Maelich accepted the cup and gave it a sip. It had a berry flavor with a bit of a boozy finish, “That is nice. What is it?”
“My own recipe. I call it flower of the sunburnt soul. Something like the ale you are accustomed to in the north, but I brew it with berries. Not much grows out here, but these exceptionally hearty berries grow in thick shrubs near the river. They are the very same berries the Shaiwah use to paint their bodies and protect them from the blistering sun,” Maulom took a good long drink and then asked, “Now, tell me what is it that troubles you?”
Maelich set his cup down and pulled the meat from his spit. It was hot on his fingers. He had taken to cooking the meat a little long after getting a sour stomach from a batch he failed to heat sufficiently. He placed the meat on a fired clay dish and set it to the side to cool. Then he took another sip of Maulom’s flower of the sunburnt soul and said, “Nothing I can really give a name to, visions mostly, stirrings, like the beginning of an idea that has yet to fully form.”
“That black horse put those things in your head,” Maulom scoffed.
Maelich shrugged, “That is when these feelings, or whatever they are, began. The thing troubling me so is they feel like they belong, like they have always been, not something that was shoved in there by some other being. They feel like memories begging to be recalled.”
“Forget all that,” Maulom waved the idea off as if he were swatting a pest. “That black horse is nothing but a witch. These feelings you are having are merely ghosts of ideas seeping up from kernels she has planted in your subconscious. They brew there, leaking their essence and making you believe they belong to you.”
“You seem to know much about how the conscious mind and the subconscious mind work together. I do not. All I am certain of is the face she showed me looked familiar to me. I cannot explain why, but I even had a name to go with that familiar face. It felt like home. If what you say is true, how could these kernels you suggest have time to leak their anything into my conscious mind if she only appeared to me just then?” Maelich remained skeptical.
Maulom flashed a condescending smile, “Time moves differently in the subconscious. A lifetime to the conscious mind can be less than a moment in the subconscious, and the exact reverse is equally true. Though tethered, the two are as different as the darkest night and the brightest day.”
Maelich’s focus shifted to the chukwoka which had finally cooled enough to eat. He bit a chunk off and chased it with some of Maulom’s home brew. It was a nice accompaniment. The berry on the front side somehow brought a bit of flavor out of the bland meat.
After a few moments of silence interrupted only by the sounds of Maelich eating, Maulom finally picked the conversation back up, “Do not fret over the black horse or the things she put in your head. Leave her to me. You need to focus on your people. Ymitoth may be more proficient at training men to be soldiers, but you are their leader, Maelich. They need to see you among them, toiling beside them in the hot sun. It lifts their spirits.”
Maelich finished slurping all the meat off the bone he had been chewing from and drained his cup. He tossed the bone into the fire and held his cup out to Maulom for a refill. Maulom obliged the silent request. After another healthy drink, Maelich finally replied, “Wise counsel. I will spend the day training with them tomorrow.”
“Very well,” Maulom smiled. “Your presence shall raise them up from the dust beneath their feet to the cloudless skies above them. Now, we need to discuss crossing the cracked land. The time has come.”
The fire blazed with fresh life as Maelich poked at the smoldering embers with a stick. Shadows retreated deeper into the cave in the face of the flickering flames. Once satisfied with the blaze, Maelich looked back at Maulom and said, “They are not ready.”
“Though I understand your concern, on that point we disagree. I believe they are more than prepared, and you may continue training them during our journey,” Maulom countered. After draining and refilling his cup he added, “There is another concern you must consider.”
“What is that?” Maelich asked.
“It is an omen,” the old man smiled. “Walk with me.”
Maelich followed the old man out of the cave. He still found it peculiar how clean he was able to keep his bright white clothing. The land surrounding them within the caves and for miles in every direction surrounding the stony peaks was dirt upon dirt. Maulom’s impeccable clothing, his close-cropped white hair and beard, even the odd white coverings he wore upon his feet, all of it was impossibly clean.
The cracked, sandy ground was blinding compared to the darkness of the cave. Maelich had to shade his eyes. The heat was overbearing. It was like a weight sitting on his chest, a heavy thing that made it hard to breathe. As Maelich’s eyes slowly grew accustomed to the brightness of the world around him, Maulom tapped his shoulder and pointed toward the clear blue sky.
“Look there, Maelich,” the old man said. “That is a total eclipse.”
“That is our signal to begin,” Maelich recalled from the story painted along the walls of the cave.
“Precisely,” Maulom agreed. “The Shaiwah must depart to reclaim their stolen lands with the light of a new day, and you must lead them.”
Maelich watched Maulom as he walked off toward a group of Shaiwah working through sword techniques. Ding was leading the group. He had proven a quick study and earned Ymitoth’s favor. He became so proficient that the grizzled old soldier from Havenstahl trusted him to assist in training the others. A wide smile spread across Maelich’s face. He knew how much the honor meant to Ding.
“With the light of a new day, then?” Ymitoth’s sudden presence startled Maelich enough to make him jump.
“You nearly scared my soul right to the Lake,” Maelich put his hand on his chest and felt his heart racing beneath it. “Why are you sneaking around.”
Ymitoth shrugged, “I ain’t sneaking anywhere. You’ve been distracted. What drags your attention away from the duty of training them men?”
“Many things,” Maelich conceded. “The black horse in my dream, that face she showed me, Maulom and his confusing ways, I am unsure what to make of anything anymore. Maulom knows the black horse. He said she is a witch.”
Ymitoth scratched his head, gazed at Maelich with black, dead eyes, and said, “I ain’t a wise man, but if that black horse is a witch, what does that make him? Ain’t it he met you in your dreams just the same as her?”
Maelich did not respond. He simply nodded and walked back into the cool dark of the cave. Ymitoth’s point was well taken. Maulom was at least as great a mystery as the black horse. Hopefully, getting back to the trail would get his mind off them both.
Chapter 29
Where the Maps Don’t Go
Time is imaginary, a method for gauging the movement of celestial bodies through the heavens while tracking movement through the physical in a linear fashion, or at least a fluid concept impacted by an endless flood of factors. A year is an eternity to a child but a blink of an eye to an old man. Anticipation can make a day drag while deep engagement will send it sailing by. A few days lazing about the Lake surrounded by Dragons, serenity, and a peace so immersive and complete things like fear or concern shrink, shuffled to the farthest, darkest spaces of consciousness they cannot help but be ignored without actively being sought out for contemplation had Perrin nearly forgetting her mission. She might have forgotten completely had a quiet anxiousness not whispered, “Where is Geillan?” from somewhere in the back of her mind. Suddenly, the few days she had spent surrounded by the tranquility of the Lake seemed an eternity and her mission once again as urgent as it had been prior to meeting Dragons.
Perrin had been softly dragging her hand across Lameah’s scales. They felt different than she expected. Instead of the rough scrape suggested by their appearance, they were smooth, almost soft to the touch. Once the quiet anxiousness whispering from deep in the back of her consciousness had fully grabbed hold of her attention and become a
thing she could no longer ignore, she stopped petting Lameah’s arm, looked up at the Dragon, and nearly shouted, “How can I lounge in comfort and peace while my baby boy is locked away somewhere? I must speak with Helias immediately.”
Lameah’s smile was sweet as she replied, “Of course, my dear. Your mission is urgent, and you will not be swayed from your great purpose. I sense all of that from you. She is there as always, beautiful in the rays of the rising sun.”
Perrin stood and stretched to gently kiss the Dragon’s face. She felt so much love in her heart it was nearly overwhelming. She wanted to hold Lameah and all the Dragons close, never letting them go. Nothing had ever made her feel that way before, not Maelich, not even sweet Geillan. Of course, Dragons were born of love. They were love. It oozed from their scales, surrounded everything and overwhelmed callous things like malice, fear, hate, and all negativity. “Thank you, sweet sister,” Perrin finally said. “May I call you sister?”
“Of course,” a tear rimmed Lameah’s eyelid before moistening her cheek, “we are all your sisters. As all things, you are one with us and always have a home within our hearts.”
It was difficult to comprehend why anyone would leave a place so perfect, how anyone who had felt what she was feeling just then could bring themselves to abandoned it, but Geillan, her perfect babe, needed to be found. She could never have complete joy, never fully submit to the peace surrounding her as long as that voice, that anxiousness, beckoned from the back of her mind. She looked to Helias, the great mother, love begotten of love, queen of Dragons and began the short journey.
The spot Perrin had been lounging with Lameah was a few hundred yards from the Lake. It was not long before her toes were sinking into the cool sand. Something compelled her to remove her boots and feel everything she could about the place. The Lake had always been a legend. Of course, Maelich had told her everything about it, and Cialia had recounted the same, but until she saw it for herself, experienced all the things those two had described, her perception of the place was built from the experiences of others. Her ideas up to that point had been borrowed. Now they were her own. She would probably never make it back there. She needed to experience all of it herself to form memories strong enough to never fade.
Across the Lake, Helias perched atop a stony peak. Larger and even more magnificent than all her sisters, the queen of Dragons was a sight. Beholding her was like looking into the blazing sun. Perrin only managed a few moments before her eyes quickly darted away. There was no pain, more of an emotion. Witnessing such monumental glory made her feel small and unworthy. The great mother was perfection, the first born from the Lake. Everything which came after was somehow less. Of course, Helias would say the feeling was nonsense, all were connected to Coeptus and equal in all ways. In that moment of wonderful torture, Perrin knew that was humility on Helias’ part. She was perfection.
The Lake offered no respite. An enigma which would take one hundred lifetimes to truly understand, it was at least as difficult to behold as the Dragon. As Perrin walked through the cool sand, the perfect circle of impossibly still water spoke to her, not in words but colors and emotions. Though she could not understand the words, somehow the meaning came through. Things Maelich had told her which had made no sense at the time became suddenly accessible. The Lake connected Ouloos to Coeptus and thus Coeptus to all things, a portal to eternity, a river flowing in both directions to and from the source of all knowing.
Mesmerized by the Lake and all its knowledge, Perrin had barely noticed her movements around it. As she learned—grasping but not truly understanding—acceptance of a concept beyond comprehension slowly became something closer to knowing. She saw glowing lights hovering close to the ground. The first one stirred fear and sadness, deep but brief. Those initial feelings were quickly replaced with joy, a blissful perfection. Though she could not possibly know the light was a soul—the essence of something which had once lived and felt things, experienced life—somehow, she did. That soul had finished its journey through the physical and returned to the Lake full of the experience of a lifetime. That first one drifted out to the center of the Lake and sunk within it. A dim glow emanated from the still waters, even and perfect until that same light shot up into the heavens. Joyous tears ran down her face quicker than she could wipe them away had she wanted to. But she did not. They felt too good, like pure happiness rained down her face. After that first one, more came. It seemed her eyes were opened to the perfection of the Lake and its never-ending cycle of life. Finished life full of knowledge and feelings carried their energy home, while new life—empty and ready to feel joy and fear and rage and love—returned to begin a new journey.
And then Helias was directly before her. The stony peak the great Dragon rode like a throne stretched up before Perrin. She looked past the cave mouth which opened where the sand she strolled upon terminated up to the great mother. The Dragon remained glorious to behold, but Perrin no longer felt the need to look away. She could witness that perfection, feel the unconditional love, the pure bliss that is the queen of Dragons.
“My love,” Helias’ voice was a full chorus, the most beautiful song ever sung, “you burn with purpose. Why? Of course, I know why. Your desire cries out from your very soul. My question is, why do you think you burn with such purpose?”
“It is a burning desire, a need. There ain’t no other thing that matters more to me in all of Ouloos, my baby, my sweet Geillan,” Perrin’s fear and awe shrunk as her sense of purpose grew. “You say you know my desire. If that is true, why ask the question?”
Helias’ smile was like a soft blanket for weary bones. “What you say is true. Though I wish you felt differently, you understand your purpose and are certain of it. I will show you the path, point you toward your goal, but you must know sadness and pain are all you will find. Your goal will remain unfulfilled.”
“I know you are wise, but I ain’t certain of what you say,” Perrin remained unmoved by the warning. “My whole life others have been telling me what to think and what I ought to do, what is right and what is wrong. It is far past time I began figuring these things out for myself. This is my journey. Geillan is my goal. Whatever end I find will be my own.”
“I know, my love,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
The world surrounding Perrin suddenly changed. It was no gradual shift. At one moment, the Lake sat beside her in all its perfection with magnificent Dragons swimming the clear, blue skies, and the next, Helias remained upon her stony throne, but everything else was different. The sky above was no longer the clear blue it had been. It was all colors, every conceivable shade of orange, pink, yellow, purple, red, and more. Some of the colors seemed to belong in a sky, but not all at once, and never in the swirling combinations which stretched as far as Perrin could see. Things resembling clouds darted rather than drifted. They were not fluffy like the soft, white clouds which would laze about the towers at Havenstahl. These were sharp, like jagged gems with boundaries constantly moving and barely discernable against the sky which mocked their colors. Beneath the inconsistent sky sat an equally inconsistent ground. Colors swirled and morphed in the same fashion as the expanse above, but the terrain seemed constantly moving. Mountains fell to valleys as rivers flowed with wild rapids only to vanish, replaced by flowing waves of grass or trees or some other formation which was almost familiar but not quite right.
“There ain’t one thing that makes any sense there,” Perrin gasped.
“Precisely, my dear. What you see is the exact opposite of the lands where you were raised. They are ruled by order. Your destination lies on the other side of this place and is ruled by chaos,” the song like quality of Helias’ voice bore an undeniable contrast to the terror melting and morphing before Perrin’s eyes.
“How could there be such a place just beyond this Lake and its complete perfection?” Perrin’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
Helias song continued, “The Lake is perfection. The meeting of tw
o equal and opposite concepts. You look out at this ever-changing landscape and see horror. From your perspective it is that. However, the feelings this place sparks in you are caused by things you have learned. Had you been born to the chaos, lived and breathed among it as you have in the orderly lands which you were raised, you would see something different. You would see unlimited potential. With no stifling rules to dictate how things must be, there is no limit to what is possible. And if you looked upon this place and saw those things, you would look at the place where you learned what life means and see nothing but a stifling prison. The unchanging and uniform patterns of that place would terrify you at least as much as the complete disorder you look upon now.
“In truth, one condition cannot exist without the other. The Lake—which is perfection as you have undoubtedly felt while surrounded by it—is a perfect balance between the two. Unconditional love, Perrin. We are all born from it. Dragons remain. All other creatures are drawn to one or the other.”
“I am frightened to my very soul,” Perrin looked earnestly at Helias, “but I remain unmoved. I will conquer this wild place you have shown me, and I will rescue my sweet Geillan.”
Helias’ smile never wavered, but somehow it slightly shifted from complete joy to a knowing sadness. “I know, my love. I know,” she replied. “I must tell you one more thing. I should not interfere. Your path and your decision are yours. However, you have a caring soul, and I will hurt deeply when you feel this pain. I will not hurt for me, but for you. This scar will remain until the Lake calls you home. Of course, the choices you make will affect the outcome. If you follow this path, you will find your precious Geillan. However, everyone who accompanies you will find the Lake before you do.”
The words stung at first, but they were not surprising. On some level, Perrin already knew the outcome. There had never been a doubt in her mind she would find Geillan. He was the only reason she had to exist. There was no other option. Though she had never actively thought about it, she knew none of the brave men accompanying her would survive the journey. When Helias gave voice to the idea, Perrin realized it had been there. They all knew the adventure was a perilous one, but she knew they would all die.
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