Kilda woke up with a start. Snow had fallen on her head. For an instant, she thought she was buried alive. She yelled and gasped for air as bodies moved around her. Her gloved hands closed on fur. When she opened her eyes, the dog stared at her, his chops curved in a smile.
“You smell bacon,” Kilda said to the drooling animal.
“It finally ran into the wall,” Selen said, half laughing.
She looked up. Their shelter was a heap of snow. Yet, the sky was a light grey. They had made it through the night. Louis stood in front of her and gazed straight with his eyes wide. Hoping he had spotted a ray of sun, Kilda glanced behind her. She only saw more greyish desolation. She turned around again.
“There’s nothing,” she mumbled, deceived, but Louis didn’t answer her and kept looking straight.
Kilda realized she had her back against the stone. She took a look at it. It was plain stone.
“What do you see?” Selen asked Louis.
“It’s not a stone,” Louis mumbled out of his thoughts. “It’s a statue.”
“A statue?” Eliot repeated. “What sort of eyes do you have? It’s just plain stone.”
Kilda had a closer look at it. There were peculiar shapes carved into the block. “It could have been formed by the wind or another kind of erosion.”
“No. This is a face. This is a person,” Louis insisted. He drew nearer and brushed away the last flakes of snow from the stone.
A profile appeared clearly in a larger pattern of folds of a cloak and sparse locks of hair. It was ancient and weathered, but there was a limit to what erosion could do. This was a statue. “Why would a statue stand here in the middle of nowhere?” Kilda asked.
“This is a place of legend. Could it be the Daughter of the Roses?” Selen asked.
Louis traced his fingers along the feminine features. The curve of a large eye. A taut cheek. “What do you see in this face?”
“I see someone scared,” Selen answered. “As if the statue looked back over her shoulder.”
“What does that mean? This is quite unordinary for a theme,” Kilda said.
“No. It’s not unordinary,” Selen said. “This is a common theme. The gods’ wrath.”
“And why would someone sculpt the gods’ wrath in this forsaken desert?” Eliot asked, dubious.
“Who said it was sculpted?” Louis said.
“I beg your pardon?” Kilda asked.
“This is Sod—” Louis paused and looked at them. “There was a legend I read about. A city doomed by God to destruction. Some people fled, but they were warned that if they looked back, they would be turned into stone. We know that these Nuharinni refuse all contact with the outside world and want to stay hidden. It’s logical that they have a system to prevent anyone from leaving the place.”
“Damn. If they have the gods’ wrath on their side, we are screwed,” Kilda said.
“Screwed or not, we can judge by the statue’s angle that he or she came from over there,” Louis said, pointing east. “We have a direction. Let’s go.” He picked up his bag and headed east.
With the dog wagging its tail, the food to fill their bellies, and now a path to follow, a spark of hope had lit her heart. They found another statue that confirmed them in their decision. Her motivation only flickered when they caught sight of bloodstains on a snowdrift.
The dog sniffed at it and took the trail. The drops turned into a trickle. As an instinct, they had grabbed either an ice pick or a knife that they held raised, ready to stab. Used to the rogue life, Kilda had chosen the knife. Never experiment when you don’t know what’s coming for you. The only thing that helped her keep her head cool was that the blood didn’t come from one of them.
They found the carcass in a shallow crevasse. The muskox had broken a leg and lay on its side. Yet, what had killed it was not the fall. Its flank had been ripped apart. Its ribs, cleaned of the flesh, bit the air. A faint smoke of warm air rose from its insides. The death could be a few hours fresh. Tracks of foxes and owls circled the entrails left to rot. Kilda searched for bear paws but saw none. She stepped back and analyzed the spoor. What she found didn’t make any sense. The traces were extended footmarks which ended in four toes or claws. She could put two of her strides in one of the creature. It stopped on the edge of the crevasse and vanished. Whatever it was, it hadn’t turned back.
“It’s a demon,” Eliot whispered.
“Abaddon, Moloch, Azazel…” Louis mumbled. “It’s all your kind can come with once facing the unknown,” he said, irritated, and jostled Eliot as he passed behind him. “Only an animal we haven’t met yet.”
“Louis…” Selen whispered, looking at his friend with incomprehension. But Selen gave up and followed Louis without any more words.
Whether you can’t stand thinking of it or you know what it is, Kilda thought. In any way, she didn’t want to linger here.
Although their way crossed one more statue, no sunlight shone on the horizon. “It is pointless,” Kilda sighed. Her knees burned with pain. “If there were a ray of sun we would see it in the distance. Even in this maze of ice, it would reflect on something.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Louis replied sharply without a glance.
“What if the ray of sun was a metaphor?” Selen whispered. “Ahanu said we would not find it if we didn’t open our minds to the legend.”
“The thing that killed that cow was not a metaphor,” Eliot grunted.
Selen stopped and raised his head towards the ice wall on their left. Taking the lead, he moved to face the wall. “This is an arch.”
Kilda halted, rested on her stick, and scanned the wall. On the summit, a crack shone dimly between a heap of rocks. “It’s an opening, but I see no sunbeam.”
“Yet, if the sun shone, it would pass through it,” Louis said. “What if it magnifies light into a beam?”
Selen faced them, breathing hard and gasping. Blood stained his lower lip. “Can we give it a try?” he pleaded.
Though worn-out, Kilda didn’t have the heart to refuse. “What’s one more mile?” she sighed.
Swerving from their path, they reached the wall, and, burning their last strength, they climbed the mass of rocks with the use of their ice picks. They hauled each other and the dog with their hands. The animal clawed the stone and managed the last part, a narrow slope, on its own.
As she drew nearer, the arch reflected a golden light. Louis and Selen made it to the top, followed by Eliot. Kilda crawled the last few steps and slumped under the span. In front of her, Louis and Selen sagged on each other onto the snow and chuckled nervously. She turned her head and joined them in their laugh. Under the crust of ice, the arch was made of solid gold. But what overjoyed her was the green valley on the other side.
“We made it. Praised be the gods, we made it,” Kilda sobbed.
The arch was a gate between two worlds. The valley that spread on this side had its own climate, noticeably warmer, and the luminosity of a white sun which shone in a distant mist. Even from a distance, she noticed that the trees, spread like a deep green down, were different from all she knew. Once they reached the bottom of the slope, Kilda felt the need to remove all the extra clothes she wore. They undressed and left their furs, wools, and climbing material in a cavity they marked with a cross. With only their tunics and bags, they kept on walking towards the unknown.
A narrow path wound its way across the dense, exotic vegetation. Though the grass was high, they didn’t need to cut their way through thickets. After weeks of black and white, Kilda’s eyes were inspirited by the range of colors displayed by nature, from the luxuriant green to the velvety orange. Not a single tree looked like the other. The density of the bushes made it impossible to see far through the forest. Thick, decaying ropes bound the trees’ branches to each other. Lush ferns of unusual dimensions cascaded down to the sides of the way. They were bathed in dew and sprinkled with pink and white flowers shaped as exotic lilies.
Selen made a step t
owards them to pick one, but Louis grabbed his wrist.
“No,” Louis snapped. “Look at the dog,” he added softly, nodding at the animal.
While the dog had gamboled around in the snow as if they were on a pleasant journey, it now followed stealthily on their heels, its ears low and its chops ready for a growl.
“We should stay on the path and watch where we step,” Louis added. Following his words with action, he drew out his sword and stood on his guard.
The path narrowed. The sky disappeared, replaced by an interlacing of branches. A white mist floated in the air and stuck her linen to her skin. Now and then, an animal call she couldn’t recognize resounded under the canopy. Where the grass didn’t grow, cobbles stuck out from the ground. Could this path have been a road once? It was the only way to go, and they followed it.
A ravine blocked their way. Louis led them to a large dead tree they could use to cross the gap. Testing the safety of their bridge, Louis and Eliot went first, grasping each other’s sleeves. Holding her hand, Selen helped her pass between the dead branches and onto the trunk where he grasped Eliot’s other arm. Her eyes riveted on Selen’s braid, Kilda followed. When she neared the tangle of roots on the other side, she stamped on something. Around her feet, yellow cockroaches the size of a beet slice slipped under the bark. Green goo stuck on her boot. Disgusting, she thought with a pout. She hopped down between her friends and rubbed her sole against the moss that covered a stone.
“This way,” Louis said ahead.
Following his voice, Kilda scanned the ground in case more bugs would pop out under her.
“Can we go a bit faster?” Eliot asked behind with a quavering voice.
“The path is not easy to follow,” Louis answered.
“You may have another reason to worry if you look up,” Eliot said.
Kilda raised her head. “Oh, dear.”
Silk ropes stretched between the branches. In the middle, cocoons of different sizes bounced in the air. Black dots swarmed over the pristine wool, some lowering themselves on threads to greet their heads. As a reflex, she shrank her shoulders.
“Move forward,” Selen squeaked and took a few long strides towards Louis, distancing her.
Behind, Eliot screamed. She twisted around to see the monk brush his hair frenetically. “They’re on me! They’re on me!” he darted forward. “Faster… Faster!”
Poison. Panicked, Kilda turned around and ran after Selen. Carried away by the monk’s screams, she dashed along a path she couldn’t see. Her gaze fixed on Selen’s dangling hair. The vegetation span green on both sides.
“Faster!”
Her panting deafened her. Her bag bumped on her back. Her shoes were too heavy. The ground gave way. Slope. Her feet hurtled along by themselves, touching a stone, the air, another stone. Eliot hit her back. She stumbled forward and went down rolling and jerking. An even ground put a stop to her misery. Though Selen had mauled one of her breasts with his elbow, landing on his back had been the lesser of two evils, considering the moans and groans of pain rising around her from those who had crashed onto the earth.
“Is someone injured?” Kilda asked, her head still swimming.
“Move your knee from my thigh,” Selen ordered her, gritting his teeth.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She got up and helped Selen to his feet.
Eliot and Louis rose without any evident injury. They stretched their backs and rubbed their limbs while Kilda massaged her sore breast. It would likely be blue in a few days. Too bad the ice was on the other side of the arch. She glanced at her companions and noticed they all had their eyes riveted in one direction. She turned around.
A wall extended northwards and southwards as far as the eye could see. Although it was covered with ropes and creepers, its vertiginous height made it impossible to climb. The track they had followed led to a structure in the middle of the wall. They approached it in silence. Kilda observed its architecture.
The place was an abandoned ruin, which could explain why the path leading to it had turned into a grassland. Considering its situation, it could have been a gatehouse. Though, compared to it, Nysa Serin’s gatehouses were coarse piles of blocks. Even eroded and moss-eaten, this was art. It consisted of large stairs leading to an entrance overhung by four levels of balconies and topped with pyramidal capitals. The black, gaping doors and windows rendered a ghostly atmosphere to the place. Pieces of blocks lay here and there, indicating that crumbles were common. Even saplings had grown into the multiple interstices. Kilda’s eyes scanned the design on the walls. Every stone had been carved into a symbol. Under the balconies, friezes represented farandoles of dancers. Though the whole structure could collapse on their heads, Kilda and her companions made their way inside.
Kilda couldn’t say what the rooms inside were supposed to be. Nothing remained of the furniture. There were holes in the walls, and some of the columns had collapsed. Their fall had shattered the mosaics on the floor and split in their middle the kinds of altars that had taken center stage in the middle of the room. Rocks fallen from the upper floors had condemned side stairs. The statues left standing, representing goddesses or mythical creatures, watched them pass by with their cold, threatening orbs. Deep in the hall, where the beams passing through the windows barely lit, a vertical wall blocked the way. In its middle, a giant ring and perpendicular blocks indicated a complex door system. The door was adorned with concentric rings, each section filled with stellar symbols and geometric signs. In the smallest one, a rose and an adder were carved in relief.
“This is it. This is our door,” Louis said with exaltation. “Let me take out the key, and we will go through it,” he added, fumbling in his bag.
“Louis, wait. We don’t know what’s on the other side,” Selen said. “Maybe this door has been sealed for a reason.”
“Yes. They don’t want any of them to leave or strangers to enter. But we came here for that purpose,” Louis said.
“No. I pondered a thing,” Selen carried on. “What if they had been sealed? Moakki gave us the key. What if this place has been sealed from the outside to prevent an evil from spreading?”
Louis gazed at the door and seemed to hesitate. “We have no other choice,” he finally said.
He took the key out of his bag and took a few steps towards the door. Several times, he looked at the object in his hands and at the middle ring, at the whole ring, then at the wall itself. The obvious struck him as it had struck Kilda. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Eliot. The monk backed away slowly. She peeked at Selen. Her friend crossed his arms over his chest nervously and bit his lower lip. His eyes swelled, and his face twisted with frustration and irritation. Though they were prepared for what would happen, Selen still jumped when Louis yelled.
“No!” Louis shouted at the top of his lungs. “This can’t be happening!”
The door had no lock. Not a single interstice had been carved for a key. Whatever the key opened, it wasn’t here. Denying the facts, Louis pressed on every relief and scratched his nails on the corner of the stones, searching for a mechanism. It wasn’t long until his trembling hands bled. Selen took him by the shoulders to calm him down.
“It’s the right door. It’s the right place,” Louis stammered, sinking down in Selen’s arms, his spirits sagged.
“But it may not be the right way to open it. We can find that out,” Selen replied softly with an overwhelming positivity.
Still staring at the door, Selen made his friend sit down with him. Mindful of their need for intimacy, Kilda left the room. Eliot had decamped and was nowhere to be seen. Returning to the yard in front of the gatehouse, she sat on a rock and gazed at the forest. Behind her, the dog clawed the stone of the stairs. The animal uttered a loud whine as it lay down at her side.
Their mission was over. They had failed. Besides, there was no way they could make the way back. She should have cried, but her hopes had evaporated for so long. She wouldn’t mind laying down to die. Goodbye, Josseli
n. Goodbye, my love. We will meet again soon. From a branch, a blue bird with long, pink tail feathers took to the air. There were worse places to end one’s life.
For a while, she rested on the rock until footsteps broke the silence. Selen sat down next to her.
“How is he?” Kilda asked.
Selen pondered his words. “He is scanning the door. He won’t give up as long as there’s a spark of life in him.” He paused. “I needed some air to clear my mind.” Kilda got a glimpse of his quivering hand near hers.
“We all reach our limits. You don’t need to pretend with me,” Kilda said softly.
“I spirited off his dagger,” Selen whispered, his voice broken with dolor.
Yet, you know it’s only a matter of time until we are all reduced to this extremity. Selen’s distress reminded her of her own recent loss. “It was my second child. My second…” Only the thought broke her heart again. “I may never have one again.”
“Don’t say that. You are not beyond your child-bearing days,” Selen sighed, showing he knew as well that wasn’t the question. “Why are you angry at me?”
“All those months, you took better care of him than I did. I wanted to nurse him myself. Thus I kept him at home. Maybe with you, he would have survived.”
“And how is that?” Selen sniffed. “On my flat breast? I am not a wet nurse. You did all you could.”
“In the end, I stayed next to him day and night…caressing his pink fingers with my thumb, watching his little chest move up and down until it stopped. Helplessness… Helplessness is the worst.” Kilda let the tears wet her cheeks and turned her face to Selen.
“I know,” Selen whispered. “I was in the hospital. I wanted to take care of them. If only I could have taken one of those children home and kept him, given him my love. I was good with yours. I could have managed.”
Light from Aphelion 2 - Tears of Winter Page 41
