by R. M Garino
Arielle was astounded, and more than a little annoyed by the presumptive nature of his narration. With a finger to his chest, she pushed him back a step.
“How dare you?” she said. “Who do you think you are to be judging my friends like this?”
“Am I wrong?” he said, moving toward her to regain his position. “If I am, I’ll be more than happy to apologize.”
His question caught her up short, and she found herself reviewing his statements. Damn him! His assessment of the Twelfth was dead accurate. She punched him in the shoulder again to show what she thought of it.
“Padric commented that I had protection,” Arielle said. Angus did not even move to rub his shoulder. “I did challenge him—him and Nole both—and they fluffed it off, not wanting to get on my parents’ bad side.”
“Really?” Angus said, shaking his head. “The bastard made it sound like he was all innocent and you accosted him. He said nothing about your parents, regardless of the side. He makes fun of Logan, by the way. Says his pants are too tight.”
“What are you talking about?” Arielle said. “Did you speak to Padric?”
“Umm . . . yeah,” Angus said, as if it were obvious. “How else would I know why you called him out?”
She stared at him, her mind spinning in circles trying to latch on to his meaning. His proximity made it difficult to concentrate, but that had nothing to do with her current confusion. The man was talking in convoluted loops.
“Then what was all that about deduction?” she said. “All that analysis of my squad?”
“A bit of subterfuge,” he said, obviously abashed. “It’s a bad habit I picked up from the Magi. Your reactions told me more about your allegiance than a direct question would.”
“You lied to me?”
“I pretended.”
Arielle’s lips were drawn in a tight line as she stepped to the door. “Good night,” she said, grasping the handle.
“Wait,” Angus said, holding his palms out to her. “Bad form, I get it. I’m sorry. Really sorry. There are rules to this sort of thing, and I’m not very good with rules. They usually don’t make any sense to me, so I just follow my gut most of the time.”
“And we’ve seen where that leads.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Listen. I wasn’t kidding when I said I remember everything. Every day we spent together is etched in my memory like some kind of perfect past. The world was brighter then; it was more alive. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true. It’s like . . . I’ve been walking around in a fog for centuries, and I’ve finally woken up. And now I’m back, now you’re here . . . I really want this to continue. I don’t want the world to go dark again. But . . .”
“But?” Arielle released the handle so she could cross her arms.
“But you’re different, I think. I’m not sure, but all I have to go on is what I hear. We haven’t had much time to get reacquainted.”
“And the way you’re acting, it doesn’t look like we’ll have very much time from here on out.”
Angus searched for inspiration in the far corners of the room. His sin’del showed swaths of despair, revealing his realization of how badly he was failing.
“So ask me,” Arielle said, offering him a way to end his futile flailing. “Don’t play games with me. Don’t try to trick me or test me. Just ask me.”
Angus hung his head low. “Novel concept. Don’t think the Magi ever thought of that one, but I think I can try it out.”
Arielle pulled the bench from beneath her desk. With a wave, she offered him the seat and resuming her spot on the bed.
“You’re banished to over there for now,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
He appeared anything but glib as he took his upper lip between his teeth.
“You’re not with Logan any longer,” he said. Arielle shook her head a little longer than was necessary, waiting for him to see it. “His choice or yours?”
“Mine. Definitely mine.”
“Was it as serious as everyone makes it sound?”
Arielle was quiet a moment. She wanted to give a truthful answer, but at the same time, she was still unsure of what that truth was. She had not allowed herself the luxury of dwelling on her feelings for Logan.
“I thought it was, once,” she said. It was hard to watch him as she answered; the little flecks of jealousy were tickling the edges of his sin’del again. “But it wasn’t what I’d imagined. Rather, he wasn’t who I imagined him to be. At his core, Logan is vain, arrogant, and completely self-serving.”
“I know,” Angus said. When she paused at his interruption, he added, “We’ve . . . met.”
“Logan,” Arielle said, “was searching for an ornament to decorate Logan. But worse still, he’s . . . unstable, somehow. He’s extremely controlling, and overly anxious. Everything around him has to be perfect. Everyone around him has to be perfect. In the end, all he really cares about is himself. Eventually, I saw what the truth was, and I had enough. I ended it.”
“Then you’re definitely not in a relationship anymore?”
Arielle looked away from his display. The subtle shades of jealousy had given way to glimmerings of hope, little electric flashes that arced around the perimeter of his being.
“As far as I’m concerned, no,” she said. “I let him know my thoughts and feelings before I left the Vaults.”
“You make it sound a little one-sided,” Angus said. “And to be honest, it doesn’t look like the news has followed you here. Maybe he’s keeping it quiet, hoping you’ll change your mind.”
“I’m sure he is,” she said. “But I intend to let him, and everyone else, know that it’s over.”
“I’ve never known Logan to give up on something he wanted.”
“I honestly don’t care about what Logan wants,” Arielle said, pleased with how firm her voice sounded.
“That’s good to hear.” Angus’ grin expanded as she spoke, and he moved closer to the edge of the bench.
Arielle felt her impulsiveness rise inside her.
“It is good,” she said. “I’m free and unattached. And, I intend to stay that way for as long as possible.”
She watched the confusion and consternation pass across his face. He was not very good at hiding his emotions.
“Until, of course, the right person comes along,” he said. “Maybe someone you have a deep connection with? Someone you can work things out with?”
“Oh, not even then,” Arielle said. “Why would I want to encumber my life with another attachment? I am perfectly content the way I currently am.”
Angus’s face took on a confused cast, the glimmerings of hope darkening to despondency. Arielle touched his arm. A tremble of delight surged through her.
“It’s late,” she said, “and I’m tired.”
“Oh, right,” he said. He stood, pushed the bench back under the desk, and moved for the window. “Sorry.”
Arielle jumped up and grabbed his arm, reveling in the sensation of the touch. With a gentle pressure, she drew him back from the sill.
“I’ll see you again tomorrow?” she said. It was not really a question, and she was already sure she knew the answer.
Angus brightened in an instant. “Of course!”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it.” She raised herself up on her toes, placed a hand behind his neck and kissed his lips. The thrill, she realized, was delicious. Angus pulled her closer, deepening the kiss until she eventually pushed against his chest. She felt herself glowing.
He pulled himself through the window, and escaped into the night. Her heart was racing.
Arielle closed her shutter, twirled about in the empty room, and threw herself on the bed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Eager to See
Present Day; Forest of Aklediem
26 days until the Feast of Night
The Elder took in the stars. He was still amazed with how different they appeared, even after so many centuries outside of the Gat
es. He returned his gaze to the group of Extipana seated before him. They were tired from the long day’s travel that was part of their escape from Ehrlich. Their path wound through rough and seldom-used country, and they were tired from yet another long night of stories. Their fatigue showed in their faces, and in the hallow cast of their eyes. Little Larria, he noted, still sat erect in her grandmother’s lap, eager to hear more.
“I think that will be a fine place to stop for tonight,” he told the gathered crowd. “It’s late, and we have an early departure if we are to keep our lead.”
“Wise words, Elder,” Josef said. He stood bracing his knees for support. From where the Elder sat, he could hear the popping as the joints pushed against themselves. The man held in a grimace of pain, and shooing the crowd away. “Ye heard the Elder. Off ta bed with ye, one and all. ’Tis an early start we have in the morning, sure and it is.”
The Extipana gathered themselves, their sleeping children, made polite courtesies to him, and retired toward their own banked fires and sleeping rolls. Josef spoke a few words with his wife, their heads bent together for privacy.
“Will ye continue tomorrow, Elder?” little Larria asked, her arms full of blankets. Even the very young pulled their own weight among the Extipana, he noted, and found that he approved. It was, after all, very similar to how his own kind treated their young.
The Elder tried to force a grin, but as always, it would not come. Instead, he bowed to her from where he sat, his hands crossed over his chest.
“Anything for you, little one,” he said. “It would be my honor, and my privilege.”
The girl bounced up and down as if trying to clap. On the third bounce a tremendous yawn cracked her jaw, and she swayed where she stood.
“Now off to bed with you,” he said, “or you’ll be so tired tomorrow that you cannot stay awake to listen.”
The girl shuffled off toward her own fire.
“’Tis a good night, aye wish ye, Elder,” Josef said, bowing from the waist after the girl left. “Thank ye again for the tales. It does the soul good to hear such things in such dark times.”
“It’s not all good to hear, my friend,” he told the old man. “The tale has a happy start, but it grows darker with the telling, I’m afraid.”
“Be that as it may,” Josef said, “but aye thank ye nevertheless. It has kept the wee ones’ minds off the hardships, and their parents too, these past few weeks. We be blessed to have ye among us.”
He bowed again, and the Elder returned it without another word. How could he argue the fact? He could see the good his story was doing. The images he stirred in their minds drove the night away, and the memories of the things that lurked in it. Despite his best attempts, the shrulks had claimed victims in the night through the course of their journey. The Lethen’al stood and stretched, feeling the pull of the scars that crisscrossed his body as a grim reminder of his travails. Pushing the pain away was easy now, a process he had learned long ago and paid a dear price to earn. It was time to get himself ready for his full night tour of guard duty. The days were shorter here than they were in the Patresilen, or so it appeared to him, even after all this time. His diminished need for sleep still shocked him; he was capable of watching a half dozen sunrises before needing his own bed. And that was a good thing too, he told himself. Sleep held dreams, and his dreams always returned to her. Not to how she was in those early days, but rather, what she had become. Those dreams were enough to keep him from his pillow longer if he were able. He would much rather remember her this way, the way the Extipana now saw her, than to think upon her other self.
In its own way, telling the story was therapeutic. It reminded him of those he had left behind when he’d walked away from it all, from his Pride, who had stood by his side and sacrificed so much for him, and for her. Once more the smile almost formed as their faces filled his mind. It was good to think of them again, and with a clarity he could not have hoped for. He missed them all.
The energies of the temple flooded in, allowing him to see things he never could before, and the story took on new dimensions with the telling. Witnessing things from her perspective, rather than just his own, made his heart ache with longing, and he closed his eyes as he drew a steadying breath. He needed to relive it, if only just to understand. Then, he could truly leave it behind him. He would remain trapped there, tethered to the past like the Sur was tethered to the Quain, unless he found a way to let her go. In order to make sense of it all he had to find the reason for what she’d done. It lacked clarity from his own, closed viewpoint, and he wanted to understand.
In his own way, he was waiting for the sun to rise and set again, so he could return to the telling of it.
He was eager to see more, and afraid of what he would find.
A tremendous shadow detached itself from the surrounding forest as the Elder stepped from the camp. As he moved off into the night it followed him, ghosting across the patches of light cast by the double moons.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Shrulk
Present Day; Forest of Aklediem
25 days until the Feast of Night
A shrulk, the Elder reflected, is a vile, loathsome beast. They stood apart from the natural world, for they were not fully a part of it. Much like the humans that the Lethen’al helped raise into consciousness, they did not coexist within their environment, but rather sought to exist outside of it. Neither sought the Ri’en, and it was questionable if either even knew what it was. Their path was one of subjugation and coercion, not harmony and peace.
The humans, however, were creatures capable of higher thought. They could communicate, they could create, and they sought certain forms of perfection. Was it their fault that they were abandoned before their ascension was complete? We closed the Gates, the Elder thought. We abandoned them and left them to develop as they will. Is it any wonder why they tend to be stunted and adolescent? The Extipana were different, he knew. They were closer to the perfection that was their eventual evolution.
But even they are not perfect.
The Apostate’s War was four generations ago for us, but it was over a hundred and forty generations for them. For them, it is a fragment of a legend, if not entirely forgotten.
The Elder acknowledged the Extipana who gathered about, each trying to catch a glimpse of the beast lying at his feet. Mottled feathers of green, gray, and blue adorned it, and a crest of blue-black hair hung from its muzzled head. The downy feathers and the hair exuded a tremendous stink, and were coated in a thin layer of viscous oil secreted from its skin. Its fore limbs were stunted and webbed to its body, its three fingers tipped with short, sharp talons. The hind legs were longer, with a massive, crescent talon housed in a sheath of the middle toe. A thick tail extended behind it, giving it exquisite balance as it ran. Alive and upright, it stood a decent six feet tall. It was a shrulk, a creature borne of the nightmare of the Sur, and given life for a singular purpose: to hunt, and to kill. The Elder knew they were drawn to the Lethen’al above every other creature, for they were created by the Apostate when he last walked the Quain.
The Apostate was gone, sent back into the abyss by Thenaria Tu’renthien. But they remained, a legacy of hate that served to destroy all life. They exulted in destruction, and sought out the weakest, most susceptible prey when there were no Lethen’al about.
This one, the Elder reflected, tried to take a bite out of someone that was neither weak nor prey. With the rest of its pack, or a full murder, they might have given him pause. By itself, one lone beast had no chance. He had not even needed to draw a weapon. A precise blow to the side of its head with a fist was all it took to bring it down. The Elder thanked the fool of the Apostate for creating them with hollow bones. It aided in their respiration, but they suffered for it in combat.
“Is it alone?” said an Extipana named Quinn. He had a mane of shocking red hair, with a stripe of white all along one side just above his left ear. An equally red beard, cut close and tight, hugg
ed his jaw line. He was tall and lanky, as if he had never lost the coltish proportions of his boyhood. Nevertheless, the Elder had a good foot in height over him.
The Lethen’al prodded the beast with the toe of his boot. “This one’s small,” he said, “and it was starving. More likely than not, it was kicked out of its pack. Driven away as a weakling.”
“Why would it attack if’n it were alone?” Quinn said.
“It was drawn to me,” the Elder said. “I’m of the Lethen’al, and as such, it couldn’t resist. Originally, back in the days of the Apostate, they were created to hunt us down. Our scent is like an addiction to it. A shrulk can be dying, and it would still struggle to bring down one of my kind.”
“Ye dinna have any trouble with it,” Quinn said. He had squatted down to give the beast a closer examination, though he wrinkled his nose at the smell.
“Shrulks are no bother to me,” the Elder said. “It’s different for a human. I’m stronger, and faster still than you.”
“And taller,” said Diyanni Gills. He was shorter, broader, and darker than his peer. He’d only a healthy dose of curiosity, though his sons who were ever at his side made up for his lack. “This one would be up to me shoulder, but nay on ye. On level with yer belly, aye’d wager if’n aye were a gamblin’ man.”
“If’n ye were a gamblin’ man, aye’d be a wealthier man,” Diyanni’s friend Sean said. He received a punch in the arm for his attempt.
