The sun. The sun. The Sun. The SUN. SUN. SUN! Birds screamed overhead as they took flight.
A voice close to his ear whispered, It is the way.
Icaeph nodded his head in agreement and stood watching the sunrise even as every rock and pebble and cricket screamed for him to retreat into the darkness of the cave.
He had always been the last to retreat from the sun.
19 LOST
There was no peace. The world screamed at her from every turn. She tried to ignore it all but the incessant buzz of it all grew and grew until she covered her ears to shut it out. She had tried to stay with the deer as a host. Actively trying to deny what her instinct told her, drove her to do. She willed herself to die, to be free, to hear silence for once. What was that like? Silence? Stillness? No need driving her to change, to move, to manipulate, to molest the surrounding timeline. What was it to not crave destruction of everything? Did peace exist?
She did not remember before. Had she always been this ethereal thing that floated from host to host?
She did not remember her name. Her only name was her need to manipulate time. The Manipulator. She had always been; she thought. Or did she have a name before? What was before?
She thought of herself as she. It was the only image she had. Had she believed one of her own lies for so many thousands of winters that it had become true or near enough to the truth.
Not one to think ahead or dwell on the past, the next need to destroy would abolish this short-lived moment of introspection.
The sun was high. It tried to take the chill off of the damp air, but failed.
Her host body—now mostly useless and failing of energy already—sat listless against a stone karst. The uneven rocks bit into her host’s shoulders and back. She accepted the pain, using it to keep her mind focused, if only to simply prove she still existed.
20 EXHAUSTION
Aithagg was unsure how far he had syncing in the night to stay away from the sun. He trudged through the swamps; the snakes avoiding him as he sloshed through. The mud sucked greedily at his rawhide sandals. The sandals did little to protect his feet where everything tried to rip at the skin. While animals ignored the Vechey, the undergrowth was less discerning.
The air was humid and damp while still being cold. His already chilled body did not experience the cold as much as a Linear would.
Aithagg stopped in mid-stride and looked over his shoulder. He wondered where Catha was. Had his past self saved her? How would he know when time had changed? Dreams perhaps. When time changed, Linears recalled the adjustments in dream fragments. Perhaps it was true for Vechey. He realized there were many things he had not learned, had not grasped the entirety of, or mostly not known to ask the questions just yet.
A week of main-time later the soggy ground gave way to rockier ground with slopes and slight hills. He trudged through open grass fields and dense pine forests. The recent retreating ice and frost from his youth receded and there was more rainfall now. It splattered his cheeks and drenched his clothing. He had slipped into main-time and out of his frozen-time for the rain to fall on him. Exhausted, he did not care. He stumbled into a stream before even realizing it was there. It gurgled about him as he bent on hands and knees and drank deeply. Even as the water quenched his thirst, the running water pulled precious energy from him.
He collapsed face first into the water and with all of his might pulled his body to the shoreline. One limb at a time he hauled himself from the peacefully menacing water and laid himself upon the shore. In the darkness, he saw misty visions of himself through the trees. Was he going in circles? Or was he slipping in and out of time throughout the night? More than likely, it was both. He knew he had not crossed this water before. He didn’t remember crossing this water before. His hunger was so strong, he was becoming delirious.
Aithagg eyed the fish in the water and supposed they might serve as food but lacked the energy to test his theory.
He lay and watched the stars as they spun across the sky. What would a lifespan of thousands of years be like? How much further did he need to go before he could sync into his place and rest? Then he might gain a grasp on staying in this frozen-time of his and begin testing his abilities.
Guilt hit him as he realized he was planning a life without Catha. Was he a coward for not trying harder to save her and pawning it off on his previous self? No one would live if he let himself fall asleep now. He could go back. He had all of time, Aithagg reminded himself.
The water babbled quietly. He knew he was synced in a time and he should go back to his own frozen moment. There he would be safe from predators and such, though they were not a large problem—they might cause harm. If given a warm-blooded Linear versus a cold-blooded Vechey who did not exhale—the predators usually chose a Linear.
If there was a tribe of Linears nearby Aithagg could feed and would be stronger for his trip. He sensed none.
A noise caught his attention: slow, heavy footsteps. A large animal. Aithagg began to rise and shift into his frozen-time, what he was thinking of as safe-time. The sound was close and before he completed his thought of shifting a large bear came into view and approached Aithagg’s supine body hear the water’s edge.
Aithagg watched as the bear seemed unconcerned with the Vechey’s presence and instead lowered his head to drink. The water rippled about the bear’s paws and left droplets on his fur as it splashed. Heavy and slow, the bear walked through the water and stood next to Aithagg. It pawed at the ground a moment then laid down and with a heavy sigh, went to sleep. It was easily as tall as Aithagg and its shoulders were massive. It fell into a deep sleep, its breath rhythmic and slow.
Taken by complete surprise, Aithagg did not at first react. He blinked and stared at the back of the bear with its matted fur. Leaves, sticks, and perhaps something—Aithagg decided best left unobserved, as it seemed repugnant—covered the massive back.
An obvious food source and Aithagg was unmoving, too exhausted to react. He quietly raised himself to his knees and considered where best to feed from the hulk in front of him. He aimed for the neck wanting to be the farthest from the bear’s claws. Be plunged his teeth in and fed. The blood was bitter but sated his hunger. Strength filled Aithagg’s body. The bear slumbered on and never stirred.
Aithagg slipped into his safe-time and cared to not think about how the bear came to find him and sleep near him at this moment. Only briefly did he wonder at Eterili’s earlier comment: she took the shape she wished to make the universe what she required. Could she take the shape of a bear? Or inhabit a bear like a Manipulator did? To preserve his sanity, Aithagg chose to not think on it. He accepted the event as it was and focused on moving forward towards the place that would become his home. He did not know where it was or how far he had left to go. The sooner he got there and rested the sooner he could return to save Catha or find out if his previous self had already saved Catha. He had to move.
The air became less humid. Even in his frozen-time the air had grown slightly cooler. The ground became steeper. Mountains appeared in the distance. There he would find water-carved dark caves in the stone. Was this where he was to go?
He would find a home there, he hoped, and soon.
21 THE WAY
Eterili stood and waited. She kept the balance, tipping the scales this way and then that so the Vechey continued forward and maintained the timeline, harboring her secrets through eternity.
It was the way.
Her way.
The way she had designed over hundreds of thousands of years. Though she had been born many times, she remembered all of her lives. Many were short lived. She would return over and over into this world, this time, this universe, each time remembering her lives before. This c
urrent life was the one in which she had done most of her work, maintaining the timeline to be her way.
In this life, she had traveled the continents when they were nearly one mass. She and her siblings had emerged from her tribe as ones who experienced time differently than all others. When she had been born the nights were long. She realized from observing her siblings die painful deaths in their teens, she would be unable to walk in the day when she reached maturity. The tribe cast her and her mother out. They retreated to a northern cave alone.
Eterili did not blame the tribe. They were limited in mind and understanding. Her mother did not understand what Eterili or her siblings were and died a Linear’s death in a cold, ice-covered cave.
The day Eterili discovered her ability to endure the sun was the day her Linear mother had died. They hid in the ice-cave as she became a teen and Eterili scavenged food for her mother during the evening. She watched her mother waste away, nothing more than a heap of bones and skin piled on a fur. Eterili, when she was young, watched her older siblings become intolerant of the sun. One by one, they had grown weak and hid indoors from the daylight. They had not been as strong as her, had not spoken or become aware as early as her. They were Linears in Eterili’s eyes and she had learned from their mistakes. They were Linears with Vechey traits, that was all. Before Eterili and her mother had found the ice-cave, all the siblings one by one had walked into the sun and died. At first, they had burned darkly. Their skin split. Her mother tried to sooth their pains. They spoke nonsense, as if to spirits around them. Eterili, who even at a young age, saw through time and knew there was nothing there. They had gone mad. She took their teeth when they had died and created her anklet of teeth. From previous lives she knew who she was and how she needed to feed. Her siblings and mother were her primary food source, though they were none the wiser. She sat in the cave alone, after her mother’s death and pondered what to do next. She had grown used to waiting. Eterili sat in the shadows of the cave watching the daylight outside. With a soft thump, a clump of snow and ice fell from the opening of the cave. This allowed the sun to penetrate the darkness and fall upon Eterili’s arm. She stared at it fascinated. Her traits and strengths varied from life to life, but this version of her life was unusual. Stronger.
Eterili left the blood-drained body of her mother there in the cave and traveled further north and through the ice. She sought shelter in caves as she met others hoping to find someone of her kind. She found none at first. She had watched the world change and move, migrate and die. Eterili continued to move north and then west through the lands. She found one other like her—not as strong but stronger than her siblings had been. The woman showed the signs of being what Eterili would later name Vechey. However, the clan had badly hurt the woman for being different. Beaten until she could barely walk, they left her by the shoreline in a sea-cave. She would not join Eterili on her journey. Like her mother, Eterili left the bent woman, drained of blood. She had not even struggled.
Eterili migrated for thousands of winters. She had slept for another thousands of winters under the ice. She had called the Vechey from every corner of the globe to join her and they did. She honed over years the methods for teaching the Vechey, for giving them a purpose, and she understood the balance needed for the Vechey to continue to exist. She drew strength from them and the world continued in the timeline she liked the most. All followed the way and it was good.
***
Icaeph waited for the sun. It was blinding in its energy and heat as it became visible in the sky. The heat seared at his skin as the intensity of all the energy that had ever been visible in that one place throughout time became visible to Icaeph. He cringed and fell back into the dark of the cave; its coolness was welcoming.
Sweating blood and panting like a Linear, he sank to the floor just out of the sun’s reach. He saw the blue sky and the sunlight from the cave entrance. It was brilliant, horrible, deadly.
An anguished scream erupted from him and left him depleted.
***
Aithagg strolled through the valley and watched the full moon of his frozen-time. It did not change. The stillness was unnerving. In main-time the sun was rising. It pulled at his energy and sat as heavy as the universe on his shoulders. He pushed one foot forward and kept moving towards something—some place. He thought it might be close. The valley stretched in front of him. A waterfall gushed from the side of the rock bluff. It fell in a frozen splash into a small stream. Aithagg synced with main-time a thousand years in the future from his frozen-time. He drank from the clean water there. He looked at the waterfall falling from the rocks. There would be cave systems close by. He knew he was close. Perhaps it would take another sun and moon of main-time or even just when the moon rose and he would be there—his home. He would rest and complete his ritual. Then he would return to find Catha and risk changing the timeline, Eterili forbid it, to bring her here.
***
The Manipulator rested in her host, nearly dead against the rock wall. The water from the nearby waterfall splashed and the stream gurgled. She drank here to keep the host alive, but it was failing and dying. There was a small tribe at the far end of this valley. She should try to make it there and inhabit a fresh host. Unable to muster the desire, she stared blankly at nothing. In her vision the world was a sickening green, everything in the timeline was correct and she had not changed or manipulated anything as of late. To do so would have caused oranges and reds or at least yellow smears to cross her colored vision of the world. Oh, the ecstasy of those moments. The chaos and entropy of it all. None of that existed now. Only green. Only peace. Boring, plain, nothingness.
She loathed this universe, this timeline, and wished for enough desire to destroy it. Her host stirred slightly and twitched. She would have to leave it soon and find another host as she had thousands of times before. Having misjudged how much to push this host, she had let it come to die without having a suitable replacement nearby. Her failing eyesight and hearing barely registered someone walking and drinking at the stream until they were standing near her.
A man, tall, with long curly hair stood in front of her and looked at the valley. He did not see her. He did not notice the dying Linear with its evil host leaning against the rock wall. Her breathing hitched and she struggled to catch a breath in her fluid filled lungs.
If she killed this host now, she could inhabit this new host that stood in front of her. He looked exhausted but strong. Very strong. Too strong. She blinked and tried to focus her vision, which was like looking through a tunnel. He had appeared out of thin air, had he not? He was a Vechey. Just like the one she had tormented for these eons. A Vechey. She found new strength and roused the host’s body for one final push. What a strong and amazing host a Vechey’s body would be. She stumbled forward and the host’s body let out a low growl.
***
Unaware of the Manipulator shambling behind him, Aithagg pressed forward. He walked from the streambed and followed the base of the rock hillside. It bent to the left and he followed. Large rock outcroppings marred the terrain. Occasionally through time he glimpsed ghosts of Linears as they walked this way in the future. There must be a pass at the end of the valley in front of him. He continued to branch left into a smaller cove.
He found a smaller stream and decided to not cross it. Aithagg stood and surveyed the length of the cove where the stream continued. Hunger pains stabbed at him. He would need to feed soon. He urgently needed to rest. His eyes drooped and his feet moved like solid rock. The ache to move forward pulled at him like an invisible hand. He walked along the stream and went deeper into the cove.
***
Eterili approached the cave entrance and looked at Icaeph sprawled upon the ground just out of reach of the sun. He blinked at her, not recognizing her face at first. Or perhaps not realizing she was not somet
hing conjured by his mad brain.
Icaeph was transfixed then jerked, his limbs twitching with the effort of him trying to speak. “Eterili,” he whispered.
She clicked her tongue at him and placed a hand upon his shoulder.
He babbled something incoherent and pointed at the sunlight streaming in around her. “Sun,” he croaked. He spoke in an ancient language learned from an elder.
Icaeph barely remembered the elder—a stooped, dark-skinned, wide-jawed elder who had come from a very far land, even further than Eterili. Icaeph, as his mind had degraded, had taken to speaking with the imagined elder in his ancient language.
“Yindi,” he said again, in this old language the word meant sun.
She clicked her tongue at him again. “I release you from this place.” She squatted near him and her knees popped loudly. “Go now to your next circle.”
Icaeph was incoherent and his eyes rolled back showing only the whites. He mumbled, “Yindi,” once more and stilled.
Eterili grabbed his skull with both of her hands in a strong grasp. Icaeph’s eyes popped open, wide and startled. He started to scream. No words came out—only a garbled cry. She held his head tightly; the flesh indented under her fingers. Eterili removed a hand from Icaeph’s head and deftly took the anklet from her foot and plunged the many fangs into his wide eyes. His screams echoed into nowhere. They had slipped into his frozen-time and the blood oozing from his wounds sprayed up as if gravity had less effect on them. The blood drenched both Eterili and the sixth lost child of Iskeho and Kei-tha.
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