Winerose' Abysmal Compendium

by Joules Winerose

Story 2 - The Blind, Leading

  The air was crisp and cold; it was a swarm of frostbitten maggots burrowing beneath the hide and skin of a tribe of northward travelers. Their trek had now been spanning the better part of three hard months, surviving the bitter cold, deathly terrain, and beasts beyond the imaginings of the most savage tales of all those who had ever faced the brutal passages of the southern world’s ubiquitous, frozen tundra.

  The group scrambled from burrow to burrow beneath the ice, following paths carved throughout the surface of their world by the Waerms of lore; leviathans rarely seen by the inhabitants of Prifvol, the southern land of this strange planet. Of course there were other tunnels, manmade, throughout the underground, but to travel under the ice through natural or unnatural means was perilous regardless.

  “Take the leftmost turn up ahead!” shouted Torshesda amongst the tumult of the blizzard howling through the tunnels.

  “Fira! How long have we been down here?” shouted Natarran, Torshesda’s eldest child.

  Natarran had the wakeless sickness. The world to him was a dream. He had the omnipresent belief that he had to wake up. He had no concept of time and place and he detested all the things one yearns for whilst awake. This was especially problematic, because he resisted food and liquid. One of the clan members, Oroki, had to numb him with her thoughts so that he became limp and they could force him to swallow broken-down food of a variety mashed with tanga juice while someone held a flat metal rod down his throat that would block his wind pipe so that the food would not choke his lungs. While doing this, they would periodically compress his chest at the sternum forcefully so that his lungs could absorb the air between portions. Oroki’s numbing talent was powerful, and a great blessing in her family. As long as Natarran had his clan with him, he would not be in any danger. He could fend off attacks, but otherwise he just couldn’t care for himself.

  “We’ve been here for six years or so, jin,” said Torshesda.

  The group had managed to figure out the time displacement between him and his supposed dream world.

  “Oh… that must mean I’ve been asleep for over three months. Something awfully terrible must have happened to me. I wonder when I will wake up… when will I wake up… Fira, what happened to me? Oh… You wouldn’t know. You’re stuck in this dream with me. I guess you wouldn’t mind knowing that I slept with the woman who was meant to be your second wife. That’s why she didn’t marry you. She was nice, yes. Big. Big breasts. Very nice,” said Natarran, chuckling.

  Torshesda grit his teeth. He knew something had run afoul with that arrangement. In Prifvol, the southern lands, it was said that a person was not yours until you were wed. It was also practice that sex should never be indulged in before marriage, so the woman who had slept with Natarran was said to already be a widow unless she married the man who first took her sanctity. Unfortunately, Natarran was not the marrying sort. At least not at the moment.

  The Wakeless sickness was strange. For those afflicted by it, secrets were open windows. Blood had been spilt during times when people had fallen into that sickness, and for good reason, but Natarran was Torshesda’s jin, so there would be no feud. The reason behind the marriage being broken must have been that Natarran thought Torshesda was being greedy, unappreciative of the woman he already had, Natarran’s mahara. Torshesda was probably jaded. That could be the reason why he was meddling with The Forbidden Scroll.

  Natarran roared all of a sudden and jumped into the air. As he did so, the light through an annex in the tunnel shone upon him, and the change could be seen. His skin rippled like the scales of a multicolored fish in shallow water under a bright sun. A silver sheen bubbled to the surface, taking hold of what was there. His flesh was transmuting into… iron. Through Torshesda’s wife Esmeria, their children had The Gift Of Iron Tears.

  The group scattered, getting as far away from Natarran as they could. Their eyes focused like those of a fleet of hawks.

  Natarran pummeled the air with his fists, and when he landed he began shouting names and running. The group followed. Natarran ran into the ice wall of the tunnel. He turned left and kept running. Ducked. Ran. Rolled. Leapt from the ground into the air, appearing to swing his heavy right fist into something, and then fled again. It was all happening so fast, until he called one last name. Again and again. Again and again until Natarran’s voice was a whimper, before he ran and did not stop for miles.

  The Wakeless sickness was seen as an omen. A blessing it could be, but an omen nonetheless. The dreamers dream of the future, and sometimes the future is unpleasant.

  “I’m going to die?” Liliela asked her father.

  Torshesda stifled a tear as he shook his head.

  “But he-”

  “It doesn’t matter what he said. We still don’t know if-”

  “He said my name. Like that. He didn’t come back for me.”

  “Liliela, come here honey,” said Esmeria.

  Liliela walked over to her mother, and Esmeria knelt down to embrace her wistfully. Esmeria mouthed words to Torshesda. He nodded.

  “Come here Esmeria,” said Torshesda bitterly.

  Others could be heard crying and seen crowding around particular members of the clan. It was not known what would cause the deaths of those named, but death was sure to come for those who had received Natarran’s naming.

  Torshesda was Sun Priest back in Labonnia, the city of the south. The only city. He read his daughter her death rights: “Now in the light you bathe. Walking upon the stones of ancestry, you watch them crumble to dust to be forgotten, but you shall always be remembered. Now is your time to speak. To speak of what your last thoughts wish to engrave upon the living. Speak, daughter of Nagath. Speak of love.”

  “Fira, I love you more than… than…”

  Liliela broke down and cried, finally succumbing to the pressure of the situation. Torshesda placed both hands on his daughter’s shoulders and neglected to wipe the tears of his own eyes.

  “I thought that one day I would be admitting my love for you in this way. For you, it was never meant to be in this way.”

  Liliela spoke her peace with her father, and then on down the line from her father to her mother to the rest of her siblings, skipping her eldest brother. Never were final adornments meant to be said to someone in the wakeless state, lest they forever wander in eternal nightmare.

  Esmeria walked over to where Natarran was curled up in a fetal position, crying, and tried to pick him up. He refused. After she coaxed him into standing he finally acquiesced, and she tried convincing him that everything was alright.

  “She’s dead, mahara. Nothing can bring her back. Nothing!”

  “Natarran!”

  “Yes, fira.”

  “Everything’s fine. Look here. Just look at who’s behind me,” said Natarran.

  Liliela popped out from behind Torshesda, smiling.

  “Oh great Nagath, I forgot! This is just a dream! Praise Nagath, it’s just a dream. Haha!”

  Natarran began strolling down one of the tunnel’s annexes.

  “Come on everyone, be happy! It’s just a dream!”

  “Yes,” said Torshesda as Natarran walked away. “Just a dream.”