and going, and she tried hard to remove herself some more. Another face, a young girl, stuck beyond reach, crossed her mind; her face was triplicated, as if followed by two echoes. Power and nature flashed in Burhurdu script rapidly. The link between her and the world, the connection she had been after for so long was right there. She could feel it, the knowledge vibrated right beyond her eyelids. Maybe she was still too present. Emerald stone garden-beds, jade shadows and the sun paraded in blurry pictures followed by a deep longing that felt of her father.

  Falling, to come and be undone.

  Love, torn, center.

  Her, mom, dad.

  The words, pictures, and feelings swirled faster. Like the facets of a big wheel they turned, presenting themselves to her, naked in their truth. But still she could not see it.

  Green fields, earth, darkness.

  The idea of herself, herself and her self.

  It all moved so fast now, each concept blurring into the next, coalescing into a greater point. It was coming. She was close.

  “SEHIN!”

  Too close, too loud.

  Hands fell on her shoulders, gripped her tightly and shook her vigorously.

  It all tumbled away and dissipated like a dream upon waking; the thoughts, images, concepts, and feelings, all the connections, blown away in one stroke. There was no use trying to hold on to them, but she tried anyway. How could she not? She had been so close.

  She opened her eyes and felt anger tighten her face into a wolfish mask.

  “WHAT?” she bellowed, her eyes flashing a vicious light.

  It was Magdal, the mother superior. She was kneeling in front of her and she did not look pleased. Sehin’s features softened guiltily right away.

  “Oh, Mother Magdal, what is it?” she asked.

  The mother superior was looking at her intensely, obviously trying to decide if she was going to lecture her, punish her, or do something else entirely. After a beat, her features eased as well and she sighed, shaking her head at the younger girl.

  “We have a visitor,” she said. “I want you to see if you can be of service.”

  “Er, sure,” Sehin replied with a wince.

  Visitors were not her thing. Well, in truth, people in general were not, had never been, probably would never be. It had taken her the better part of the past fifteen years to feel more or less comfortable around her fellow sisters. But strangers were still… well, let’s say that she usually avoided any contact with the outside world. But if the mother superior herself requested that she attend to someone, she could hardly refuse.

  “He said that he is on a pilgrimage, looking for some obscure word. He wasn’t very clear about it. Anyway, I had him wait in the solarium.”

  “He!?”

  Sehin felt an unfamiliar emotion pile onto the lingering left-over feelings from her elevation. When she did not move, Mother Magdal glared at her.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? Go! Now!” she scolded her.

  Sehin stood up reluctantly and walked out of her room. She headed down the stairs that led from the sleeping chambers on the higher levels of the complex to the kitchens and day quarters. The sun was beating on the hillside. The sky was mostly cloudless and a gentle breeze tempered the mid-day heat. The white buildings that rested at different levels on the steep slope of the hill shone lazily in the afternoon light. The wooden staircases and bridges that connected them felt warm under her bare feet. It was hot outside, away from the coolness of her room, but the temperature was not what she was boiling about.

  “Arhan! I was almost there! Why did she have to interrupt me? I might not find the way back again!” she thought, angry and sad at the same time. “I was in perfect balance. That happens so rarely! It’s that visitor’s fault! Damn him to the stars! And now I’m supposed to help him? I don’t think so!”

  She crossed the small southern plaza, passing the cacti-surrounded fountain at its center. Without a word to Arphane and Jolya, who were working on the low bushes that ornamented the edge of the plaza, she stepped onto the bridge that hung above the temple and linked the gardens to the libraries. In her wake her auburn hair swirled widely about and from time to time wiped messily across her face.

  “He’s going to be a waste of my time” she fumed, pushing curls of her hair off her face, “Larn and Crest! I was so close!”

  She walked past the Early and Late Libraries, turned left and walked between the Library of Praises and the Library of Phalchimey, the shadows of the buildings offering a temporary reprise from the heat. She emerged from the shade and proceeded down another staircase that zigzagged alongside the hill. Her green eyes, bright with despondency and the bitterness of failure, peered intensely straight ahead between eyelids narrowed against the sun. Her loose white pants and shirt flowed around her as she passed the day quarters. There, sisters were discoursing leisurely in the shade of Chet trees, tall, scrawny trees with foot-long leaves on long branches near the top which formed a gently moving roof wherever they grew. The day quarters were a series of patios with large arcades opening away from the hillside. Bamboo chairs and low tables abounded in the slowly rocking shade. Sehin usually enjoyed spending time there, talking with the other sisters or simply staring out of one of the arcades and regaling in the rolling countryside bellow and the glitter of the sea that stretched to the horizon a few clicks away. But today she rushed by without even a glance, her usually soft brown features flushed with frustration.

  Another set of staircases later she was walking into the temple and her frustration had morphed into a bitter grudge.

  “That…”

  Appropriate words eluded her. She settled on ‘monkey’ and went on ranting to herself.

  “So close!” she lamented, “so close! That won’t happen again. And I can’t recall a thing. This is so unfair! Damn him, damn him, damn him!”

  On and on she went as she rushed across the dais toward the door that led to the solarium. She did not pause for a quick prayer to Arhan as she normally would have, and instead she burst into the solarium in the most unpleasant fashion her anger could muster.

  The young man turned around purposefully as the door slammed into the wall. He did not look surprised at all; he neither flinched nor appeared startled. He was about six foot tall; his messy brown hair was short. His eyes shone both determination and a subdued, age-old wisdom, the kind that is often found in the eyes of quiet old-timers. He stood in the middle of the solarium in a simple attire of black pants and shirt and leather boots that looked to have walked to the end of the world and back. A blade hung at his waist and when he turned around to face her it moved more like a third limb than an inanimate object. A leather pack was at his back and stark against the dark fabric of his shirt, an oval, translucent stone
hung on a small metal chain around his neck. Sun light poured into the solarium through the large windows on the walls and the ceiling and pooled his shadow at his feet.

  He did not say a thing when she barged into the room. But when she laid eyes on him, fragments of ethereal, dream-like impressions flew back to the surface of her consciousness. The contour of his face, his eyes, the way they shone, expectant and sorrowful at the same time... She had seen him somewhere before! The feeling was unsettling. The same maddening closeness to knowledge that she had felt during her elevation dawned onto her; so close but impossibly far as well. Green eyes flashed vague in her mind.

  Confused, she stood in the doorway, unable to utter a word. The geometry of his features, the angles of his face, the exact light of his eyes, and the light beyond his irises, beyond his eyes themselves, the light that shines…

  “Where does it shine from?” she unexpectedly found herself asking.

  His face warped in her mind’s eye and echoed threefold into space. Feelings surged forward from unknown depths and splashed across her reality. Feelings she knew about, things she was to feel, that she had yet to feel, but that would come, undoubtedly.

  “You have the sight,” the voice of Mother Magdal confided, a whisper on the wind of her memories, from years ago, her but a child.

  A beast, many but one, old beyond time as men knew it, with the eyes of space and the mind of the universe, started expanding in her mind, overtaking her consciousness. She distantly felt her eyes grow wide, her jaw tremble slightly, and sweat roll down along her ribs. The beast kept expanding, the concept of what it was too much to comprehend. It rolled in green flames high as mountains, bright as suns, deep as the end of knowledge and of countless shades.