Damon Ich (The Wheel of Eight Book 2)

by Aaron D. Key

  It bothered me that I could generate this reaction just by being me. Although I wondered if I was fooling myself, there also seemed to be affection there that I could not account for. We had never met. It seemed highly unlikely that the vision of my form had generated an instant attraction. What was it about him that made me think he was important? I did not find him attractive, although it was possible that if I had not been broken-hearted I might have done, but any thought of love was beyond me. I was as dried out and devoid of life as an empty seed pod.

  The next day was much of the same. I amused myself by imagining I was Koa working on his new herb garden, as the ground that I was working on was barren and empty. It was nearly noon again when I looked up and found the same eyes gazing at me, this time only a few feet away. The young man was standing next to the head gardener, who I always thought of as McGregor, in spite of lack of beard and not being from Scotland. There was a strange look of meekness in the young man’s face, as if he were involved in a subtle deception that was going well.

  “Peter is one of our new volunteers. Will you look after him today?” McGregor said in her irritatingly jolly voice. Then she moved on, but not before giving Peter a look that said “Don’t forget I warned you not to expect a warm welcome from this one”.

  “How long are you going to be with us?” I asked with a sigh.

  “A couple of months, I think.”

  “And how much experience do you have?” I enquired further, wondering where best to put him to work.

  “None, really.” He smiled a charming smile. “I saw you the other day,” he continued. “I was having a look around before I started, and I was watching you – thinking that would be me soon. You know, allowed to stand on the precious borders. I’m sorry if you thought I was being rude.”

  I shrugged as if I did not know what he was talking about but felt reassured. We spent the afternoon pruning. First, I showed him what we were trying to achieve and then I let him join in. I could tell by the way he chatted happily while working that he knew exactly what he was doing, although modest in his assessment of his abilities. He told me he had recently inherited a substantial garden in Scotland and was trying to expand his knowledge to take care of it. He was a comfortable person to be around, showing interest without prying and requiring nothing more from me than what I was. All I told him about myself was that I lived alone but he seemed happy with this lack of detail. I got to the end of the day and realised that I had enjoyed myself more than I had expected.

  I spent the evening in the public swimming pool, going up and down in the lanes, calculating ever-increasing fractions of my target to stop me getting bored.

  I was also trying to work out what ended the story. The intricacies of time travel were as soothing in a way as the calculation of ever-more complicated fractions, and the joy of a solid quarter or half as satisfying as the realisation that if Aeth had killed Rael then it was probable that he would have caused the world of Herron to end. Without Rael, there was no one to create the society that had produced Damon Ich, and without his act of rescuing Rael, which had happened because of Aeth’s plotting, there would be no world. It could still happen, but the risks were too high. Elena knew that, so that Aeth could not be unaware. But perhaps Aeth had not cared. He was probably not completely sane. Still, I believed that he would not have gone to such trouble, such complicated plotting, just for the satisfaction of killing Rael and then finding himself back where he had been when Rael plucked him from his world and knowing nothing about any of it.

  Happy that this was probably not why the story had come to an end, I reached one over one and left the water to sit in the sauna.

  Walking home later, I felt warm enough to disregard the cold air. There was a beautiful full moon draped in wisps of silver clouds but it made me feel like an intruder, not an integral part of the earth’s ecosystem – although I could not define why this would be so.

  As I was getting ready for bed, I was shocked to see my face in the bathroom mirror, as if I had not really looked at it for over a year. My bleary eyes peered out from the top of an untidy beard that I was not fully aware I possessed. I remembered the first traces of it appearing after I slept for a week, exhausted at the end of a year of gradually climaxing horror. After that, it had appeared in the way of lichen upon stone – a natural and unavoidable phenomenon beloved of many gardeners, including myself.

  It was as though my eyes had been opened and I saw it for the ugly bramble it really was. More hacking and pruning occurred and I could see my face again; different and older than I remembered but definitely me in a way I had not been for over a year.

  I slept with a feeling of an obstacle overcome, an optimism about the following day, and knew that something had changed in me or in the world. It was hard to be definite about what it was.

  As McGregor gave out instructions the next day at work, she kept looking at me in an unsettling way but said nothing. I could not imagine what had led her to this unexpected restraint. I had expected to endure endless hilarious comments. The temperature had dropped in the night and I felt it even more because of my naked and tender face, but it was a pleasure: a real sensation, different to the numbed existence I had become used to.

  Volunteers started later than I did, so I was sitting in the gardeners’ mess, finishing off a hurried early lunch and cradling a warm cup of tea before I saw Peter walking towards me with a sandwich and a drink. I grunted hello and realised by his sudden and ridiculous expression of surprise that he had not recognised me until I had spoken.

  “You’ve changed,” he said in a lightly mocking tone as he sat down beside me. “What’s this in aid of?”

  “Just fancied a change,” I replied shortly, thinking an explanation would be inappropriate and complicated.

  “So what are we up to today?” he settled for asking.

  “Digging over, in the walled garden.”

  “At least it should keep us warm,” he said comfortably.

  “I’ll see you out there when you’re ready.” I cleared away the remains of my lunch, deliberately leaving when I could have stayed and been sociable. I did not want to think about the implications of my grief lifting. Guilt had settled on me as if it was wrong to carry on and to try to enjoy life, but I had not forgotten the departed. It was just that the pain of loss had eased a tiny fraction, almost making life bearable again, and that could not be a bad thing.

  I was hard at work and building up a warm glow by the time Peter joined me. I was content. My mind was already thinking ahead to the spring and the summer when this barren and bleak square would be a mass of colour and productiveness. I was thinking of the best companions to gourds and beans, of how well the willow arch would look once it had sprouted again with delicate grey leaves. A small flower in a deep shade of pink with large deep green leaves would set it off best, I decided, or would white be better, a more subtle effect.

  “We could do with some winter jasmine here now,” Peter called across.

  “Yes,” I agreed. Why had he said that just as I was scanning a list of plants in my head? I had turned down the winter jasmine with regret, as it was one of my favourite plants; the flowers would not be there when the willow leaves first emerged.

  “McGregor says we shouldn’t clog this area up with non-productive plants and I can see her point of view.”

  “Who’s McGregor?” Peter asked, puzzled.

  “You know, the head gardener,” I explained, embarrassed to have my very minor joke exposed to the world. “What made you think of jasmine?” I asked quickly to distract his attention.

  “Does that make me a rabbit?” he said obscurely and carried on. “I was just thinking that as visitors come here all year round, it would be worth putting something beautiful here, perhaps near the seat and the fountain, so people can sit here with the trickling water and the smell of the jasmine when it’s sunny in the winter. I’d l
ike something like that in my garden, I think.”

  “It’d be colder up there, I expect. Not so much sitting around in the winter,” I said in a gloomy tone of voice: the voice of someone who had not been given their own estate and garden.

  “It’s surprisingly balmy, actually. I think it’s because of the mountains and the loch. They seem to deflect the bad weather away.”

  McGregor seemed to be around a lot more that day, lingering unnecessarily to discuss the coming spring and gently flirting with Peter.

  “That woman is seriously attracted to you,” Peter commented once as she was walking through the arch in the wall. He seemed to appreciate the way she was walking by the smile on his face as his eyes followed her. I was surprised. I had never looked past the effect her upbeat and loud voice had on me. She had always appeared as an elderly and annoying Scotsman to me. It was strange to look at her through another man’s eyes and realise that she was a vaguely attractive woman in a hearty and non-sylphlike way.

  “It must be serious to have survived through the damp badger phase, and even more so to be inflamed by the recovering alcoholic look. Was that why you got rid of it?”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “She has never talked to me unnecessarily. I thought it was you she was interested in.”

  “She likes to talk to me because it’s no effort. She never knows what to say to you because she knows nothing about you. That’s why she likes talking to me with you there. She’s hoping you might join in the conversation and give her something to work with.”

  “That’s not good,” I muttered nervously. Could he be right or was he deluding himself? “Don’t encourage her, please, at least not in thinking of me.”

  “Not your type?” he asked casually.

  “I don’t have a type. I just want to be left alone.” As I spoke, I had fleeting feeling from the time before he had died; how he was always there in the dark of night, solid and warm, and how the lack of his presence now left a gaping hole, a howling void, the thought of which unmanned me.

  There were tears tickling the corners of my eyes. I turned away and started to dig again, ashamed of this weakness, weary of the world intruding into the warm cocoon I had created for myself. I worked hard, ignoring Peter completely except for a grunt when he eventually and surprisingly cheerfully left for the evening.

  I left for home later dispirited by the thought that my life was infinitely preferable to almost every other human who had ever lived on this planet. I lived in a country where most individuals were free to shape any life for themselves without state intimidation or improper imprisonment; in a time when most of the travesties of human interaction caused by ignorance had been removed. I had adequate money and my health was generally good. I worked at something I loved, and if the working conditions ever became unbearable I was able to move without fear of destitution. I had enough or even an excess of food from all continents, all climates. And I was still a miserable bastard.

  It was an insult to all those who had gone before, or even to those who lived now; those who suffered, struggled, and endured. I thought it was probably time for a change in my life. Perhaps I needed to fill my time with something other than thinking of myself: a radical thought that scared and excited me.

  Still, grief was a process gone through by all with sane minds, so I had to let myself feel the loss, acknowledge the thought, but then try to move on.

  I went swimming again that night. I wanted the calm thinking time and the cold water on my red-raw face. In the midst of the previous night’s calculations I had determined it was unlikely, although not impossible, that Aeth had killed Rael. One fifth. The most likely outcome was that he had left him alone, and presumably Elena too, as her presence was required in this version of the past – a quarter – and surely her not being there would have had a significant impact on her young son and the whole nature of the place. Three tenths. This would mean that Aeth would have to take on another body to escape from the half-life of torment he felt in Glant’s body, and presumably Elena’s body. Had he stolen Damon Ich’s body? If this had been the case, what would life have been like for those left behind? Would they imagine that Damon Ich had gone mad? How long would Koa have lasted if this had been the case? Five fourteenths.

  I was glad when I thought of this that the story had ended. The rest of it would have been deeply unpleasant if my imagination was anything to go by. Four tenths. I spent the rest of the time imagining that I was Damon Ich swimming with Koa in the lake, but instead of Koa’s face, which after all was a vague concept to me, I saw the face of my lost love. Above the sparkling surface of the lake it was as though he had come to visit from another realm, wherever that was, a place where the dead were cherished and refreshed. His skin was luminescent, his eyes full of life and a hard glitter of determination that had a similar effect on me. I reached one over one with a kind of ice-cold realisation that my imagination had outstretched itself again: that he was not really beside me and never would be again.

  * * *

  The next morning was the first real frost of the year. I sat enclosed and detached in a humming white shell waiting for the ice on my windscreen to melt, then drove carefully along the treacherous country lanes. Once at the garden, I warmed up sipping tea from my flask while listening to the plan for the day.

  “Are you happy carrying on with digging or do you need a change?” McGregor asked.

  “I’ll carry on,” I said gruffly. “There’s four days’ worth still to do, at least.”

  “Do something different tomorrow then.”

  Everything she said used to drive me mad. I once would have taken this instruction as an indication she thought me an old broken-down man who would be worse than useless with a crooked back. I decided to take it now as a sign of concern instead and found her less annoying as a result. I had concluded last night while sitting in the sauna, gradually heating and relaxing my tired muscles, that Peter was talking rubbish. There was no way McGregor felt anything but motherly towards me, and that was just her character. I had nothing to fear. Even if he were right and she decided to share her feelings with me, it would be nothing more than an embarrassment all round. I could cope with that.

  Even hard work was barely keeping me warm today and I was grateful for a lunchtime soup and coffee. This time I hung around while Peter finished his lunch. He seemed on edge today, unfocused, and jittery. It seemed unnatural almost, as if the tension was so rare that he didn’t know how to react to pressure.

  “Are you up for digging again?” I asked, relying on the normal routine instead of investigating this unusual behaviour. “I’m sure Mc … well, you know, would find you something else to do if you wanted more variety.”

  “I’m happy digging with you. Company is as good as variety, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t answer. I could see he was greatly distracted. I was not much company, I knew. I had barely spoken to him in the last few days, partially because this was my normal habit but mostly because his presence threatened the validity of my whole existence in some way that I did not want to analyse.

  We headed out again to the walled garden. On days like this I mourned the way the sheltering walls kept off the low sunlight, but today I had resolved this by working from the middle. The rays were strong and intense – not those of a distant weakening star. Still, the frosty air and the spirit of our breathing told the truth: that at the height of his strength, the sun struggled to fully protect us from the bitter iced heart of the universe. We worked for two hours and made progress, but Peter’s heart was not in his work.

  “I thought you were against the idea of buttoning things up?” I said and marvelled that I would think such a comment appropriate or desirable.

  “You know the sort of day when so many things go wrong, things that can’t be fixed, and your head fills up and feels like it wants to explode? I’m having one of those days, and you’re righ
t, I usually like to share the burden with as many people as I can induce to listen to me, but I thought you had enough troubles of your own without worrying about mine as well.”

  I thought about this. I thought of my bearded face bowed down with sorrow and pain just two – was it only two? – days ago and I could not feel my troubles. With the sun on my naked face filling up every single pore with warmth and light, I felt that this was a precious time. As I had tried to understand this change with logic, I now felt with my heart how precious this life was. I looked at Peter’s face in confusion. I liked every part of it, in spite of the fact I had spent two days avoiding looking at him. Every moment I spent with him, I was gaining energy, as if he were channelling it to me. I hoped that this was not why he was finding things harder.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You make me sound like a black hole of gloom, but I don’t really have any troubles.” This with a rush of astonishment. “Nothing apart from those my own head has put upon me.”

  He looked at me gravely and with a long pause of appraisal. “You surprise me.”

  I blushed and turned my head away as he continued, “But it’s interesting you say that because I think that’s what’s happening to a cousin of mine. She had a reasonably perfect life, although she was an orphan. She felt under some pressure because of the expectations of her work. The pressure got worse and worse until she tried to kill herself. She said afterwards that she couldn’t see any other way out from this kind of imaginary world where everyone was out to get her, where there was no way to win. So after this she came to live with me and some of my family in Scotland. She’s been there a few months now, and she seemed to be getting better, so I thought it would be safe to leave her for a little while with my family while I did this volunteering. She’s been keeping in touch and seems quite sane, but now and then the terrors come back and her visions of the other world blocks out the real one. She can’t explain why or try to reason any of it away.