by Aaron D. Key
* * *
I found myself back on the hill with my head still resting on the same tree. It felt like no time had passed but something in the light had changed. Looking up, Rael’s moon was now full, bloated, and crownless. Outside the trees in the real world, the sun was just a small circle, rising gently up through the listless blue sky. I saw this as a hint to get a move on, although I was reluctant, thinking that nothing had been gained from the excursion. After a struggle with my better self, I concentrated again.
* * *
A bright moon broke fitfully out of the cloud mantle and just as suddenly hid away, creating a confusion of light added to by spotlights searing through the blotchy sky and running crazily across the hills, concrete outposts, and the sea. The sea crashed with bleak anger against the rocks of the island. The wind howled as if to join with the waves in the tuneless song of contempt that they both expressed for the whole of humanity. Still, both the sea and the wind could not block out the grinding hum of aeroplanes. Like a tormenting mosquito, the sound of one plane would hover on the edge of hearing, then almost fade, then return with renewed malevolence, then grow deeper, grow louder; grow so loud that the sound was close to pain. Then it would fade again, only to be replaced by another and another.
I hated this sort of place, with inhuman devices made by people that only added to their degradation and pain. It nearly made me weep to think that Rael had had to live here.
I watched as I saw a familiar figure walk onto the beach as the moon rushed headlong from the clouds to illuminate his shadow against the sand. Waves crashed in silver spray. It was still beautiful despite all that humanity had done to hide the beauty. Rael, I was sure it was, began to walk towards the gap in the wire. He was dressed for swimming and he walked casually as if unaware of all the world was doing to warn him. He did not look at the sand beneath his feet.
At that moment, I was aware that I was seeing the end of Rael. I was afraid to watch, afraid of this humbling death for the man I admired. I heard shouts behind me. Rael began to run. The shouts grew louder. In spite of the sound of the waves lapping at the soft sand and crashing against the rocks that surrounded the beach, I could hear the fury of a chase. There were shots behind Rael and the cries of men. He ran with the innocence of a hare suddenly somersaulted out of the shelter that had always been his home by a savage dog attack. A line of fire shuddered into his back. Like the hare, his own speed caused him to hit the ground solidly and to skid across the wet sand.
I waited. I expected something to happen. Somehow at this moment a mysterious being should have removed him to Herron and yet nothing was happening. I saw the soldiers with their guns carried before them make their way down the cliff side. They were shouting in confusion as they approached Rael’s body. Standing over him with their guns pointed at his chest, one flicked him over with a careless boot and shouted again.
Rael was lifeless. He was on the verge of death. I could leave it no longer. No one had taken steps to ensure that he would reach Herron. I had to do it myself. I felt cold at the idea that I had almost decided that it was pointless seeking truths in Rael’s past. I had almost not been here and then he would never have lived in Herron. My life had almost not happened – everyone who had ever lived in Herron had almost not lived – more lost possibilities in the endless possibilities floating in the universe. It was terrifying to me, although I suspected the universe was resigned.
I walked to the body of Rael, moving aside the soldiers with an impassive blast of ice-cold air, and picked up his lifeless body over my shoulder – thought of Herron with affection.
We were back home again. I had picked the time. I knew it well from stories, from history. Herron was deserted, empty until Rael had arrived to bring it to life again. On Rael’s Hill, the same trees stood there – untouched by time, it seemed. The same picture of stars and moon shone in the sky above us. I placed Rael down on the grass and healed his wounds, removing the black and smoking bullets with disgust. I could not be there when he woke. I was taking risks anyway in being there, in this place of my past.
I took his lifeless head in my hands and sought deep to find the soul that he had so nearly lost yet was still lurking in the confines of its body’s cage. I called it forth and breathed life into the body. His soul was troubled; memories stretched out like a long tapestry depicting scenes of torment, and I sought to bring ease – a numbing of recollection for the better tasting of the present.
He rested then and his breathing was peaceful, strong, and light. It was time to leave him before he woke up and found me.
* * *
Back home in my time, the sun was high, pleasantly warm on my skin. The real sun, seen through the trees, was a lot lower and still struggling to add any colour to the whitewashed sky. I lay in the circle of the blood berry trees on Rael’s Hill and Rael was there watching me.
“Hello,” he said warily in response to my blank stare.
I nodded dumbly, partly shocked to see him so alive again, partly confused by the passing of time in so many directions, but mainly surprised by his ability to disregard all the rules I thought controlled this space and time. No one else would have been able to walk onto Rael’s Hill and find themselves at the same time and place as me. It was an ever-changing tableau in a myriad of possibilities.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, sounding less friendly than I had meant to sound as a result of my confusion.
“Well, I’ve eaten well and slept better than I have slept for years, for which I thank you. I was causing quite a stir in your dining hall. Everyone wanted to talk to me. It was unnerving to be so popular. I’m not used to it so I thought I would come and find you, to see if I could help. I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t expecting to find you asleep so soon after your early waking.”
“Believe it or not I have been very busy,” I said with a smile, thinking of the day spent wandering around an elegant city in pursuit of Rael’s love life and the night in which I saved everything I had ever known. It was comforting to think that even if I never did anything ever again, I had justified my existence, my title as protector. Yet it was odd to think that Rael would know nothing of it and think only that I was being lazy. I did not want to justify my tiredness because then I would have to explain the suspicion I had of him being a poor copy, although this was now resolved. I might also have to explain some of his future, which I knew would be a dangerous thing to do.
“I think I remember this place too. I knew where to find you although I’ve never been here before,” Rael said.
I looked as he did across the lake. There was a pink mist, which showed how little of the morning I had really lost. I pondered whether you could use the word “remember” to apply to something that had not yet happened, but if it was not a memory, what was it? We began to walk back. The hills behind were grey and blue, like clothes of semi-mourning, and as we rounded the forest the first rays of the sun began to fall between the sturdy trees across our path.
I thought to myself, I have known that Herron was beautiful and yet never felt it until now.
“You’ve been somewhere not so beautiful and the contrast makes it glow,” Rael commented, not expecting a denial or even a response, which made me suspect that he was reading more of my thoughts than I was happy with.
Ahead on the path approaching us was Tan, the Steward of Herron.
“Rael, Damon Ich.” He sounded nervous. “I didn’t know, until I heard the people talking, that you were visiting us, Lord Rael. I’m sure that Damon Ich has made sure you have everything you need but if there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.”
I felt Rael wince at being called “Lord” but he said nothing other than to thank Tan quietly.
“Are you here for a particular purpose?” Tan asked.
“I had a message for Damon Ich,” Rael said. “There is something that I need him to do for me.”
<
br /> Tan’s distant politeness and subservience made me feel baffled and guilty. This was the man who had raised me in as his son and yet we had never grown close, never passed beyond the studied politeness of mere acquaintances.
I tried to be friendly as I explained, “I need to go across the desert to help the descendants of Aeth’s people. I’ll be gone a few days at least.”
“Will you be going with Damon Ich across the desert?” Tan asked Rael, obviously expecting an affirmative.
“I don’t know, at the moment,” Rael answered, looking at me questioningly. “I think probably I’ll have to return to my proper place before he leaves.”
“I’ll update everyone on the situation,” Tan reassured us.
I nodded and carried on walking hurriedly. Suddenly a journey in the desert on my own seemed extremely attractive.
“You believe that I am Rael now?” Rael said as he followed me. We made our way to the lion’s head fountain in the central courtyard and sat down in the sun, my favourite spot.
“Yes,” I answered briefly after a considered pause. I had discovered no real proof, only the certainty that the man whose life I had observed was the same man I saw before me. When I saw him at the beach he was complete with the flaw I saw in his mind now, although he had been whole in the other memory. I did not believe this could have been replicated convincingly by any sort of illusion or pretence.
I was reminded then to restore his uniform to its golden city state as it lay in a heap in my room before I forgot what it should look like. He seemed to notice the seconds in which I was distracted but said nothing about it.
“You really hate the way everyone is so polite to you instead of being honest, don’t you? Is that why you like the dawn so much, before everyone is up?” Rael questioned.
I was tempted to answer yes again but thought Rael might think I was being rude, and that was not my intention.
“It’s just that I seem unable to form any sort of friendly relationships with these people, my people,” I tried to explain. “It’s uncomfortable being talked to as if you were an alien when you have lived in a place for so long and shared so much.”
“They are afraid of you,” Rael suggested, “of your powers. God knows, I wouldn’t last a minute at home if any one there had the ability to read my mind.”
“But I don’t read their minds,” I leaped to my own defence, wondering how he knew what I could do. “I know that that would quickly lead to madness.”
“No, but you could, couldn’t you? If you suspected them of something that threatened your home I’m sure you would break that rule. They probably spend all their time, when talking to you, trying not to look guilty and trying not to think of anything they wouldn’t like you to hear. I shouldn’t think there is much time left over for developing friendly relationships.”
“Talking of reading people’s minds,” I said, to change the uncomfortable subject, “I have noticed you’ve been reading mine, which is unusual considering I thought I was protected and you’ve no power. It shouldn’t be possible, but it is, isn’t it?”
“I think it is,” Rael considered carefully. “Sometimes I’ll be listening to you and you’ll say something so off the wall it couldn’t have been part of what you intended to say. Then at other times pictures, scenes of places and events just turn up in my head and I don’t know where they’ve come from. I didn’t realise these were your thoughts. I thought I was losing my mind.”
“We are different to normal people.”
There was a pause. “I thought I saw my wife earlier. Were you thinking of her?”
“When I was trying to check that you were really who you said you were,” I admitted slowly, “I found myself at a theatre where you met a woman.”
“Yes! We were married recently, although we had only known each other for a few months. It seemed the thing to do as I was being sent away. I thought I was in love and yet now I do not know what love is. I feel no emotion when I think of my wife except for some sorrow that we will never meet again. As if love has been carved out of me along with shrapnel and flesh and disposed of in a hospital incinerator, never to be seen again. Yet now I have been reminded of her face I begin to think that I must stop wallowing in self-pity, if that is what I’m doing, and become a better man to safeguard her future.”
“You shouldn’t fight it, Rael,” I interrupted quickly, feeling heartless. “It’s your fate to abandon all aspects of your current life. If you decide to be strong and fight against the evils of your world, you will doom yourself and your wife to misery, and me and my world to non-existence. This is not a normal situation where fighting is your only option. You must seem weak now to regain your full strength later. When you are Rael in this world, you can reclaim everything that you have lost, including your wife. When your capacity to love has been restored, you will both live happy and contented lives together.”
I had failed completely; I knew this utterly. My attempt to keep Rael’s future secret from him in order not to change fate had been a useless dream once he had begun to read my mind. Now all I could hope for was to restore the old story by abandoning the wreck of a man to torment and despair. I felt sick with shame.
“Can I go back to your room, Damon Ich?” Rael said in a subdued tone. “I don’t want to be mobbed again, which I think will happen if I go anywhere else. I just want to be alone for a little while.”
Did I imagine it or was there a hint of play-acting in his voice? Perhaps I imagined it because I wished there was still some spark of life in him. He left without turning around, so I could not check his expression.
I realised something as I watched him walk away. He had not given up the fight of his own accord. If he had laid down his life, and I had seen the evidence of that, it was because I had made him do it with my tantalising hints about the future. That was one less reason to think I was doomed to think of suicide whenever life got hard. I felt more cheerful after that thought. It left the incidence of my guardian, but one ancestor committing suicide was not a trend, just an unfortunate occurrence.
CHAPTER THREE
Preparing to Cross the Desert
On this invigorating thought, I stood up ready to return to my room. I needed to pack and think about the events of the day. My sister, Tan’s daughter, joined me with a great big smile and I sat down again.
“Damon Ich, I’ve heard that Rael is visiting us,” Ann said. “Can it be possible? Surely, especially by his rules, it should not be allowed.”
I considered.
“This is not the Rael we know. The one who is in charge and knows what he is doing. This is the Rael before he came here. He knows nothing. But still something has happened I think I need your advice for. It may be a problem.”
It was gradually being hammered into my brain the significance of my act that morning. We had always believed that Rael had been brought to Herron by some mysterious and powerful benefactor allowing him to sow the seeds of our home and way of life – but there was no benefactor, just me.
“This morning,” I explained, “I went to check whether Rael was real or an illusion. I found myself at the moment of his death in his own world. I waited. I waited and nothing happened except that he lay dying in front of me until I could wait no longer and I brought him to Herron.”
“You brought him to Herron?” Ann repeated quietly, an excited look in her dark eyes.
“Yes, it was me. So that means there is no mysterious presence to keep him alive with food, no mysterious being to show him where the power awaited him.
“I’ve got to get ready to go across the desert. Did Tan tell you?” I said as another thought hit me. She nodded silently. I could do everything I could think of before I left but if there was no one to react to emergencies Rael could be left without help, and then my world could be in danger. Ann would have to be imbued with power in my absence. She had always been destin
ed to take over from me if I was not there, so she had been trained. I trusted her enough to ask her to look after Rael in my absence and this responsibility would keep her busy so I could leave before any dispute was likely to occur between us. I would only lend her my power so that I could easily call it back in the case of a fight. If I died, the power would flow to her properly. I was not anticipating any problem, but it was my responsibility to think of these things before problems occurred.
“I need to give you power, Ann,” I said, and she looked confused, “so you can look after Rael for us.”
“I can feed him for you. How long do we do it for?”
“He was left for about a month with no power. We gave him tools and blankets as well as food. It is all written down in Rael’s first diary.”
“You are worried about returning back from the desert?” she said slowly. “You didn’t tell me that. I don’t want to do this forever, you know?”
“I am sorry. I have no choice,” I replied unhappily. “I will do my best not to die.”
“If you do, I will hunt you to the ends of eternity and drag what’s left of you back here.” She spoke completely solemnly, and only the fact that I knew her well allowed me to tell that she was laughing at me again.
