by Kara Timmins
“I wasn’t good to my family,” he said.
Eloy looked up, surprised.
Timyr stared down at the fish. “I was young, but that’s no excuse. You’re young, though you’re older than I was when I left. I was angry. I don’t even know what I was so angry about. I mean, I know my reasons, but that wasn’t it. Not really.
“I was just . . . angry. All the time. I was mad at all three of them. They didn’t even have to do anything. And I left angry. And then time passed and more life happened and I became enough of a different person that I could see the young man I was as a stranger. I didn’t like that young man. I didn’t want to be anything like him, not even a little bit. So I figured out other ways to be.
“Then I ended up here, alone, and being upset about things made even less sense than it did before. When I started feeling that rage again, I didn’t want to let it go. Like that aggression was an important part of me that I had forgotten about. It felt good to be angry at you. For a moment, anyway. But the things I said . . . the things I did . . .” He took the cooked fish off the fire.
“I know,” Eloy said.
“I know you know, but I still need to say it. That wasn’t me. Not at the end. None of that was me. I wouldn’t do that, and not just because you’re the only link to my family I’ll ever have again. Even though that part makes it all worse. But I wouldn’t do that because you’re a good man, probably a great man, from what I’ve gathered. You’ve become someone who I want to see safe.” Timyr looked down and rubbed a hand through his beard.
“Thank you, Timyr. Even if I didn’t hear the Omnacom say he did it, I would believe you. I knew it when it was happening. It’s done. The Omnacom saw your memories and regret and played on it. I think Vivene fought for you and what the Omnacom did to you more than she did it to save my life.”
“I’m not so sure.” Timyr scratched under her chin. “She’s pretty fond of you.”
“Saying I’m fond of her wouldn’t do it justice.” Eloy put a lump of steaming fish in his mouth and his stomach cramped, eager for more.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Timyr asked, pointing to his throat.
“Should be fine. I’ll try to keep it short.”
“Okay, stop when you need to. You’ve got one hell of a bruise around your neck. All kinds of colors.”
“I believe it,” Eloy said.
Eloy started the story with going down the slope after the fight, roaming around the endless night, and ended with his fight against the Omnacom and Vivene’s rescue. Timyr stared into the fire, nodding to himself, for a while after Eloy finished the story. Eloy drank the water in his pouch for as many gulps as the ache in his throat would allow.
“Why was this Omnacom damaging the forest?” Timyr asked.
“I don’t know,” Eloy said. “It didn’t say. Maybe it was eating, draining the life from this place. Maybe it did it because it could.”
“What happened to the other two?”
“The other two?”
“You said the Omnacom was from the story I told, the one my parents told me. There were three.”
“It didn’t say.”
“It makes me sad my parent’s story has to end this way. I know they wouldn’t have wanted this for it. I hope the other two are different. Better.”
“Me too. But they may come for vengeance no matter where they are.”
“If they are, I don’t sense them here now.”
“I don’t know how I know, but I do feel this is the end of it. I think a part of me knew the issue wasn’t over even after I left the battle with the Vaylars. But I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“How could you?”
“You’re right. There’s no way I could have anticipated going up against something like that.” Eloy didn’t want to think about the Omnacom anymore: its sweet forest smell, its promises of death, its black eyes.
“Are you going to be ready to keep going tomorrow?” Timyr asked.
“The Omnacom said Malatic isn’t doing well.”
“That’s not new.”
“We should go back for him.”
“With what? The plan was to find something to help him. We haven’t done that.”
“I picked up some things.” Eloy could hear the lack of faith in his voice.
“I’ll look through them. Maybe you’ve got something, but it’s up to you to keep looking for the things I went over with Neasa. Things I’m sure you haven’t found. What do you want to do?”
Eloy thought about it. He didn’t want to move, maybe ever again. He thought of Malatic somewhere behind him and wondered if he was still alive. Eloy felt done, depleted in every way. Beaten. Tired. He wanted to sleep, long enough that the forest floor would grow over him and all expectation would fall away. The guilt would grow up like a vine out of him and die. It would all be done.
“We’re close?” Eloy asked, barely above a whisper.
“We could be at the rock in two days. That’s two days to look for something to help Malatic too.”
Two days. The end was so close. Eloy wrapped his fingers around the stone, careful now not to put too much strain on the crude knot at the nape of his neck. It was warm in his hand.
“So?” Timyr asked.
Eloy sighed. “I’ll keep going.”
58
Eloy took the first watch as Timyr slept with Vivene tucked under his chin, and marveled in his new appreciation of having someone to share his burden. When his watch was done, he fell asleep as soon as he laid his head on the ground.
This time, Eloy didn’t sleep through the next day. His awareness came back to him long before he opened his eyes. He knew the smell of morning. It smelled like Neasa. He squeezed his eyes against the sting.
I’m close, he told himself as he opened his eyes and lifted himself up.
“I got everything packed up and ready,” Timyr said. “We can eat as we move.”
Eloy went through his morning necessities, and in what seemed like little more than a blink, he was standing next to Timyr at the decline again.
“We should go around,” Timyr said.
Eloy looked over at Timyr’s smirking profile.
“Kidding,” Timyr said. “Ready?”
He wasn’t, but he started down anyway. He hated having to walk the same taxing path twice, but more than anything, he didn’t want to have to look at what was waiting, bisected and dead, at the bottom.
“You like stories, right?” Timyr asked.
Eloy started down the hill. “I’m not sure I’m up for another story.”
“Nothing like the one from before. Though I barely remember that one.”
Timyr was a few steps behind Eloy. Both took their steps carefully on the slope. Eloy marveled that he had run down it before.
“I wouldn’t mind a story,” Eloy said.
“Okay, here it goes.” Timyr sucked in a preparatory breath. “So once there was this kid, right? Never listened to his elders, as kids do. And this kid liked to stray from his mother and explore out in the wilderness. Once she figured out there was no way to keep the kid close, she settled for giving him just a few simple rules. She said, ‘Scott—’”
“Scott?” Eloy said. “Seems like a strange name.”
“Definitely. So she says, ‘Scott, you can go out to play, but you stay away from the neighbor’s cherry trees. They work hard for that fruit, and they don’t need you plucking away at them.’ So Scott says, ‘Of course, Mother, I would never. They work so hard. I see them.’ Which was enough for his mother, and she always let him go.
“You’re probably seeing where this is going, given you were once a young man yourself not too long ago.”
“Not so recently,” Eloy said with a sigh.
“So, one day in summer, Scott wanders over to the cherry trees, and they a
re just bursting with ripe red fruit. And he thinks to himself, what’s the harm? They’re not going to miss a few cherries. And that Scott set himself right down under one of those trees and popped cherry after cherry into his mouth for the whole of the day. And the day kept getting hotter, so those cherries kept tasting better and better. By afternoon his stomach was too round and full of fruit to rest any of the cherries on his belly.
“And then there was a rumble. A deep down rumble, and he knew the damage was done. He gets himself up from the ground real careful, and as soon as he does it, he knows he doesn’t have much time. He hurries to the neighbors’ and waddle-runs to their squatting hut. And boy is it hot in there, but he doesn’t care. Little man Scott pulls down his britches and sits right down on the rim of an iron bathroom pot. And that poor boy shoots straight back up to standing, the heat of the day making it hot as a fire. So he runs back home, his rounded belly out front, his back tucked tight. And wouldn’t you know it, his own bathroom hut is just as hot. So you see how this story ends, right?”
Eloy shook his head.
“Scott sought a not hot wrought pot to squat as he fought the trot.” Timyr almost lost his footing as he tipped his head back in a laugh.
Eloy couldn’t help to laugh with him. “Why didn’t he just go in the forest?”
“Because not everyone is as used to living in the wilderness as wild men like us, I guess. I don’t know. It’s a joke. Midash and I used to think that was the funniest thing when we were little. My dad would tell it all the time. It always made us laugh. My mom hated it though, which just made us love it more.”
“It’s a good one,” Eloy said, still smiling.
They were almost as the bottom of the hill, and as he thought about what they were about to face, his smile faded away. Timyr’s story had lasted almost the whole way down, saving Eloy from having to dwell on the difficulty of the trip. A gift.
As soon as the ground under their feet leveled, Eloy caught the smell of death. The aroma wasn’t out of place; the fumes of the dead were as common to the forest as the sound of birds. But this smell didn’t belong. Timyr seemed to smell it too, and maybe he was aware of it on a different level, sensing it with his strange ability. Eloy thought about asking him but kept silent, deciding that he didn’t want to know.
“Listen.” Timyr stopped and pivoted to face Eloy. “We could go around it. It wouldn’t be so out of the way. If you want to do that, I understand. But, and I’m not proud to say this, I have to see this thing. I’ve sensed it for so long, and I’ve seen what it’s done to this forest. Maybe if you hadn’t already seen me at my worst, I wouldn’t be saying this, but there’s no bashfulness between us now. I have to see it.”
“I understand. I suppose if I were only going off a description I would want to see it too.”
“Do you want to go around and meet me?” Timyr asked.
Eloy shook his head. “It’s better if we stay together.”
“You sure?”
Eloy walked forward. “It’s fine.”
Eloy saw it first: the shock of white against the warming green of the ground looked out of place. With every step, his hold on reality moved away from him. He walked in a wide arch, watching as Timyr passed him and walked straight.
Timyr crouched down next to the Omnacom. “If you hadn’t told me this just happened, I would think it had been dead for at least several days. The way this thing held life wasn’t like we know it.”
Curiosity brought Eloy closer. The edges around the cut at the Omnacom’s waist was dry and curling in toward the dehydrated black cave of its core. A few flies hummed around. Its black eyes, which had shone even after death, were now dull, shrunken, withered like wasted, forgotten fruit.
“You okay?” Eloy asked.
“I didn’t expect it, but I can’t help but think of my mom. She cared about this creature. She risked her life to make sure it was okay. Its own mother died to give it life. It’s sad. Sad it had to end this way.”
Eloy hung his head and nodded.
Timyr stood up. “It is what it is. Wish it could have been different, for the forest, for my mother. Glad she doesn’t have to know about this. The forest can get on now with what it does, moving forward and changing. You ready to go on?”
Eloy didn’t need to say he was. He walked forward into a strange part of the forest. And just as the smell of decay fell away behind him, a sound of renewal reached his ears: the sound of rain.
59
“It’s just a little more to the left there,” Timyr said, pointing through the trees.
They had walked through part of the night, the unspoken need to get far away from the Omnacom extra motivation to keep moving even though the sun had left them behind for the day. Though tired, they started again early in the morning. Vivene spent most of her time close to Timyr’s neck or tucked in the hammock across his chest.
“She’s okay,” Timyr assured Eloy. “She’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing to get better. She’s doing what you should be doing.”
Eloy nodded. “Not until I find something to help Malatic, reach the rock, and figure out how to get all of us back across the sea.” He sighed.
“One thing at a time,” Timyr said.
“One thing at a time,” Eloy agreed.
The sound of falling rain was getting closer. Eloy could smell its earthy mix as it hit the rock and mud, but he couldn’t feel it. He parted a thicket of young trees and the view ahead was clear.
The black rock reached high into the sky, capped with the swirling rainclouds he had seen weeks earlier up in the tree by the coast. Finally, after so long, this juxtaposition with its unmoving stone base and its fluid, revolving top stood waiting, expectant, patient in front of him.
The rock was at least a full day of walking ahead, and Eloy was eager to reach it, but he couldn’t convince himself to move. The air blew around him in cool ribbons, the mist of the cloud in its tendrils. The sight was perfect. The pain in his knees, throat, and muscles fell away, as if the cool wind had licked his wounds clean.
He closed his eyes and breathed it in, filling his lungs with clean, open air. He hadn’t realized how suffocating the dense forest had become. Being in an open plain felt as free as the dream of flying. Somewhere along the way, the trees had become bars, a prison he didn’t know he was locking himself into. Just for the moment, he wanted to live in this feeling of pleasure. He knew the other thoughts of shame and loss would trickle back in as soon as he started moving; the weight was already pressing in to reclaim its place in his chest. But he pushed it off.
Just a moment longer.
With his eyes still closed, he took a long, slow breath through his nose and let it out. He opened his eyes and looked at the monolith, condensing the last bit of resolve left in him.
There was only a short distance to cross, and he was ready to end it.
60
The area around the rock was mostly grasslands, and almost everywhere Eloy and Timyr looked showed signs of the Omnacom. The strange creature had spent quite a bit of time roaming the area, just as Timyr had said, looking for a way in. Large splotches of grass lay broken and brown, sucked of its life for what Eloy could only assume to be the Omnacom’s own survival.
The two men crossed through a large patch of it, the dry blades crunching under their feet. The stiff stalks of grass rattled together in the breeze. As Eloy looked closer, he saw little spikes of vibrant green poking up through the surface of the ground. He thought back to walking through the charred forest on his way to Valia with Critiko and smiled. It’s the cycle of things, Critiko had said. This land wasn’t made for what had happened to it like the forest on the way to Valia had been, but it seemed to be just as resilient. A part of Eloy lifted.
The black monolith seemed to grow with every step. The falling rain was starting to sound more like a waterfall that the gentle rainfa
ll it appeared to be. The aroma was primal—earthy and metallic as the water ran over the surface of the porous black rock.
“It sure is something,” Timyr said, looking up at it.
“Do you sense anything about it? Anything that’s clearer now that you’re closer?”
“It’s different than anything I’ve known. It’s not the same as the rock we saw before, even if it looks the same.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure yet. Do you have any idea what to do once we get up there?”
Eloy shook his head. “I’ve been going off my gut feeling up until now hoping this was what I’ve been looking for.”
“This is it, all right,” Timyr said. “Either that, or this is some other oddity at the end of someone else’s journey.”
“You kid, but I’ve been surprised before.”
“I don’t think you will be this time. This is meant for you. I can sense it in the stone around your neck just as much as the Omnacom did.”
Eloy grunted, but it was a relief to hear Timyr say it. Even if he knew in his own core that he was in the right place, he appreciated the extra confirmation.
“You want to stop for the night?” Timyr asked.
Eloy didn’t, but he nodded, as if his tired body took the lead and answered.
The two men cleared one of the dry areas and made a little fire. They didn’t talk much—Eloy didn’t ask for a story and Timyr didn’t offer one. The breeze churned, and the cloud over the towering black stone dumped its rain, but the night wasn’t cold. Eloy lay on his back and looked up at the dark outline of the stone in the dark, blocking out the flashing stars, like a watchful father over a sleeping child.
A thought occurred to him: the man he was now would be different, maybe gone entirely, tomorrow. Something was going to happen when he got to the rock. He didn’t know what, but it would change him. For good or bad, he didn’t know, but everything would be different.