by Dylan Peters
Ah’Rhea took a pinch of zulis from the wooden box beside her mattress. The box was divided into sections, each containing a different herb or spice. She then took a pinch of cardamom and combined it with the zulis. She rubbed the spices in her hands and blew the combination into the flickering flame of the candle. The candle went out immediately, but the spices filled the air and expanded above Ah’Rhea, each individual speck glowing like a star in the night sky. They rose into the air and spread, finally coming to rest on the ceiling of the cave. They gave the cave light, as if a bright moon were shining down. It was well-enough light to read the letter by, but it was not so much that she would not be able to sleep, and she knew her zul would wear off after a few hours.
She opened the letter, which was folded in quarters. The rough and resilient parchment was pale in the light. A few small rips frayed the edges of the letter, and some of the script had been blurred into watery blotches from tears past. It didn’t matter whether her tears had blurred the words; every one of them was as familiar to her as her own name. The parchment smelled like him, or at least Ah’Rhea believed it did. She read the words again as fresh tears grew at the corners of her eyes.
My Dove,
There is a hollow within me I can no longer ignore. It has been inside of me as long as I can remember, since I was a child. I am sorry I am telling you of it only now. I’m sorry for a great many things.
Throughout my life, I have been vexed by a question: What is more cruel, to hide what is inside of me from the ones I love or to let them know me completely and see what I truly am?
I had always answered the question by choosing to hide what is inside of me, hoping a change would come, hoping the hollow within me would go away. Alas, it has not, and I have slowly come to terms with the fact that it never will. As I look down at the stained lines of my hands, a constant reminder of our years together, I realize I had so much more hope for my life, and for yours. Hope was my first mistake, but not my gravest.
I count my gravest mistake as the time I spent with you. I understand how harsh these words are, but their truth is not diminished by their cruelty. I have lied to you that I am a strong man, and I have lied to you that I am a good man. There are no such things as good, strong men. Not in this world or any other. Please believe me when I tell you that. It has taken me a very long time to accept it. I am sorry for you that I did not understand it sooner.
I cheated you of time. I have robbed you of the most precious commodity that exists. I tried to fill my hollow with your love, but it could not be filled; I tried to hide from it in your arms, but it would not be eluded. There are no things I can say to right what I have done, nothing I can do to give you back these years, but I can stop taking from you. I choose to stop today. You have seen me when the shadows fall over me. You have stood with me in that darkness, allowing me to tear you apart as I tore myself apart. No more. I know this last action of mine will hurt you, but that pain will go away. You must erase me from your mind.
You must release me from your heart.
I am lost.
—Orman
Ah’Rhea remembered the young boy from the Temple of Origin that had brought her the letter. He was scrawny and dark skinned, with a small circular cap atop his shaved head. It was the cap worn by any child who wished to be taught the ways of zul. The four tribes of Ferren sent their young men and women into the village of Ferrenglyn to offer their service to the temple. Once the young men and women were in service, their families would petition the zul masters to look at their young and consider them for apprenticeship. Ah’Rhea had been petitioned many times over the years, more than she could count, but she had never taken an apprentice. As the boy had held out the letter in his trembling hand that day, she remembered thinking the letter was merely another petition.
She had been wrong, and she now remembered there had been something about the boy that unnerved her. He was more frightened than she could remember having ever seen anyone. He could not meet her eyes, his legs were slightly wobbling, and his mouth hung open just enough to reveal a crooked incisor that jutted out like a spur. The boy had known he was breaking a sacred rule by visiting a zul master without her consent. His face was that of someone anticipating harsh punishment. Ah’Rhea had wondered why the boy would visit her without permission when he obviously knew it would not gain him favor. Why would she take an apprentice that couldn’t obey simple formalities? That simple curiosity was what made her take the letter from the boy’s hand instead of sending him away immediately. As she took it, the boy had yipped with fear and run away so fast it seemed he could have caught a rabbit. But as scared as the boy may have been, it was Ah’Rhea who had felt a pit in her stomach.
As she stood on the red-brown rock, reading the letter for the first time, rage and confusion had flooded her veins with fire. She ran into her cave, opened her box of spices, measuring zulis, cinnamon, and pollen from the palien flower, and stuffed it into a satchel on her belt. Sadness could not touch her in these moments, because her world had been turned upside down, and she would have answers before she would have another moment of peace.
With recklessness unbefitting a zul master, Ah’Rhea had raced down from her cave into the village of Ferrenglyn, and there her frenzied interrogation began. She found the scrawny boy hiding in a storage tent close to the edge of the village, and she blew the zulis, cinnamon, and pollen into his face, forcing him to take it into his lungs. Once her zul had taken hold and Ah’Rhea knew it would not allow the boy to utter lies, she made him recount all he knew about the letter.
With a lip trembling over his protruding tooth, the boy quickly gave up the names of the two temple workers who had sent him to her cave with the letter. The brothers, Gund and Varn Melakka, had pulled the boy away from his daily chores to deliver the letter and made him promise not to tell who had sent him. The thin boy sobbed while telling Ah’Rhea his secrets, his tears revealing his belief that if the zul master didn’t punish him, Gund and Varn surely would. Ah’Rhea was in no state to exhibit compassion for the boy or offer any assurance he wouldn’t be harmed. Her focus was now the two men, the temple workers, and she rushed out of the tent, leaving the boy to fearfully ponder his fate.
As the sun beat down that day, years ago, Ah’Rhea ran through the village, kicking up dust in the streets as she went. The Temple of Origin rose high in the center of the village, its four spires standing proud in representation of the four tribes of Ferren. Ah’Rhea was fixated on it as her brown boots beat against the dirt in the hot morning sun and sweat matted her black locks to the sides of her face. The few villagers who saw her pass retreated into their mud-bricked homes, instructing their loved ones to remain inside. Windows were shuttered as if a storm were coming. The villagers feared the wrath of the zul masters, and Ah’Rhea’s eyes were ablaze that morning like shimmering emeralds.
The Melakka brothers saw Ah’Rhea coming as they swept sand from the entryway at the Temple of Origin. They stopped sweeping immediately upon seeing her; they knew why she approached, and knew there was no escaping now. Gund dropped his broom, closed his eyes, and prayed. His fat knuckles intertwined with such force they turned white. Varn fell to his knees and begged the woman for forgiveness; he tore at his yellow shirt, shouting for mercy even as Ah’Rhea was still thirty yards away. A woman leaned out of a window three floors up to dispose of wastewater, but after seeing the zul master coming, she shrieked and ducked back inside. Ah’Rhea had always wondered whether it was respect the villagers had for the zul masters of Ferrenglyn or whether they were merely poor creatures living at the foot of a volcano, in constant fear of its eruption. Ah’Rhea had her answer now as she bore down on the temple workers like ash falling from the sky.
Wasting no time, Ah’Rhea deftly plunged her fists into her satchel, grabbing handfuls of dust, one for each of the men. Before they could flinch, she had cast her zul at them with precision and force. Varn coughed and Gund waved fruitlessly, as if swatting flies. Ah’Rhea continued
toward the men, her palms held forward, and knocked each brother onto his backside. They cowered in her shadow as she held the letter high in the air, growling her question through clenched teeth.
“What do you know about this?”
Like mewling goats the two men whimpered at the same time, muddling their confessions together.
“One at a time!” Ah’Rhea barked.
“We were minding our own business,” Varn said pleadingly. He was the taller of the two brothers but also the one with less hair. His hands continued to pull at his yellow shirt, and sweat beaded on his forehead. “We were near the chasm that early only to try to catch one of the red lizards that nests at the lip of the crack. We weren’t following Master Orman. We didn’t even know he was there.”
“We didn’t,” Gund confirmed, shaking his bulbous head like a soggy potato. The hair jutting from the man’s ears threatened to distract Ah’Rhea from her anger. “Master Orman saw us and called to us. It was foggy and still a little dark. We never would have approached him if he hadn’t asked us to.”
“His eyes were bloodshot with sadness or anger—I’m not sure which,” Varn continued. “We asked Master Orman whether he was okay, but he didn’t answer. He only thrust that letter at us and told us we must deliver it to you. We didn’t want to take the letter, but we were afraid to refuse him.”
“We could tell he was in darkness, Master Ah’Rhea,” Gund added, his eyes widening. At this Ah’Rhea gave the man a violently piercing look. Gund turned his head and looked shamefully at the ground.
“After we took the letter,” Varn began and then paused for a long moment. He gave Ah’Rhea the look of a man afraid his next words might be his last. “After we took the letter,” Varn repeated, “Master Orman walked to the lip of the chasm…and then he fell in.”
Ah’Rhea’s mind had been a symphony of chaos that day, everything she learned destroying everything she thought she knew. It was as if she were constantly running toward the truth, while at the same time sprinting as fast as she could away from it. Her nerves were threatening to topple her, and fear gripped her tight. She had to get away.
Ah’Rhea immediately spun on her heels and stalked off, back toward the edge of the village. The brothers Melakka would receive no closure that day. Ah’Rhea knew her zul had made it so they could not lie to her, but she couldn’t believe what she had heard from their mouths. She told herself the men had been mistaken. She told herself there was a reasonable explanation. The content of the letter was inconceivable, and the story the two men told even more so. There was one more thing Ah’Rhea had to do, and she told herself it would clear away all misunderstanding. Everything would be set right again. Everything would be just as it had been before that unsettling boy came to her cave. Her love, her Orman, was not lost.
As Ah’Rhea reached the outskirts of the village that day, tears had fallen from the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away with hands dirty from zulis and other spices, leaving streaks across her cheeks. She could see the chasm, and for the first time in her life, she was terrified of it. Ah’Rhea knew it would reveal to her a truth that could shake her to her core. Sadness was beginning to drown her rage, and she tried to fight it back. She couldn’t let it take her. She was a zul master after all, and she could not allow for that weakness.
When Ah’Rhea was close enough to the lip of the chasm, she had reached down inside of her boot and retrieved a very small pouch. From the pouch she emptied a pinch of an indigo substance onto the palm of her hand. What she held in her palm was concentrated zulis. The normally dark-red substance that was obtained from the valley and chasm was a bright indigo in its concentrated form. This zulis had been obtained from deep along the side of the chasm’s wall. No one had ever found the bottom of the chasm, and for all anyone knew, it had no bottom, but once in a great while, a zul master would scale a short distance down the chasm wall to harvest the very potent zulis that was found there. When used correctly by a master, it rendered abilities that were truly wondrous.
With a deep sigh, Ah’Rhea had taken the concentrated zulis and rubbed it into her eyes. It burned fiercely, and it was difficult for her to stifle a cry, but she knew she didn’t have much time to say the incantation that would allow her to see the truth. She removed her hands from her face, opened her stinging eyes, and spoke the incantation with a voice shaky from grieving.
“The sand and sky, the myth, the lie, the spice of mystery shall cleanse my eyes. The mother, the daughter, the elder and youth, one begs for time, one begs for truth.”
As the vision consumed Ah’Rhea that day, she had fallen to her knees and dug her hands into the hot sand. She wailed with a lack of control she had never displayed before as she saw the truth of what had happened to her Orman. She saw his tears and his furrowed brow. She saw his hands trace the letters onto the parchment. She saw the brothers take the letter from the man she had thought she knew so well, and she saw him fling himself from the edge of the chasm like a leaf falling from a tree.
As Ah’Rhea now sat on her mattress, remembering the pain that time couldn’t erase; that feeling of hopelessness and terror once again gripped her heart. It was true. The entire nightmare was true. Her love, the only soul she had ever shared herself with, had left her. He was lost, and now so was she.
