Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  “Hello, Jade,” said Zana.

  The woman said nothing; but only dropped her head down again, and began to weep. Zana was filled with, and repulsed by, a pain that started up in her own breast, that seemed to throb with the rhythm of the Auren’s sobs.

  She thought not before she acted; but crossed the room in a single bound, and laid hands on the chains that imprisoned the woman’s hands. One of the hands, she could see, was broken with the attempt to free herself; and also visible was the splintered bone (that had been viewed also, though not to Zana’s knowledge, by Dera Black) that had punctured the flesh of her forearm. To hang from her arms in such a condition, must have caused her more pain than she could ever have spoken of; and while Zana dearly wished for this intelligence to fill her black heart up with an age-old sense of elation, she could only feel the discomfort of the sickness in her stomach increasing tenfold.

  So she loosed the bonds, and caught the woman up in her arms as she fell down from the ceiling. She cried out in terrible pain, and held tightly to Zana, so that her broken body might not suffer the drop to the floor. Zana experienced the thought with perfect clarity, and wished against all that she could bring herself to perform the deed; but she could not throw the body down. Her glance strayed to the stake upon the floor; but even had she done battle with herself on the subject, so that she might convince herself what was best to do, she doubted that she would have accomplished much more than that initial glance.

  But the Auren noticed, with all the attention and focus of a caged and beaten animal (which indeed she was), the direction of her eyes. As Zana turned her face away from the stake, the Auren put her own face directly before her eyes, and began to plead with her.

  “Please,” she said; “please don’t – do that. She was here – for hours – and I can’t take – any more – of the pain.”

  Zana answered her nothing; but she could not ignore the cold fist that circled round her own heart, driving through the centre like an iron stake in itself. She looked blankly into the woman’s face.

  “Please don’t,” she repeated.

  “I’ll not do that to you,” Zana said simply.

  “Then what – will you do to me?”

  “I’ll do nothing to you.”

  The bright green eyes of the Auren narrowed in suspicion; and she moved a little away from Zana, but her tortured legs proved unable to bear her weight.

  With the speed of her kind, Zana caught hold of the Auren before she fell. She looked on Zana, now, more with wonder than anything else; but her wonder could not last for long, for all the pain and weariness that had laid hold of her body. Her eyes began to close, even as she hung there in the air upon Zana’s arms.

  Zana took a few steps back, and sank down with the body against the slime and cold of the chamber wall. The Auren seemed already to be asleep; but she curled reflexively into the warmth of Zana’s cloak, so that only her heels hung down upon the stone floor. Zana took a brief account of all the woman’s hurts, and sorted them in her head beside the measures she would take to heal them.

  The Auren slept deep and long. When finally she woke, she looked up at Zana and screamed; but Zana laid a finger on her lips.

  “Be silent,” she said. “I will not hurt you.”

  The woman only took again to weeping.

  “Come,” said Zana, rising to her feet with the speed of a cat, and all the while supporting the Auren in her arms. “This foolishness must stop. I will bring you to a place where you will be safe, and warm; and where your hurts will be eased. But you must eat what I bid you. If you do not do this, I can do nothing for you.”

  The Auren said nothing; but neither did she shake her head, or try to refuse. And so Zana departed with her from the chamber, and carried her to her own quarters.

  She knew not what the Sorceress would do, when she learnt what had been done with the Auren.

  But she was not particularly concerned.

  ~

  To return now to the happenings of Eredor, and to trust Jade for a while to the involuntary sincerity of Zana, we find the four guests of Eredor still sitting cosily in the kitchen, leaning their heads down together to speak to one another across the round table. They came too late to the dining quarters, and found them empty; but they were sighted by Rilga, and were led into the main kitchen, which she had been putting in order for the evening. She doled them out generous helpings of the food which remained, and smiled upon them as they started on it hungrily. Then she went back to the ovens, and left them to their talk.

  They spoke for a long while of the comings and goings of Helena and David, and of their new bloody pastimes. Dera said not much about it, but only puckered her lips and wrinkled her nose, to show that she was not particularly pleased with the subject. Aside from this, though, they could not think of much conversation that would not bring them to tears; and so they maintained the strain for some time. Yet finally they broke off, little by little; and David fell into a light and smiling discussion with Dera, whom he had not much seen since his arrival at Eredor.

  Neither Heidi nor Helena, though, could have told much about the others’ words; for as David and Dera talked on, they were left in a little sphere of their own, wherein they could really do nothing for a time but look at each other, for rather short intervals, betwixt which their eyes dropped down to the table, and rested there a while.

  But finally came the time, when all agreed that they were weary enough to put away their company for the night. Each made to retire into their own chambers, and shut themselves up alone; though with lighter hearts than had recently been the case. All shut their doors, yes, but there was one which opened up again, and one who took again to the lonely corridor. Down a flight of steps she went, with purpose and destination in mind; and knocked only once upon the door when she came to it, though she did not wait for any response to the action. She rather opened the door unbidden, and stepped into a pool of soft light, just beyond which she could make out the object of her search.

  “Hello, Heidi,” said the Princess. She neither smiled, nor made any sort of gesture; but only let her gaze drop back down to her book, after she had met Heidi’s eyes for a brief moment.

  “Hello, Lila.”

  Heidi made another step towards the desk; but faltered before she could come to it. She looked into Lila’s face, but saw nothing there. The eyes stared down at the pages of the book, as if that were truly what she was doing – staring and not reading. Her cheeks and brow were smooth, but seemed only to deceive in the impression that they were free of thought. But suddenly she looked up; and her eyes became so quickly filled with wrath, that its palpable projection nearly suffocated the breath in Heidi’s throat.

  “Why do you come?” she asked.

  “Perhaps I should not have done,” said Heidi, turning quickly away.

  “Perhaps you should not.”

  Heidi had every intention of passing back along the way whence she had come; but the cause of her coming at all weighed suddenly upon her again, and she faced back to Lila with all the courage she possessed.

  “Why do you speak to me so?” she asked quietly.

  “I am sure I do not know what you mean.”

  “Have I angered you?”

  “You’ve done nothing.”

  “Then will you let me speak?”

  “Did I say that you should not?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Do what you will.”

  Finally, Heidi took a seat before the desk. Lila had returned her attention to her reading; and she showed no sign at all that she was even aware of Heidi’s movement.

  “I want to find Jade,” said Heidi.

  “I wish you the very best.”

  “You’ll not help me?”

  Here, she raised her eyes again. “There is nothing I can do,” she said. “I know not where the Sorceress hides.”

  “There must be something –”

  “There is not!”

  Lila took up her book,
and cast it over the desk and across the room. It sailed well out of the way of Heidi’s head; but still caused her a deal of surprise.

  “What is the matter with you, Lila?”

  Lila put up her elbows to the desk, and dropped her face into her hands. “Please leave,” she said.

  “Won’t you –”

  “Please leave.”

  Heidi sat quiet for a moment or two; but could at the last find no way to interject a plea where Lila’s anger seemed to be concerned. So she rose without a word, and departed from the room.

  XLII: The Power

  No sooner had the door closed behind Heidi, than Lila dropped her arms down, and clutched at her chest with both hands. She breathed steadily at first, though quickly; but after several long moments, leaned forward so that she fell down to the floor. There was a great pain within her breast, and she could scarcely breathe for the thickness of it, expanding every second to fill all the empty space between the bone and the lung. She would have cried out, if she could have gathered the breath to do so; but she could not, and she lay silent for the inability.

  The pain had come thrice already that day. For long minutes it had lasted, on each previous occasion, and it gave no signs at the present of showing more kindness.

  Darkness began to pass before her eyes, and the lamps of the study dimmed with its movement. She held tight to her chest, and drew in what little breath she could manage; but it was not enough to sate her, and she quickly found that, with the dissipation of the breath, came a thicker gathering of the darkness.

  In the moment before the last of the light faded from her eyes, she wished that she had said anything other to Heidi, than what she had.

  After a short space of nothingness, however, there came an unexpected break in the circle of black; and Lila found that she could, with her mind if not with her body, step out of its revolutions. So out she went, in search of what existed beyond the dark.

  She travelled as an untethered spirit, down what seemed a long and narrow hall, that was nearly as black as the circle she had abandoned. But she came after a little into dim light; what was still so bright to her own eyes, after the experience of only darkness, that she had to shut them tight for a moment or two; and then open them slowly again.

  She could not see what lay to the left; for when she tried, she saw only a bright space of empty whiteness. Yet she could hear the sound of screams, coming from inside the white. She tried to take a step in that direction; but was met by a shock of cold, and a feeling of several sharp somethings in her left arm. So it seemed, in that moment, that her body had returned to her.

  She turned from the white, and ran on down another long corridor, at the end of which she found a set of stone steps. She flew upwards as quickly as she was able, and was indeed inspired forth by the sound of heavy footsteps behind her, with the accompaniment of laboured breathing and growls. She passed like a breeze through a large doorway. She took hold of the great iron door, and fitted it quickly to the jamb. She passed her hand over the heavy bolt; and though she had not the key that fitted it, she heard it slide smoothly into place.

  There was loud hammering on the opposite side of the door. She stared at it for a moment, wide-eyed and fearful; but quickly came to her senses, and set off at a sprint down a new hallway.

  After a time, she noticed that she could no longer feel the solidity of the floor beneath her feet. She looked down, and surely enough, found that she ran upon the lightness of the air. Neither did she direct her course any longer; but let still the pumping of her legs, and soared still through the damp corridors.

  An instant later, she found herself standing before another iron door, much like that which she had used to block up the passage of stairs. She stood still for a minute or two; but as she stared without break at the dark door, she found that it finally began to swing inwards.

  Without much thought on the matter, she stepped forth over the threshold of the chamber, looked quickly all about, and brought her eyes to the sight of a pale, dark-haired woman, sitting at a little table across from another woman – who looked much like the first at a short glance, but whose beauty was, upon turning her face to Lila, quite unrivalled.

  Neither woman spoke; but leapt as a single entity to their feet. The second woman moved as nothing but a space of blurred colour, that arrived beside Lila in less than a blink of an eye. She took hold of Lila’s arm with digits of ice.

  From across the room, there came a great display of green light, which flew through the air towards Lila like luminous daggers. Lila dashed out of their path; but was struck just the same by a single one of them, which sparked painfully against her right shoulder.

  She lifted her hand to create a Santra in her palm; but was surprised by the sight of what did come to form, there in the air above her fingers. It was no white ball of light, no thing that was familiar to Lila, but was rather a small collection of blue flames. They crackled in the dim light, licking Lila’s hand as they rose and fell, but caused her no harm. She looked towards the Sorceress, who gaped at her without reservation; and then pushed the flames through the air that separated them. They caught the Sorceress full in the belly, and caused her to fall down like one dead, though Lila was certain that she was no such thing. She turned to look into the face of the second woman; but the woman said nothing, and made no move to stop her.

  Without having even thought to do so, Lila began to glide through the air, and back into the corridor without. She began to move at a speed which she knew not the like of; and passed by walls, and through doors, like a torrent of tempest wind.

  Without having seen how she did such, she emerged finally into a vast and barren plain. She looked down at the exit she had passed out of, and into the tunnel which she had traversed. Then she looked all about; but was, before she could come to any sort of conclusion, whisked away once again upon the air.

  ~

  When she came to herself, she found that she lay still upon the floor of the study, behind her desk. She heard a great rush of wind, what blew across her face and over the floor, flung open the door and sped out into the hall.

  The last of the lamps went out.

  She struggled back into her chair, breathing shallowly what with the pain in her left arm, and right shoulder. She inspected both by the light of the moon which poured through the window; and took account of a set of four deep gashes in her arm, and a great black burn upon her shoulder.

  She fell back in her chair, and put a hand to her heart that strained in its beat. Her body went still with the weariness that pervaded it suddenly; and she fell asleep upon the heaviness of her thoughts. Better over than under, she supposed – for truly, they were heavy enough to crush her, body and bone.

  ~

  After the strange departure of the Princess, Zana went to the Sorceress to see to the severity of her wounds. It seemed that she had, indeed, been stunned well enough; and though she did not move so much as a single muscle, her eyes were wide open.

  Zana raised a hand, lifted the Sorceress into the air, and passed her quickly to her bed. She would wake in time.

  After she had done this (and glad was she, admittedly, that the Sorceress would not be conscious for a long while), she passed silently from the chamber, and made a quick way to her own quarters. She paused, in her course, to look in upon Biscayne and his servants. Or rather, to be more true, upon all her own five servants, Biscayne included.

  Unhappily enough (for them, at least – considering the fact that Zana herself was a great deal amused), the Lumaria were sharing their night meal with a great host of Narken. They sat at the head of the table, to either side of Kellin; and all their faces (Kellin’s not excluded) were quite as miserable as ever they could be.

  When Zana entered into the hall, and passed without warning to the table at which they sat, each Lumarian save Kroso choked upon his food. Pesha seemed, for a moment, that she would not recover. She looked upon Zana with a rather unbelievable mixture of fear and bitterness; an
d though her hatred was strong, her fear was much more powerful.

  “Correct me if I am mistaken,” said Zana, “but I am fairly certain that I saw you all take your meals last evening? I do hope that you are not growing gluttonous, what with the rather excessive amount of fresh meat available to you here.”

  “Certainly not, Zana,” said Biscayne. “We took very little to eat yesterday, I assure you.”

  “But you did eat?”

  Biscayne looked almost imperceptibly towards Kroso; but the latter was not to be drawn into the matter. He continued on with his meal as if Zana had not shown herself at all, and seemed not in the least to be perturbed.

  “Well – yes,” answered Biscayne.

  “Then leave alone the remainder of that flesh.”

  Biscayne obediently laid down his knife; but he looked on rather longingly into his plate.

  “You are well aware,” said Zana, “that you need not take food every day. If you continue to do so, you will grow weak and slothful – and you shall not be quick enough for the tasks that are assigned you. This is all no matter to me, for I care very little whether you bring about your own deaths; but I fear that the Sorceress shall be very displeased with your incapacities, and will perhaps bring your ends about even sooner than would have been done in battle.”

  “I apologise, Zana,” said Biscayne.

  “Only see that it does not happen again.”

  Kellin began, then, to laugh rather heartily; but Zana turned her eyes next upon him, and he fell silent with a low growl.

  “I’ll hear nothing from you,” she said.

  He went to tearing his meat with his teeth; for it was plain, that what he truly wished to tear was Zana herself, limb from limb. But he dared not even look at her, and make this desire known.

  “That’s a good dog,” said Zana. Then, to the others: “You would do well to remember my order.”

  She turned on her heel, and had only just begun to depart; but there came a low sound in her ears, which swivelled her back about, as a hinge that had not yet closed. She looked hard upon Pesha – for it was her voice that she had heard.