The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  She placed her hand flat against the warm, smooth surface.

  The door shimmered briefly, then abruptly poured down into the floor like a wall of water collapsing into a pool. She danced back from it, expecting a dousing from the resulting wave, but the crystal or water or whatever it was simply dissolved into the floor without a sound. Of all the strange sights she’d been witness to these past weeks, this crystal cave was by far the most amazing.

  The room inside was even more fantastic than the others. Easily sixty paces across, the walls, ceiling, and floor were composed of the same glassy material as the rest of the cave. What made this room different was that it was a perfect half-sphere, and the dome ceiling was unblemished by the engravings that seemed to cover every other surface in this fortress. Its surface glowed with a pale silvery radiance just as the floor beneath her, but it was brighter here, simpler, and utterly magnificent. She thought it must be what looking out from inside a great bubble of light must be like, frail and delicate and giving the sense that it might burst at any moment.

  The glassy statues of elegant Parhronii and Vaemysh women lined the circular wall above her, each standing in a state of elegant repose. They stood upon an ornate ledge twenty feet above the floor, positioned at arm’s length from each other. They lined the circular room so perfectly that they nearly surrounded her, their soft eyes and mysterious smiles radiating down at her as if they were curiously watching her.

  The effect was the precise opposite of what she’d felt in the presence of the Baeldonian dead; these women projected an aura of joy and wellbeing, like a celebration of lives well lived and futures worth praying for.

  As she slowly turned, following the room from face to face, she spotted the rogue.

  He knelt with his back to her directly across the room from the door. She was surprised that she hadn’t seen him before. He hunched slightly forward as if in a state of prayer or meditation. He was dressed exactly as she’s last seen him: tattered breeches, barefoot and shirtless, his now long hair cascading down his back to his waist. A silvery circle glowed in the floor’s glassy surface beneath him. The Caeyllth Blade lay at his side, the caeyl eye now as pure and colorless as the crystal surrounding them.

  As she walked toward him, she realized why he was kneeling. Laid out before him on a low funeral bier was the corpse of the warrior they’d first encountered in the throne room. The skeletal remains rested on a platform carved to look like a parchment that scrolled at each end. A straight line of four short pillars with surfaces engraved in swirling ivy, oak leaves, and exotic flowers supported it.

  Directly beside it rested an identical bier, this one bearing the sarcophagus of a woman, a Vaemyd. She lay in icy repose, her right hand clutching a long rose against her breast. Her left hand rose vertically from a bent elbow with her hand bent back and opened to the heavens. A gem carved in the form of a lidded eye lay in her palm. It was identical to the one on the rogue’s sword.

  Koonta returned her attention to the skeletal remains of the Vaemyn. Beam had arranged the skeletal limbs most carefully. He’d even adjusted a golden necklace so that it lay appropriately against the mangled mail covering the rib cage. He’d taken the time to smooth back the wisps of dry, white hair still clinging to the skull, and had placed a folded blanket beneath the head, which was no longer attached to the lower skeleton.

  Most curious of all, she realized he’d done all this before even attending to himself, before dressing or bathing or eating. Who was this dead man? And why did the rogue possess such reverence for him?

  She walked cautiously forward, stopping just a few paces back from him. She didn’t know why she’d stopped short of confronting him. Was she afraid to interrupt his meditation? Or was she just afraid? It was becoming irksome, this constant dance of fascination and apprehension that threatened whenever she was near him. It just was another sign of weakness, and she despised it.

  For a moment, she simply stood there, playing the apple around in her hand. She wasn’t sure how to breech the silence and announce herself. She wasn’t even sure if she should. If he were indeed praying or meditating, it’d be rude to interrupt. Yet, she needed to talk to him. She needed to understand what was happening. Most importantly, if someone else lurked in this fortress, she needed permission to ferret them out.

  Getting an eyeful, are you?

  His words startled her so that she nearly dropped the apple.

  Leave me alone.

  She winced as his voice thundered through her head. It seemed to come from every direction at once, from inside and out. As she remembered the tunnels, remembered his thoughts in her mind back then, she immediately realized the truth of it: he hadn’t spoken at all.

  “I have questions,” she said.

  I told you to leave me alone. I won’t say it again.

  The words felt like a cannon shot in her skull. It was immediately followed by a kick of nausea. She cursed herself for having expected something more civil. The bastard hadn’t changed a whit.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, more firmly, “I have questions. You clearly have answers.”

  The rogue didn’t reply and his presence didn’t withdraw from her mind. She sensed the heat of his thoughts flirting at the edges of her own.

  “Stop!” she said, “I don’t like that.” When his presence didn’t relent, she stepped a pace closer and pressed him more urgently. “I told you to stop! It’s uncomfortable!”

  The sensation eased a bit at that.

  Still, his essence hovered just outside her ability to touch it. It was as if he were considering her request, but wasn’t in any hurry to make a decision. She closed her eyes and mentally struggled against him. Then she threw up an ethereal wall and willed him out. “Goddamn you! Get the hell out of my head!”

  His presence abruptly faded.

  She opened her eyes. The strange serenity that had embraced her since waking had washed away like mud in a storm. She felt angry with him for assaulting her so. The sense of violation induced by his presence in her mind felt every bit as foul and distressing as when the demons did the same thing.

  “Happy?” he asked out loud. He still wasn’t looking at her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He didn’t respond.

  She pressed her fingers into her brow. She felt strangely incomplete, even a little dizzy. Her thoughts felt slightly disorganized in his absence. Though it made absolutely no sense, her mind suddenly felt like a room with one wall missing.

  “We should search this place,” she said as she struggled to put her mind back in order, “I believe there’s a trespasser in our presence.”

  He still didn’t reply.

  Why was he ignoring her? This clearly needed to be done. If he’d just give her authorization, she’d be on her way.

  “I can do it alone. If that’s your preference.”

  Still nothing.

  “Please, Father. Speak to me.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  His physical voice was nearly more intimidating than his mental presence had been. She reprimanded her heart for pounding so. Why was she feeling so damned timorous? Was it uncertainty?

  But even as the question drew breath, she knew the truth to be the precise opposite of that: she wasn’t the least bit uncertain. She knew he was the one. She knew he was the one, though she didn’t know how she knew it, and it scared her to death. Perhaps it was some remnant of the strange dreams she’d endured while locked in his caeyl light as she recovered. She remembered wandering ghost-like through the lands of olden days. She remembered seeing him, him and another she’d never been able to identify. She—

  “Are you going to stare at me all day?” he asked abruptly, “State your business and go away.”

  “Father, I—”

  “Are you deaf? I told you not to call me that!”

  “Should I call you Brother instead?”

  “Gods, no! Call me anything but that.”

  “I
’m confused.”

  “Call me Beam. That should be easy enough, even for you.”

  “It... doesn’t feel right.”

  “Then don’t call me anything. I don’t give a shimlin’s damn what you do.”

  Another traitorous wave of apprehension swelled, but she smothered it in its birth. There was simply no time to submit to it, not now. She watched him for a moment, vying for another tack. He’d barely moved a muscle, but simply knelt there at the feet of the dead Vaemyn with his back to her.

  “We’re not alone,” she said too tentatively, “I want permission to search the—”

  “There’s no one here but us.” He turned his head sidelong toward her, just enough that she could see the profile of his face.

  “Then where did the food come from?”

  He seemed to sigh. She couldn’t be sure. His head turned away from her again.

  She held the apple up as if he could see her. “I have questions.”

  He still didn’t answer, and she was afraid to push him too hard. And yet, in the same breath she feared her lack of understanding even more. It was the not knowing, the blanks in the story that had to be filled before she could feel confident that these strange new convictions she embraced were honorable. She’d been living in one house of lies for far too long now and had no appetite for moving into another.

  “I have questions,” she said again.

  No response.

  “Do you hear me, Beam?”

  The name felt unnatural in her mouth, like saying his mortal name out loud might bring the tragedy of reality flooding back in. This sense of helplessness was maddening. She didn’t know how to proceed and she couldn’t withdraw. In the end decided the only tack available to her was to simply barge forward.

  “You knew this man?” She immediately regretted the obviousness of it. Of course, he knew this man. His reverence was as conspicuous as a bleeding wound.

  The rogue’s shoulders heaved on a deep sigh. “It doesn’t matter,” he said softly.

  Finally! A dialogue!

  “Who are these females?” she said as she studied the women surrounding them on the ledge above, “Why are both Vaemyn and Parhronii mixed here? I can’t detect a pattern in their arrangement.”

  “Please, just go away.”

  She looked at him, at his bare back. “Where would you have me go?”

  “Damn me, take a nap. Get something to eat. Search the cave if it suits you. Just leave us alone.”

  With that, her stomach twisted. Her legs fell unsteady, like the blood had drained out of them. She felt the heat of his pain. His grief clawed its way into her chest, hot and burdensome. It was as tangible as if it were her own. Her breath locked in her chest. He was afraid. He was even more afraid than she was.

  Images germinated in her mind like the wisps of a dream, like reminiscences of a place she may have visited a long time ago, but couldn’t quite identify. The corpse arranged so lovingly before her wasn’t just a fallen warrior or lost kin. This corpse held the core of who Beam was. When he looked down at those long dead bones, he saw himself. Was this the other man from her dreams? The one he seemed to follow through that mysterious land?

  A new voice whispered at the edge of her mind, though she couldn’t identify it. It wasn’t his voice this time, but more like a distant memory. It told her that this dead Vaemyn had passed everything he owned to Beam. They’d shared life. They’d even shared their souls. These women were the dead man’s wives and lovers and daughters, all cherished and lost over more lifetimes than could be counted.

  The new whispering grew louder. It sifted through her mind like dust between planks. It was similar to the trespassing fingers of the rogue and the demon, except there was no malice in the murmurs of this voice, no threat or challenge. Before she could make sense of it, two voices were speaking to her. Then three. Three women, each whispering out of synch with the others.

  The voices grew steadily louder and more numerous. The numbers swelled until there were dozens of souls singing to her. She looked up at the women smiling down on her. It was them! They were the source. These were the muttered words of the dead souls adorning the walls of this wondrous chamber. They were all talking to her now, each filling her mind with images and emotions and memories.

  She looked from one face to the next. This one was Felnara, the love of this dead Vaemyn’s third incarnation. She was a Faen from before the time of Parhron. That one was Xaella, a Vaemyd from his ninth incarnation. That one was Leedra, the daughter of his twenty-third life. They were all here with her now, these and a hundred more, each welcoming her home, each bidding her to join them.

  The voices became overwhelming. She couldn’t hear any of them through the volume of all of them. She felt herself stagger back, felt the apple fall, felt her hands clutching her skull. The room spun wildly. She was going to vomit.

  She dropped to her knees and doubled forward. Bile burned the back of her throat. She couldn’t catch her breath. The voices dragged her down into a dark mire like a goat sinking in quicksand. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.

  The light began to fade.

  A circle of darkness smothered her.

  She was falling and there was nothing to hold onto.

  ∞

  The water was perfectly warm, and heavy with fragrant soap. It felt so soothing against her bare skin, so reassuring, she didn’t want to leave it, not now, not ever. She only wanted to slink back into her pool, to let it consume her, to succumb to its embrace and sleep for the rest of time.

  But the light didn’t care what she wanted. The light compelled her to come to it. The light mercilessly seized her, pulling her up and out of the dream, a doomed fish struggling pointlessly against the hook.

  Koonta opened her eyes.

  The rogue’s face hovered directly above hers, just inches away. She wasn’t in a pool at all, but lying sprawled out on the hard floor. He held her head and shoulders in his lap. And he was smiling.

  This had to be a dream.

  She tried to push herself up, but couldn’t negotiate it. She fell back into his lap. Her head was pulsing dully. “What happened?” Her voice sounded like someone else’s.

  You took a little nap.

  His thoughts felt thick and warm in her head. She again tried to sit up, but another surge of vertigo again compelled her back into his lap.

  “How long?” she asked again.

  How long?

  “How long was I out?”

  “A few minutes,” he said, using his mortal voice now. He carefully stroked the loose hairs back from her forehead. “I expect the voices got to you, yeah?”

  His touch distracted her. The pressure of his fingers felt too real, too intense. She hated it, but she also didn’t want him to stop.

  “The voices?” she asked.

  “The voices. I know how damned irritating they can be. And they don’t much let up, not when you want them to.”

  The memories rushed back in. She understood now. The voices of the dead women. They’d been all in her head, all speaking to her at one time, all chanting their stories to her. The nausea threatened again.

  Beam laid his palm over her brow. “Don’t give in to them. Don’t let them in the room. Just push them back out and close the door. It’s your head, not theirs. They should show more bloody respect.”

  Somehow she did exactly as he asked. She pushed back. The voices dissipated.

  Her head fell back against his thigh. She pushed his hand away from her brow, and again rubbed her eyes with her palm. “What happened to me?” she asked.

  “Relax. It takes a little getting used to.”

  “What does?”

  “The Truesight.”

  His words bounced around her head for a bit, but she couldn’t make sense of them. She was too close to him. His presence was so powerful, it smothered the air from the room. She reluctantly pushed herself upright. She wanted to be as far from him as possible, yet in the same instant,
wanted to just lay there and let him hold her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said as she worked herself to her knees.

  “Neither do I,” he said with a mischievous smile, “I understand everyone’s purpose in this odd company except yours. It’s the one memory Prave conveniently deprived me of. He’s a sneaky old bastard who doesn’t give a good shit whose locks he picks or whose bushes he tramples, so long as he gets his way. And he always gets his way.”

  Another moment cloaked in surrealism. She had the sense of being drugged again, much like when she’d first awakened back in her room. The sensation wasn’t quite so welcome this time. She needed to retake control of herself.

  She again rubbed her eyes, then she looked at him. It was really the first good look she’d gotten of him since awakening back in the Baeldonian tunnels. To her shock, his oteuryns had grown back. Why hadn’t she seen that before? They were longer than any she’d ever seen, looking more like ice crystals than flesh. His face was lightly shadowed where his beard was returning. He’d never looked more like a Dark Vaemyn than now, though his brilliant blue eyes were softer and less threatening than she remembered.

  “I don’t like this,” she whispered, looking away from him.

  He laughed at that. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “I don’t like not understanding.”

  “You will understand. In time.”

  She looked up at the dead women guarding the single circular wall of the great room. They continued speaking to her, though their voices were distant now and more subdued. They’d become more of a gentle infusion of memories than a flood of sound. All the same, it was becoming more than a little annoying.

  She saw that he held her apple. “What is all this? What have you done to me?”

  “I’ve done nothing,” he said as he considered the fruit in his hand, “Believe me, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

  “Don’t amuse yourself with me. Tell me the truth.”

  “You already know the truth.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “You know what’s necessary, at least for now. Anything else you need will come at the pleasure of memory.”