by Peter David
For a moment there was no reaction, and inwardly I mourned my failure because the Rogyptians were going to catch up with us and drag the Shews back into slavery, and likely execute me, and there was nothing that I could do about it.
Then I began to feel it. The power started to generate in my hand, shaking so violently that it was all I could do to hold onto it. And then a massive gust of wind ripped out from within the gem, slamming forward in a gigantic spiral that hammered through the sea’s waves as if they weren’t there.
Slowly, miraculously, a gargantuan wedge was driven straight through the waters of the Dread Sea. The further and more spread out it became, the less violent it was, but it was unquestionably working. Within seconds the Dread Sea had split, the waters surging on either side but a vast passageway down the middle being maintained through the power of the winds.
The Shews gasped collectively, which I must admit is quite a sound, hearing hundreds of people gasp simultaneously. We did not, however, have the time to dwell on it. “Go!” I shouted to Simon. “Take them through!”
“What about you?”
His concern about my welfare was touching if ill-timed. “Don’t worry about me! I’ll be fine! Just get everyone across!”
He needed no further urging. Within seconds the Shews were pouring forward through the gap. There was nothing orderly about it; they were running as fast as they could. I couldn’t blame them, I suppose. They had no way of knowing when or if the sea would wind up crashing back together, and no one wanted to be there if it did.
Ahmway waited with me. I had to admit I was beginning to admire his loyalty. “Is this going to work?” he asked.
“I certainly hope so or we’re going to have a lot of drowned Shews.”
As the Shews spilled into the Dread Sea, I was able to see more clearly the advancing Rogyptians. They were coming in fast and would likely have caught up within minutes. Even though they were still a distance away, I could discern Clea rightly enough. She was driving a chariot and even from this distance I knew it was the chariot that had belonged to her brother. I recognized the powerful horses that were pulling it.
“Time to go,” said Ahmway nervously, and I could see that he was right. The last of the Shews had entered the vast watery separation; some had even already made it across and were clambering up the other side.
“Let’s,” I replied, and that was all the incentive we needed. We scampered down the side of the bank and moments later were in the sea bed.
Getting across was not easy. It was all mud and sodden dirt, and I was not at my most mobile even on my best day. Ahmway saw my difficulty and grabbed my arm, giving me additional balance and helping to pull me along.
Not only that, but the gem was continuing to shake in my hand even more ferociously, as if it were trying to break away from me. My hand trembled as I gripped it and I could feel the buffeting of the wind increasing.
And then, as we neared the other side, I tripped and, even with Ahmway trying to support me, I was not able to keep my footing. I fell, stumbling forward, and I lost my grip on the gem. It tumbled away from me and rolled some feet away.
That’s it. We’re dead, I thought with surprising calm. Surprising because once upon a time, the prospect of an imminent death would have sent me hurrying in the opposite direction from whatever was about to kill me. But this time, just for a moment, I found myself willing to accept it.
Why the hell not? My son was dead. Everyone I had ever loved was dead, with the single exception of Entipy, who would go to her death never knowing what had happened to her own child. Perhaps it was time to leave the mortal coil behind, because there was certainly nothing happening that held any true appeal for me.
That was when the decision was taken out of my hands, because Ahmway grabbed me from behind and shouted, “Move! Hurry!”
I obeyed him. Clutching my staff tightly, I made my way up the far bank, wondering distantly why it was possible. Why had the sea walls not crashed down upon me? I was no longer holding the gem, no longer channeling the power. I could not fathom what was keeping everything in place.
I glanced back behind me. The gem was lying there on the ground, still shaking, and the wind whipping out of it was vicious but also funneled. It was continuing to keep the water at bay. The only explanation I could come up with was that it was functioning using the final command of the person who had been holding it.
Which meant that it would continue to keep the Dread Sea separated when the Rogyptians came riding up. They would follow right after us and overtake us, and it would all have been for nothing.
And indeed, here came the Rogyptians. With Clea in the lead, they barreled into the ocean bed on their mighty horses, thundering down and into the separation. The muddy ground did nothing to slow them as they pounded through, drawing closer and closer with each passing second.
Ahmway and I achieved the upper bank and then turned and stood there, watching as the Rogyptian soldiers drew nearer. There was not a damned thing I could do to stop them.
Then I glanced at Ahmway’s weapons and a desperate idea occurred to me. “Can you hit the gem?” I demanded.
“What?” He looked confused.
“The gem! The one down there! Can you hit it with an arrow?”
His eyes widened and a wide smile broke across his face. “Absolutely,” he said and yanked an arrow out of his quiver. He nocked the arrow, took careful aim and let fly.
The arrow thudded into the ground a good five feet away from the gem.
“I thought you could aim that thing!”
“There’s a lot of wind,” he protested even as he put another arrow into place and fired again. The previous one had struck to the right of the gem; this one hit to the left. “Shite,” he muttered.
“Don’t give up!”
He did not. He kept firing and each time his arrow hit to the right, the left, above and below, but never did he strike the gem.
The Rogyptians were perhaps five hundred feet away when he pulled the last arrow out of his quiver. He glanced at it expectantly as if he thought it might have something to say about the matter. Then without a word he nocked the arrow, drew back, muttered a prayer that I could not quite discern and let fly.
It struck the gem squarely and the gem shattered into red fragments, not ten feet away from the rapidly approaching Clea.
With a roar of fury, Lama exploded from the gem.
Clea let out a terrified scream and yanked back on the reins. The horses were similarly panicked as Lama lunged forward, his arms extended, his hands clutching spasmodically.
And the howling winds that had kept the Dread Sea separated promptly vanished.
The two sides of the sea slammed toward each other. The terrified soldiers tried to whip their horses around to flee in the other direction, or perhaps accelerate to reach safety on our side. Neither attempt accomplished anything. The mighty waves crashed together, hundreds, perhaps thousands of tons of water slamming down on anything and everything in its path. Clea’s scream was truncated as the water hammered down on her and she disappeared beneath it, as did the horses, which to this day I feel guilty about because the horses hadn’t done a damned thing wrong and they had been magnificent race animals.
Howls of anguish tore through the morning sky but were quickly extinguished by the crashing waters. As the waters came together, not only did Clea and her soldiers vanish beneath it, but so did Lama. The weight was so overwhelming that I saw Lama’s body literally crunched together and collapse from the impact before it vanished beneath the waves. Seconds later the sea water roiled together, bubbled furiously and then finally all of the storming of the waters came to an end. The Dread Sea was a single body of water again, and the entirety of the Rogyptian army, or at least the ones who had been pursing us, were gone.
For a time, Ahmway and I just stood there, staring downward. Then I turned to Ahmway and said, “Nice shot.”
“I aimed three feet to the right of it,” Ahmway repl
ied. “Since I wasn’t hitting it while aiming at it, I stopped aiming and it hit just fine.”
“Good thinking,” was all I said.
Chapter 16 Where now?
The trip to Samdonia, mercifully, went without incident. Was it an easy trip? It most certainly was not. Forty days of
walking through the desert. That was not a fun endeavor for anyone involved. Eventually, though, the Shews developed a sort of
internal rhythm so that the traveling during the night time hours
was a period of interaction and socialization as they made their way
along the Dread Sea. There was playfulness, there was laughter.
The children in particular seemed quite happy, because naturally
they were moving and children typically like to move. More games
of tag were played around me than I could possibly count. On
occasion they tried to drag me into them, but I typically managed
to avoid being pulled into them.
It was astounding how the people revered me. By that point
everyone knew that the limping stranger with the formidable staff
was the one responsible for having freed them. They also knew that
Ahmway’s bow and arrow had shattered the gem that kept the sea
parted and enabled everyone to not only escape the Rogyptians but
witness their collective death. So we were constantly being feted or
engaged in all manner of discussion.
Even Rebeka seemed to be calming somewhat in her hatred for
Ahmway and her lack of trust for me. It may well have been difficult for her to maintain her hostility in the face of such uniform
acceptance. I could certainly see the problems involved in that. By day we sought shelter beneath the tents and talked quietly
or slept, saving ourselves and our energy for the nightly excursion.
I would like to say I slept well, but I most definitely did not. Day
after day for long hours I would lie there and stare up at the top of
tent. All I could think about was Germane.
I had had a son.
For all I knew, I had many children. I had certainly not led a
life of chasteness. Plus there was that time that I had wound up
with a magic ring upon my member and wound up bedding more
women than I could possibly count. For all I knew, I had a battalion of bastards running around somewhere. But Germane was
the only one that I knew of for a fact. He had spent the entirety of
his existence despising me and had even tried to kill me. Yet when
we had finally spoken face to face, we had actually seemed to be
making a connection. And then, just like that, he had been taken
from me by a vengeful spirit, a monster made by a man who had
died generations earlier.
And his mother would never know.
The more I dwelt upon it, the more convinced I became that
that was simply not right. Entipy should know her son’s fate. It
would bring closure to that aspect of her life. Not positive closure,
gods knew, but at least it would be something.
Could I get a message to her? I had no real means of doing so.
Here in the far flung land of Rogypt, there were no commweavers who could send a mystical message to the state of Isteria. They
were, in fact, somewhat hard to come by even in my homeland.
So that left me with no options. Entipy would simply never know
what had transpired with her son.
Except the more that I dwelt upon that concept, the less enamored I was of it.
Entipy should know. She should know.
And I was the only one who could tell her.
But that was very likely a death sentence. She had spent two
decades stewing upon my abandonment of her, and doubtless had
had much time to conceive of the various punishments that she would inflict upon me if she were ever unfortunate enough to see me again. If I returned to Isteria, I was doubtlessly inflicting a
death sentence upon myself.
There was no reason at all for me to return.
Except…
Except…
I was tired.
I was simply tired.
I had lived over forty years; I was practically a senior citizen.
Considering the situations into which I had fallen throughout my
life, it was nothing short of astounding that I was still breathing. I had seen everything, done everything that any reasoned and
reasonable person would possibly want to do. I had just freed an
entire race of people at the behest of a burning bush. A god himself had chosen me for a task and I had accomplished it. Certainly
it could be considered the high point of my life, if I was wont to
consider carrying out deified orders as some manner of validation. So if I returned to Isteria, into the arms of Entipy, and she
executed me for my trouble…
…would it really be so bad?
All the adventures I had had in life. Perhaps the only adventure
waiting for me was the cessation of it.
I waited for my inner voice to speak up. To lambaste me for
even entertaining the notion. My inner voice, after all, was my survival mechanism, and whenever I even contemplated doing anything that could end my life, it was always very quick to chime in. Instead there was nothing but silence. I was astounded. Where
was my famed instinct for self-preservation when I was considering
embarking upon a mission that would lead to my certain death? You’ve already made up your mind, it informed me. I actually
imagined I heard a weary sigh. You’re not really interested in anything I have to say. So why should I bother to speak up?
I was lying on the floor of my tent, my fingers interlaced behind
my head. “No,” I said, “really. What do you think?”
It didn’t reply.
It was as if my self-preservation instinct had, itself, died. I, who had spent so many years of his life in total solitude, was
actually, genuinely alone for the first time in the entirety of his
existence.
And it actually didn’t feel so bad.
For the first time in a long time, I drifted to sleep and stayed
asleep for a number of hours. When I awoke, I actually felt refreshed. We undertook the rest of the journey.
Admittedly, some things happened along the way that I don’t
want to bore you with. A stop on a mountain and an acquiring of
some commandments. Which took longer than anticipated, so the
Shews for some reason built a golden representation of the back
part of the lower leg, a golden calf, and worshipped it. That angered
Bob and He wanted to have them wander in the desert for forty
years, but I put my foot down and after an hour of back and forth,
He gave in and let us go on our way. All things considered, Bob
could be a rather reasonable deity when He put His mind to it,
although I still think He should consider doing something about
His name because, really, what the hell kind of name is that? So eventually we arrived in Samdonia.
I was bracing myself for the Shews to receive some sort of
vicious pushback from the Samdonians who would not welcome
hundreds of fugitives arriving in their back yard.
Instead they received the opposite reaction. Simon and I
were brought before the ruler of Samdonia who extended warm
welcomes to the people. Apparently there had been no love lost
between the ruler of Samdonia, who had been in attendance in
Rogypt only days ago and had witnessed the Rama’s death, and
&n
bsp; the land of Rogypt itself. So on that basis, he was more than happy
to accept the Shews into Samdonia’s territory. He informed us that
we were welcome to build residences for ourselves and we would be
supplied with building materials and such.
How the Shews would dovetail into the Samdonian economy
was anyone’s guess. Simon’s supposition was that the Shews would
wind up creating a makeshift marketplace within the heart of their residences. They were extremely talented at providing things to sell, and that would doubtless give them the funds that would enable
them to expand and survive.
That evening I sat down with Simon, Ahmway and several
other Shews. We were in Simon’s tent eating a light supper, relaxing and basking in the Shewish freedom. “I’m going to be taking
my leave of you,” I said.
Everyone seemed surprised. “Are you sure?” said Simon. “You
know you have a place with us always, Apropos.”
For now. But sooner or later, I will do something to upset you and
you’ ll want to get rid of me. Or kill me.
How wonderful that my inner voice had decided to return to
life specifically so it could come up with things that would depress
the hell out of me.
“Yes, I am sure,” I said firmly. “There are other places I must
go, and other things I have to accomplish.”
“Shall I accompany you?” asked Ahmway.
I shook my head and actually smiled. Considering the circumstances under which I had first encountered the man, it was
astounding for me to see that I had actually become somewhat
fond of him, or at least of his dedication to me. For a moment I
considered telling him yes. I had a long trip to make back to Isteria and there would doubtless be dangers along the way. Having a
powerful sword or a bow and arrow backing me up seemed a rather
attractive notion.
But as quickly as I considered the idea, I then dismissed it.
Ahmway deserved the opportunity to lead his own life, not follow
me around as I tried to lead, and probably end, mine. Slowly I shook
my head. “This is something I feel I have to do alone, Ahmway.