Covenants: Elegy (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 8)

by Terra Whiteman

  I was roughly yanked out of my seat and led toward the cement, tube-looking vault sealed by a circular door, identical in fashion to the previous outpost. My gaze drifted across the compound scenery as one of my captors spoke through a box at the side of the door. Amid the groups of soldiers were what appeared to be civilians, clothed in tattered rags, seated along the fence. They had buckets and other containers of varying sizes, although the purpose for them wasn’t immediately clear. Many of their faces were hidden by torn scarves; those who weren’t concealed showed gaunt faces, their eyes glazed and without emotion, staring ahead at nothing. These civilians were not Evgans; their complexions were of a reddish tan, probably by sun exposure, and their eyes were a dark, brown-black. I wanted to believe they were O-2 natives, although I couldn’t be sure as up until now I’d never seen any. All of them were men—or at least I thought they were men, from what I could make of their builds.

  Beyond the western gate was a garden of enormous metal flowers, their stems rising higher than any tree on the Svissan-Isle. The petals rotated in a circle, like blades of a fan, and I watched mesmerized until the vault door opened and I was yanked inside.

  *

  Like the exterior, the interior of the outpost was identical to the last. I wished it wasn’t, as each translucent, cubed room my captor dragged me by kicked up thoughts of Zira, and how his body must be slowly rotting alone on the searing hardpan, devoid even of any real animals to spare him this shame.

  Surely the people whom he’d kept in constant contact with would know he was dead. Would they come for him?

  For me?

  That tiny spark of hope dwindled when my captor made a sharp turn into a room I knew all too well; that chair decorated in straps, facing a black, jagged wall with glinting micro-crystals.

  I started to resist my captor’s pull. He was the unmasked man; everyone else had filtered out along the way. That only prompted him to yank harder, forcing me to sit on the cold metal seat. He looked down at me with a stern face. His jaw set as I pleaded with him to let me up.

  “This will not hurt,” he said in our mother tongue. “You will sit and look there,” he pointed to the wall, “and you will tell me what you see.”

  I thought of the swirling patterns that had yawned into a gateway, and shivered. “W-What am I supposed to see?”

  The man shrugged. “Everyone is different. But only we can see. This is a test. Let’s hope you can pass, eh Dezidko?”

  I didn’t fight as he fastened my wrists and feet to the chair, a little too tightly so the leather bit into my sun-seared flesh. He fastened the one around my forehead last. I couldn’t turn away from the wall. I couldn’t move at all. I had become one with the chair.

  The man chuckled as I trembled, testing my bounds. When I heard his footsteps fade behind me I cried, “Where are you going?”

  “It might take a while. I will come back later to check on you.”

  He meant to leave me here alone?

  Fear built up in my throat; my heart began to race. I said nothing however, as I knew nothing I said would make him reconsider. All I did was stare at the wall, waiting for my heart to explode as my extremities went numb and a warm tingling sensation flooded my back.

  I heard the door close, then silence.

  Silence.

  My eyes stayed on the wall, unblinking. The fear had left, now replaced by anger. The silence intensified until a subtle background whir became the central noise. A fan, or engine of some sort.

  After what seemed like hours, the whir turned into a roar, like the sound of a ship moving through space. It felt so close to my ears, and my mind wandered back to the bridge where Zira had shown me the stars. It’d been the same sound back then; the same silence.

  The wall suddenly became the stars—a window to my memories. The roar grew deafening, accompanied by faint voices, singing, just beneath it. The cosmos before me began to ripple and swirl like the surface of water, opening into a channel that at first was pitch-black, but quickly began to take form.

  I started to struggle, knowing what had happened was happening once again.

  “Zira!” I screamed to the empty room. “Zira, help me, please!”

  But there was no one to help me, and with this reminder my body sagged against the chair. Resigned to my fate, I waited for whatever was to come.

  The singing turned into a chorus as the roar receded, stirring me in a tranquilizing stew. I was unnaturally calm, my heart slow yet strong, thrumming with anticipation.

  The channel melded into what looked like a cave dwelling. At the center of the dwelling, a bonfire crackled, abandoned. The fire illuminated the wall behind it in a warm, orange glow, revealing the numerous carvings etched into the craggy surface. It felt inviting.

  I wanted to go there, to lay beside the bonfire and sleep for a thousand years.

  My desire manifested the impossible. I was suddenly on my feet, the chair behind me lay smoldering and the leather straps were charred and torn. With only a brief second afforded to marveling at my escape, I approached the cave dwelling with slow, determined steps, now able to feel the bonfire’s warmth on my face.

  The door to the room swung open behind me, and I turned—;

  And then I was back in the chair with my captor bent over me, his face inches from mine.

  “So?” he said, and from this distance the yellow-brown stains on his teeth were visible, marbling his sneer. “What did you see, Dezidko?”

  It’d all been a hallucination. I wanted to scream.

  Instead I stayed silent. The wall was just a wall now. Black, sparkly, but otherwise unremarkable.

  At my small display of protest, the man laughed quietly. “Do you want more time in here, then?”

  “I saw nothing,” I murmured. “I don’t know what you want.”

  “You are lying,” he said, his expression honed with impatience. “What did you see?”

  “A bonfire. A cave.”

  The impatience in his face quickly turned to confusion, and then intrigue. “A cave,” he repeated. “What was inside of it?”

  “I don’t know; I couldn’t see. What are you looking for? Why are we doing this?”

  Instead of replying, he simply loosened the strap around my forehead, and then my limbs. I hadn’t realized my hands and feet lost circulation until the pins and needles started.

  My captor turned toward the door, muttering something about following him. White-hot rage suddenly consumed me and exploded behind my eyes in a blinding flash. I had every right to be angry, but there’d been no internal warnings nor had I ever possessed so much courage.

  There was some time lost then; only white.

  When I came to, my captor and I were struggling in the middle of the room with his rifle between us. Up until now it appeared I’d been holding my own, which was impossible given the man’s size and experience. But his expression showed the kind of fear one felt when they doubted their situation. He looked as if the possibility of me taking the gun and blowing his head off was real. And oh, how good that would have felt.

  Yet returning to full-consciousness dulled whatever strength I’d had. Before I could even ponder the thought of finding satisfaction from killing someone, the rifle was ripped out of my hands with ease and a hard knock to my face caused starbursts behind my eyes.

  I dropped; the world around me became a swirling haze. Approaching footsteps indicated someone else had entered the room. They discussed me, in Evgani.

  My captor said I was ‘shining’, then told his friend to ‘put me in the tank’ while he talked to someone named Talek. All the while I tried desperately to get on all fours, but couldn’t move. My mind wasn’t talking to my limbs. Rough hands gripped me under both of my arms and lifted me off the ground. After that, I fell unconscious.

  *

  The patter of rain woke me, and my eyes fluttered open as I felt warm drops across my face. Confusion settled in immediately as I sat up and realized I was not in the outpost anymore
. I was somewhere outside—somewhere with rain—on a riverbank. It was night here, yet the sky was moonless and pitch-black as I peered above; no clouds, not even any stars.

  The water in the flowing river was illuminated by shimmering stalagmites just tall enough to peek from the surface. If I held my breath and listened closely I could hear them sing. Like chimes, I thought. Behind me lay a path that ran beside the base of a cliff with no visible summit. It forked into a cave entrance to the right, a wooden bridge to the left. Across the bridge were leafless trees, decorated by smaller stalagmites and twigs, hung by glittery twine. The air was windless.

  The memory of the blow to my head came back then, and I winced in anticipation of the residual pain to follow. But there was no pain; not a trace of tenderness, as if it’d never happened. Like it’d all been a dream.

  Oh gods, I was dead.

  I was dead.

  Panic surged upward into my throat, but strangely it subsided in an instant—as if the feeling itself wasn’t allowed here. I sat there, complacent amid the singing stones and tepid rain, my skin humming with apprehension. A sudden current of repose allowed me to stand, and I placed my hand along the contoured wall of the cliff side. The rough feeling against my fingertips sparked familiarity, and I looked to see the same black, glittery composite that had caused me so much trouble as of late.

  I wasn’t dead.

  But then, where was I?

  “Zira!” I called, if by chance he was here as well. A ridiculous hope—one that made me feel incredibly stupid as my voice carried in echo through the black. A lot of inexplicable things had happened lately, so why not this? I thought of him, twisted on the hardpan. The image brought on an irresistible urge to break down into sobs, but again, the sadness vanished as quickly as it came.

  I took several steps down the bank, but something urged me to turn around then. A shift in the air made my senses prick. I spun toward the bridge.

  There was someone standing on it, their face hidden beneath the hood of a gray and black robe. With a hand they beckoned me forward, and without waiting for me to follow, headed across the bridge, disappearing on a carved, uphill path through a cluster of crystal trees.

  I was hesitant to move, but felt no fear in the proceeding seconds. Only curiosity.

  And so, slowly, I pursued the robed figure over the bridge.

  The rain stopped as soon as my feet touched the other side of the bank. I froze, looking again at the sky. A faint, orange and yellow haze twisted in the black above, like threads of clouds being woven together. I marveled at this peculiar sight for a while, until I remembered the robed figure and surveilled the inclined path ahead of me. At the top of the hill was a small stone building with a rounded rooftop and an entrance without a door, guarded by two pillars. From it emanated a warm, inviting glow of firelight. Raising the sopping-wet hem of my tunic I climbed up the path, mindful of loose stones around my feet.

  The building looked much larger on the inside; a single, open room with a fire in the center, framed by petrified wooden logs for seating. Above the fire hung a black-iron cauldron that bubbled with an aromatic liquid. There was a fountain to the right, water trickling from hollowed tubes into a pool that ran through the middle of the room. Leafy vines with red and white flowers hung like curtains along the left wall, their petals opening and closing, as if breathing. My eyes rose to see a circular window on the ceiling, revealing a strikingly familiar landscape of the cosmos that Zira had shown me on the cruise-vessel bridge. The tranquil silence of this place, minus the crackling of the fire and bubbling of the pot, was occasionally aspersed with the roar of cosmic white noise and choral voices.

  “What did you see, Dezidko?” my captor had demanded as I’d laid disoriented on that cold, stinging chair.

  This. I had seen this.

  Had he seen this, too?

  All of these strange sights and sounds had kept me from noticing the robed figure near the vines. They were stationed with their back to me, plucking a handful of flowers. They removed their hood, revealing a mop of straight black hair, just touching their shoulders.

  My heart skipped a beat. Zira?

  He turned then—a man, with soft features and silvery eyes. As he approached the cauldron I found him to be much taller than Zira. He was very thin. Gaunt, almost. But his face was kind.

  Still, my heart sank with disappointment.

  “Welcome,” he said gently, giving me a brief once-over before tending to the pot, throwing the handful of flowers into it.

  “Where am I?” I squeaked.

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” he said without inflection, gaze remaining on the pot.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “There is no such thing as time in this place, so I’m not sure. Would you like some tea?”

  I blinked, hesitant with a response. “I… I don’t—”

  The man gave me a small smile. “If you’re here, you must have some. It’s tradition.”

  My eyes shifted uneasily toward the breathing flowers behind him. “Is it poisonous?”

  “No. I drink it all the time.”

  “It won’t kill me?”

  “Only if you’re afraid to die.”

  By now I was convinced this was a dream; my unconscious body was laying in whatever ‘tank’ my captors had mentioned. And because this was a dream, I mustered a little more courage than I’d normally possess if someone had offered me a potentially poisonous beverage in the real world. “What if I say no?”

  The man shrugged. “Not sure. None of my guests have ever declined the offer. But the others were in pain. Did you not come through the cave?”

  “I was on the riverbank.”

  The man seemed puzzled for a moment. Then, he shrugged. “Well, the offer still stands if you decide otherwise.”

  I sat on one of the log benches by the fire, shivering in my damp clothes. I was in no hurry to leave if it was between this and the outpost. I’d let the dream play out as long as possible. “How many guests have you had?”

  “Only a handful. They show up here, confused like you.” He ladled a small bowlful of tea for himself and sat on a log across the fire. “They drink my tea, talk for a while, and then move on.”

  “Where do they move on to?”

  His gaze sifted behind me, and I followed it. There was a doorway, much like the one I’d come through. Except the space beyond it had swirling gray mist so thick that I couldn’t make out anything else. “Where does that lead?”

  “The Quantum Divide.” He sipped at his drink.

  I stared into the mist for a moment, then at the two monstrous stalagmites on either side of the doorway. They flickered multicolor blue, violet and red, switching every several seconds. The lightshow was hypnotizing.

  “Quantum Divide,” I repeated, clueless as to what that meant. “And what about you? Why haven’t you moved on?”

  The man shook his head. “I am tasked with guarding this place. I guide the wayfarers to their destinations.”

  “Tasked by who?”

  The man seemed uncertain as to the meaning of my question. He didn’t respond, only sipped his tea some more.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, attempting to keep our conversation alive. It was difficult, as clearly this man was the quiet type.

  “Names are given to those bound by time and place,” he said. “I don’t have one.”

  I simply stared at him, unable to make sense of his response. After a long while of awkward silence, I reached toward him. “I’ll take some tea.”

  He smiled, and I found pride in pleasing him. I wasn’t sure why; perhaps because he seemed so sad. Another bowl was produced seemingly from thin air, and he scooped the contents of the cauldron into it. He handed it over, and I looked at the steaming surface. It smelled of damp leaves, or a forest after heavy rainfall.

  I closed my eyes and downed the warm contents in a series of three gulps. It didn’t taste good, but it felt good. Its heat
traveled through my throat, down into my stomach, and then a calming sensation washed over me. My skin buzzed with delight.

  When I opened my eyes I found the man staring at me in awe, his own wide with surprise.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I can see you now,” he said, near-whisper. “You’re meant to replace me.”

  I felt my face scrunch in confusion.

  “Not yet,” he added, a twinge of disappointment in his tone, “but soon.”

  “Replace you as…what? Here?”

  The man placed his empty bowl on the bench and stood, moving toward the mist-screened doorway. He stopped several feet from it, peering into the smoky abyss. “You don’t have a shade. I found that strange, but now it makes sense.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, so said nothing and sipped my tea. It had given me a floaty, sedated feeling; maybe that was why I wasn’t more concerned with what he was saying. Or maybe the idea of staying here forever was better than whatever fate awaited me outside of this dreamscape.

  “You said you guard this place. Guard it from what?”

  “This gateway is two-sided,” he said. “Those who come here are welcome to pass, but nothing should cross back.”

  That was a sobering statement. “People try to come back?”

  “No, not wayfarers.”

  And he left it at that. The silence that followed was eerie. I suddenly wanted this dream to end. As if he could read my thoughts, the man turned to face me with a sullen frown.

  “You’re in trouble,” he stated, tilting his head toward the door through which I’d entered. Out there, he’d meant.

  “Yes.”

  “Allow me to help you, then.”

  He approached me, placing his hands on my shoulders. The warmth in my stomach intensified, and I bowed my head. Vines snaked from fractures along the stone floor, coiling around my feet and up my legs. The room began to spin, and before I closed my eyes I took one last look at the cosmos above us.