Damon Ich (The Wheel of Eight Book 2)

by Aaron D. Key

  “I’m sorry. That was my fault,” Rael admitted. “I could see those memories there, tucked away securely, and I was impatient for you to see them too. I forgot that though you are Damon Ich, the body you inhabit is that of a frail human.”

  “I thought Damon Ich was human?” I said, thinking of everything I knew about him, knowing that I should not be saying “him” yet still not entirely understanding or believing.

  “Of course you were, but that is different. You will understand soon.”

  It was evening. The sun set as we made our way into the tower and up to the room in which Peter said he lived. I was not sure now what had been a show for me or what was real. It was empty of his small family, for which I was grateful, as every moment my head was filled with a new memory, complete and vibrant but alien – like a film rather than something that had happened to me.

  I sat on a sofa as instructed, ate and drank what was given to me. In spite of my doubts, I felt better as I chewed on some toast and drank tea.

  “I’m sorry this has been a shock to you,” Rael said as at last he sat down with me. “I didn’t expect that you would find out this way. I hoped for a gradual realisation that you could have come to terms with, but I expect that this will turn out for the best. Things usually do.”

  My mind was such a blur I did not even question this statement.

  “I need to know things,” I said at last. “Then I think I need to be left alone to think about them.”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “How did Damon Ich lose his body and find himself in mine?” I asked with no consideration for grammar or sense.

  “I will tell you the whole story. What do you remember up to?”

  “I returned the baby to you and Elena and then Elena to you. This was the last memory.”

  “It was probably just about then that Aeth returned and took your body. I do not know how he did it but he kept you alive and conscious for months so you could see the havoc he was causing. I am glad, in a way, that you have forgotten these memories.

  “Aeth agreed with your mother that her reward for helping him would be your life. At the end, he moved everything that made up your non-physical body into the mind of a baby on earth.”

  While Rael was talking, another memory pushed to the front of my mind …

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Memories

  I was young, probably fifteen, and had recently taken over my duties. I had done enough to convince me that people were cruel, stupid, sadistic, and generally inexplicable. There was too much to do. In a lifetime I would only scratch the surface. Why, I questioned, was I bothering to help them at all when the victims one day could be the perpetrators the next? When they were ungrateful and grasping and unlikely to ever find contentment? I was sitting on a beach I had recently discovered in my travels, pondering my woes and throwing stones into the sea, imagining each one a life I had wasted by sitting here instead of working; and not caring.

  I was being watched by a man who was something out of the ordinary, as I knew no one but me could see him. He seemed to pose no threat, and I was arrogant enough to think that I could handle anything anyway.

  Then it felt as though an angel had visited me. My mood softened, and I understood why it was that people baffled me so much; how they were shaped and constrained by forces outside their control; how they tried and struggled; how they were consumed; how they failed despite their best intentions. Then I was inspired to visit a place where a terrible tragedy had taken place, where I saw people putting aside their own petty cares and carrying out impossible tasks to help other people, and I understood how they were not perfect, just as I was not perfect, but there was still something in them that was worth saving.

  And then I visited another place, where people lived in terrible poverty and ignorance, with disease and hunger all around them, and yet they still found things to celebrate. I was humbled. I knew I had so much to learn before I could be a worthy successor to Rael. My burden was lessened because I appreciated how tiny a space in the universe I occupied. The angel left me with a warm feeling like an embrace.

  * * *

  I returned to focus on what Rael was saying to me.

  “I need to tell you what has been happening since you have been away but I’ll wait until tomorrow when hopefully things will start to make more sense. Shall I leave you alone now or do you want to show me around the garden?”

  I wanted normality. I wanted a life in which I felt I had some control. To be a gardener again, a bereaved man on the verge of finding friendship again. This is what I had begun to hope yesterday, but now I knew it had only been an airy hallucination. Even so, showing Rael around my garden would make me feel more like that person again. I needed that for a little while.

  We started in the inner courtyard, discussing what had been done and what there was still to do. The moon was bright but in the shadow of the buildings it was impossible to see anything beyond the outlines. We carried on. I did not know whether Rael could actually see or if he remembered the layout from his previous look around or if he was humouring me to keep me calm. I did not need the light, as every corner and every section was etched into my memory.

  He was happy with everything. I knew that this was a minor issue compared to the bombshell he had landed earlier and yet it made me glad. It comforted my heart and I was able to return to my room under the delusion that all was well. I was a gardener and my garden was lovely. It was not until later that the nightmares started when more memories returned.

  * * *

  I was standing in front of someone who I knew was Damon Ich, or at least his body. He was talking but not to me, not even to the man who stood in front of him, only to the floor by his side. When he looked up, the expression on his face was wrong.

  “I want Koa to die. I want you to kill him for me,” he was saying.

  “Why do you think I will do that?” the figure in black asked with a tone of contempt. I could not understand where I was. I felt like I was the figure in black and yet it was not me talking.

  “You know I can’t kill, but there are other things I can do without fear or reprimand. I have been thinking carefully about what I could do to Herai and Koa if you do not obey me. It will not be pretty but I would not have killed anyone.”

  I felt the body of the person I thought I was stiffen and tremble with suppressed rage and impotence.

  “I would rather try to kill you, though I might die in the attempt.”

  “You would die. I am allowed to defend myself. And after you die I will still mutilate and torture Herai and Koa, wishing only that you had been there to see it.”

  “I don’t understand why you want to do this, even if you are insane. You could have anything, do anything. How do these petty revenges benefit you?”

  “You could not begin to understand how if you can have anything that the universe can offer, then nothing has any value. What is the point of doing anything – for me, at least? Your pathetic lives seem to have some point, at least to you, and I envy you that. Come and tell me tomorrow if you will kill Koa and then I will suspend all my other plans.”

  “I will think about it.” The dark figure bowed his head and left. I was in his body though I was not him. I felt the cold sweat, the tug of contracted muscles, the ache of a broken heart. A constant rhythm was in our heads. He does not know who I love: I will not think of them, over and over again.

  * * *

  A large figure loomed out of the dark. I recognised it as Jack. His expression was troubled and he looked hurt when we snarled, “Keep away from me. You would run away far from here if you had any sense. Aeth is testing me by asking me to kill those I love. He does not know you, so run. He has threatened Koa and Herai with everything except death if I do not do what he asks. He has had a lot of years to think how to punish those he does not like.”

 
Jack noticeably swallowed but said bravely, “The worst that can happen has already happened to most of us here. That does not mean we welcome it – only that our temporary visit to heaven is at an end. We can face that bravely. Anyway, I have not given up hope that Damon Ich will save us.”

  “Damon Ich is dead and gone,” the dark figure said with cold contempt. Contempt for me, I realised, and those who relied on me for their protection.

  Jack smiled. “I still have faith.”

  “Then you are a fool.” I saw that Monta said this fondly. “So you will not run? Will you keep away from me? I do not want to have to kill you, even if I was able to.”

  Jack smiled broadly again. “I don’t know this man so I will be guided by you. What do you suggest if I do not wish to run or stay away?”

  “Pray,” the dark figure growled. “For both of us.”

  Then I withdrew to the small space left for me in the mind I was hidden in. It was like a small stone cave in the dark and I waited for time to pass.

  Later we returned to Koa’s workroom. Koa was there, looking hunched and worried. He looked once into the eyes of the person I was sharing the space with and seemed to understand. He retrieved a bottle of alcohol, I assumed – I marvelled at his ability to produce this in any environment – and they both shared a drink. Herai joined them later and they poured another drink without much talking. I could see that Herai was getting nervous, looking into the black figure’s face with eyes that were unnaturally small and red. I felt a surge of tenderness towards them both.

  Koa knew. You could see it in his eyes, but he had prepared himself and there was no struggle when we broke his neck. Herai was very afraid. There was an internal struggle for control which just overcame sheer panic.

  “Are you sure this is for the best?” Herai asked in a quiet voice that could hardly be heard.

  “This is all I can do to protect you,” Monta said with a crack in his voice, and Herai died too. I felt my own heart break. I didn’t have a heart, but something broke within me. Then Monta and I drank the rest of the alcohol and lay eventually, like a dead thing on the seashore, across the surface of Koa’s table beside the two grotesque puppets littering the floor. The body I was in was unconscious, uncaring, and I wept without eyes or mouth.

  Then we were beaten, almost beyond bearing, although the pain was not mine. I was impressed by the strength in my old body. I had never known it could inflict pain like that.

  “Why did you do that? What do you think you have achieved? I can still go back in time and carry out my threats. You have achieved nothing except to piss me off.”

  “If you promise on the power that you will leave them alone, I will promise to serve you faithfully and do anything you ask of me,” Monta said with his head bowed.

  The face of the almost Damon Ich changed from a thwarted child to a placid god.

  “And I promise on the power that while you serve me faithfully, I will leave Herai and Koa alone in death. You and Cailo always were my most loyal servants.”

  “That was before you went barking mad,” Monta said.

  “For that I think you had better stab yourself.”

  There was a fumbling, a hesitation, and pain like I had never felt before, but only for a second. Then there was a blessed moment of complete peace, interrupted by the sound of someone tutting.

  “Did you think it would end so easily? I only promised to leave your loved ones alone while you were still serving me. You must outlive me to keep them safe, and this sort of behaviour will not increase your life expectancy. I have healed you a little bit, enough to make you still useful to me, but I would not try a trick like that again.”

  “I was only trying to show that I would be a loyal servant who would obey you whatever the cost to me,” Monta said between gritted teeth.

  “In that case I forgive you.”

  There was a lessening of the pain, a stronger beat from the heart within us.

  * * *

  I woke with cold, clammy skin covered in sweat. I was petrified. This was like nothing I had ever experienced before – a world away from my comfortable life. I dreaded the morning and yet the night was unbearably long. Had this been a real memory? I suddenly realised that it was. So Koa was dead. If I was Damon Ich, and I was beginning to believe I was, then I had lost another person I had loved, but such a long time ago, almost forty-six years ago. For I was a man of over seventy years, if I counted the forty-six years spent on earth and the twenty-four years in Herron and believed everything told to me.

  Even the real me, as I was still inclined to think it, had met Koa and felt the tragedy of his death. Although Damon Ich knew Herai barely at all, he knew enough to realise the effect that his decision would have had on Monta. I found it hard to condone Monta’s actions and hard to condemn because I believed he thought he had no other choice. Despite my rapidly advancing age, I did not feel wise enough to cope with this paucity of choice.

  There was no chance of sleeping again and I was dreading the dawn. The prospect of tossing and turning uncomfortably for the remains of the night was not attractive, so I made my way to the lake.

  There was no evidence of the sun, just an unnatural hush of expectation in the way the wind moved the long grasses and rushes. I was seeing by starlight. Memories of the previous day hung still in the air like a line of mist: star-fruit blossom, cut grass, lavender, and sweet compost. They only served to starkly define the difference between the pleasant past and this moment onwards.

  As I reached the edge of the lake the first bird song started, and by the time I waded in to knee depth the sound was almost deafening. I lay back, letting the cold water embrace me like a marble tomb. Supporting my head with my folded arms, I floated where the current wanted to take me, rising and falling with each breath. I rested there, watching the stars revolving around, at least they seemed to, until the sky began to lighten and the stars faded. At some stage I fell asleep and woke with a mouthful of water. Spluttering and shivering, I stood up and walked from the shallow water the current had deposited me in, and then I fell to my knees on the grassy banks and cried. I was crying because Koa and Herai were dead. I was crying because Monta had sold his soul as if he had no further use for it. I was crying for the loss of my faithful companion, my only love, and for the fact that I was now seventy years old and still only half a complete man. I had failed the people I was supposed to be protecting; that had been my only purpose in life and I had shown myself to be incapable of it. Rael would be coming to see me soon, to drag me further into this nightmarish world so I could sort it out, and I had no idea how I could put anything to rights.

  Then I was ashamed.

  Nothing that Rael had done so far was consistent with a man in a hurry. From the time he had first spotted me digging in a border to yesterday when he had fed me toast and tea, he had been patient and understanding. After all, he had no reason to rush. He could control time and make it bend to his will, and perhaps one day I would be able to as well again. Then perhaps I could go back in time and do something to stop the nightmare happening. I remembered how easy it had been in the stories in my head: how Damon Ich had gone to the hill, thought of a place and time, and then had been there. If I had known how to do this, I could surely relearn it, though I had no power. Perhaps I needed to talk to Rael. Should I be given the power back?

  I quickly changed into the dry clothes I had discarded on the shore, watching the sun rise through a gap in the hills. Its orange glow was reflected in the lake until it looked like the whole world was on fire. I walked along the shore, remembering from the stories where Damon Ich had gone – knowing that I had been this way before many times in the last few months and had seen nothing like the scene I was looking for, and yet now I knew it had to be there.

  I wondered whether the change in my perception that Rael had engineered would still be in place until I saw that the world around me w
as a wilder place than it had pretended to be, and grander: the mountains were taller, the lake wider, the tower of Herron more impossibly big. He had been right to interfere. I would never have believed I was in Scotland if I had seen what I was seeing now.

  On the other side of the river, I clearly saw the small hill I had been looking for and strode out more confidently towards it. I crossed over a stone bridge lined with grass and felt another memory overtake me.

  * * *

  I had suddenly become a lot shorter. I was on the same stone bridge, looking up into the face of a much younger Maone, who stood upright without any signs of nervousness in her face. I couldn’t understand why Maone was in my memory at all: and then it hit me. That had been the name of my predecessor and guardian. Maone, rescued from despair by Rael in order that she could look after Glant’s city.

  She spoke. “I think it is time I show you something of the work that I do, and that you will do one day.”

  We walked towards the small hill and entered the circle of trees together.

  “Now I will let you take us somewhere and let’s see where we end up. The power in this hill makes it easy to go anywhere. You don’t need any power of your own. The coming back is trickier, at least until you have got the hang of it, but if we stick together I can make sure you get back.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said in a surprisingly squeaky voice.

  “I think it is best if you sit down, shut your eyes, and try to think of somewhere you would like to go.”

  I did as she suggested, feeling very small and insignificant as she continued to stand next to me. My mind felt blank. I frantically tried to think of somewhere.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Maone said, sounding amused.

  We stood on the side of a road with streaming cars. This was a fascinating sight to me as I had not spent much time in this section of history. It was dark and it was raining; an intensely wet and unpleasant sort of rain, I thought to myself.