by Flavia Bujor
And Opal truly did feel her head spin as she saw shadows all around her acting out the cruel death of her parents. She saw blood spurting from her mother’s heart, heard her scream for mercy; she could see the pitiless face of a soldier of Darkness…
When she began swimming towards Amber, Jade accidentally swallowed a mouthful of the water, which tasted like blood. Thousands of smiling faces immediately swarmed disturbingly around her. They seemed eager to explain who they were, and abandoning Amber, Jade swam over to them. She heard them murmuring: “We lived so that you might live. We fought so that you might fight the ultimate battle. We are in you, we are with you. You are here because we came before you…”
Jade was running out of breath, but she barely realised it. Then, suddenly, she could feel her Stone safe in her hand, and a voice inside her said: “Those shadows calling to you belong to the past. You must save Amber, you must live!” And Jade turned away from the kindly faces to swim as fast as she could to Amber. Jade’s lungs felt as though they were about to explode and she could only hope that she would manage to rescue Amber, who with one last effort had taken out her Stone. But Jade was exhausted and already resigned to giving up and sinking to the bottom of the Lake of the Past. When she felt new energy surge through her, she realised that Opal was holding her Stone as well. “You’re alive,” said a voice, and Jade couldn’t tell any more whether it was Amber’s or Opal’s. “You’re alive, and as long as you are alive, you cannot stop hoping to stay alive.”
Then Jade found the strength to bring Amber up to the surface, where she gasped for air. Although Amber was regaining consciousness, Jade kept holding her up because she was obviously too weak to swim.
Jade’s head was spinning. Her vision began to fade. Failing rapidly, she was about to abandon herself once more to the blood-red waters of the Lake of the Past.
Then out of nowhere, she felt two strong arms take hold of her, lift her up, and lay her down on dry land.
PARIS, PRESENT DAY
I opened my eyes. My heart was beating painfully fast, and I was distraught. This time, I realised without any doubt that my dream was complete fiction, the product of my unbridled imagination. I’d been deluding myself when I’d almost managed to believe that this dream really did exist in some other dimension. I’d been wrong, and I knew it. All my hopes had come to nothing.
In the deep waters of the Lake of the Past, among the faces calling out to Jade, I had seen my own. Or rather, Joa’s. Joa, even more smiling and beautiful than ever. That vision tortured me, but it was my own fault, for I had put my own image into my dream to remind myself that it was merely my own invention. And I could still see Joa, her face framed by auburn curls, her blue-green eyes twinkling with mocking laughter. She didn’t say anything, but her indulgent smile seemed to tell me how naïve I’d been.
So the dream was nothing. I’d created it, I’d controlled it. It was nothing, nothing — except a failed attempt to go on living. The brutal truth was right in front of me. Why had I wanted to prove to myself how mistaken I’d been? Why had I wanted to destroy the only chance I had left?
Death, which I’d hoped to stave off, was stalking me once more. This time there would be no escape: my dream, my last defence, had fallen apart. All I had left were pain and sorrow. Death was too good at her job, and not prone to delays. I closed my eyes, but the vision of that shadowy creature draped in black pursued me, growing more and more clear. And real.
I wanted to feel the sun break through the clouds in my heart. I wanted to hear the wind humming its sweet melody. I wanted to smell the intoxicating perfume of spring, the rich scent of summer. I wanted to savour life the way I’d never dared to before.
I’d thought that when the time came to leave, I would be brave. But I wasn’t. How could I be? There were so many things I hadn’t done when I’d still had the chance. And now I was sorry. Tears streaked my face, although I hadn’t even known I was crying. If only my dream would dare reach its climax and give me one last moment of grace. “I’m begging you,” I said to Death. “Give me a little more time. One night…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A Meeting with Death
JADE AND AMBER soon came to, and found Opal beside them.
“It’s incredible,” said Opal. “When I held tight to my Stone I felt a powerful force flow through me, helping me to swim here. We were way out in the middle of the lake, but it seemed as if I swam only a few yards to reach the shore!”
“We’re in Okdhrûl?” asked Jade incredulously. “On the other side of the Lake of the Past?”
“Yes,” replied Opal.
“How did we get out of the lake?” asked Amber in bewilderment.
“As soon as I got here, I tried to figure out how I could save you — and then you both appeared. You were unconscious, Amber, and Jade was swimming with her arm around you. When you were almost at the edge of the lake, I saw that Jade couldn’t go any further. You were within reach, so I lifted you out.”
“But how did we make it all the way from the middle of the lake?” wondered Jade.
“It’s an enchanted lake,” said a deep voice behind them. “Once you have overcome its mirages, you may enter Okdhrûl.”
Jumping almost out of their skins, the girls turned around to see a melancholy man dressed in black sitting on a black horse.
“Help!” yelled Amber. “It’s a soldier of Darkness!”
“You don’t frighten us,” announced Jade fiercely and not very convincingly. “We’ll fight you!”
The man smiled in amusement.
“I’m sure you would, but don’t bother. I am Rokcdär, one of Death’s councillors, and for her own good I have decided to take you to her.”
“Of course! Oonagh told us about you!” exclaimed Jade. “She said you would lead us to the palace of Yrianz of Myrnehl.”
“For the moment, however, I will lead you to Death. In a manner of speaking, naturally!”
Amber was pleasantly surprised to see her horse quietly cropping the grass a few yards away.
“I brought your horses here for you,” explained Rokcdär. “The palace of Death isn’t far, and I’ll take you there now.”
Still somewhat wary, the three girls mounted their animals without a word, but when Death s councillor took off at a gallop they followed him. The surrounding countryside was spectral and desert-like, with scrawny bushes littering the dry, black soil. At last an imposing palace emerged from the pervasive gloom of Okdhrûl.
“This is where Death lives,” announced Rokcdär.
The girls looked up at the dusky building flanked by several large towers whose summits vanished into the sky. The palace gave an impression of sinister power and was surrounded by a macabre silence. A regiment of soldiers in black uniforms stood guard, but when they recognised Councillor Rokcdär, they saluted and let him and his party enter the castle. Servants all in black rushed up to take the horses away to the stables, while Jade, Opal and Amber followed their guide through endless corridors of unsettling twilight.
“I have no doubt that you possess mighty powers,” said Rokcdär warningly, “but all the same, be careful. Arguing with Death is quite an undertaking.”
Sudden, wrenching sobs rent the air, and now, so close to their goal, the startled girls began to feel their courage failing. The weeping was coming from behind an ebony door that Rokcdär opened without knocking. He led Jade, Opal and Amber into a rather large room decorated entirely in black. There were heavy velvet curtains over the narrow windows, which shut out all sunlight. A dozen solemn men, clothed in the same manner as Rokcdär, were sitting around a wide bed on which lay a dark form, crying pitifully.
“You have visitors,” Rokcdär announced to Death.
The girls closed their eyes in mortal fear, expecting to see a creature out of their worst nightmares rise to meet them. When they dared to look, they saw a short young woman staring at them and sniffling. She had smooth light-brown hair, cut short, and skin of a deathly pa
llor. Her hazel eyes were suffused with sadness. While her shell-pink lips were delicate and thin, her cheeks were chubby, and she was a trifle plump. She wore a knee-length, full black skirt and a pretty blouse of the same colour, decorated with jet beads. She was rather attractive, but her face was etched with an infinite distress that betrayed the never-ending burden she had been shouldering for so long.
“You’re all afraid of me,” she wailed in a clear voice, in between sobs. “You curse me, you beg me day and night to stay away…”
Utterly disconcerted, the three girls had no idea what to say.
“Everybody’s happy that I’m on strike, so why come to complain about it? You, Opal, you know we should have met earlier and you say it’s a miracle that you’re still alive! No one loves me, except for some poor suicides — and even they sometimes dread me at the end.” She pointed imperiously towards the door. “Everyone out!” she ordered. “Leave me alone with these girls!”
The councillors obeyed. Death was alone with her three guests.
“I truly don’t know why everybody hates me. Even the privileged ones I take the trouble to go and fetch personally scream their heads off when I show up. The others, whom I put to death with a single fleeting thought, are even more aghast to meet their end.”
“And where do you take them? Is there a life after death?” asked Amber boldly.
“You see!” railed Death in a wounded voice. “Life, life, life! That’s all you ever talk about, or think about — all of you fawn over my sister Life! As for telling you where I take the dying, don’t expect me to reveal that. You may well be the three Stones of destiny, but I’m still the most mysterious of all creatures, the one most feared by humankind. It’s impossible for me to speak to you of secrets the world has tried so long to discover.”
“I would give anything to see my mother,” pleaded Amber, “my mother whom you stole from me before I even knew her!”
“That’s what all you mortals demand of me. You accuse me of cruelty, you want to see the dear departed — but it’s not my fault, I’m just doing my job! Since time immemorial, even before magic creatures appeared, men have been busy killing one another. They created evil, they watered it with their blood. I didn’t drive them to commit their murderous deeds! I simply bring rest to the dying. I follow the paths laid out by men.”
“But why are you on strike?” asked Jade. “We all need you. Without you, life wouldn’t exist any more, the world would get lost in eternity.”
“Thank you,” sniffed Death, touched enough to smile faintly. “It’s been a long time since anyone complimented me. People offer poems to Life, but me, I only get complaints. Why? Am I so hideous? Tell me!”
“It’s not yor people detest,” explained Opal. “They’re just afraid, they wonder who you are, what you bring. They dread you because they don’t know you, and the unknown is frightening.”
“You separate families, friends,” continued Amber, “and that’s why people curse you, call you cruel and unjust. But deep down people know that you must come sooner or later, that it’s necessary, that the death of a loved one and their mourning are an unavoidable trial that allows them to reflect, and move on.”
“Then why am I treated like a misfortune, as if I were some kind of terrible bad luck?” moaned Death, who had wiped away her tears.
“Because everyone would like to keep their dear ones close to them for ever,” replied Jade sadly. “They know that’s not possible, but they keep hoping anyway, and they can’t help suffering when their loved ones disappear.”
“So my strike is a good thing. That’s just what I was saying: no one loves me.”
“No, really, that’s not true,” insisted Amber. “Many people wait for you to bring them rest, even though they also wonder what you have in store for them. And you must continue your work, to allow the world to survive. You contribute to life, you’re part of it!”
“Really?” said Death more cheerfully, feeling reassured. “Although so many people get scared when they see me… I think it’s all this black, and the colour doesn’t do much for me, either. But if I don’t wear it, I lose my credibility.”
Jade, Opal and Amber exchanged amused looks.
“I’m too fat,” lamented Death. “That must be my main problem. I try to diet but it’s impossible, I’m just so greedy. I absolutely must lose weight.”
The three girls burst out laughing. Surprised by a light-heartedness she rarely had the chance to inspire, Death smiled as well.
“Don’t worry,” spluttered Jade. “You’re fine the way you are.”
“Am I? You think I’m pretty, and nice?”
“Of course,” insisted Jade.
“I can’t believe it, no one’s ever told me that and I’ve been waiting to hear it for centuries.”
Death was so delighted, she clapped her hands. Then she tossed back a lock of her chestnut hair and smiled even more broadly, lighting up her winsome and still youthful face.
“Fine,” said Jade. “Now, you’re going to stop your strike, right?”
“No. If I go back to work, I’ll be sick of it again within three days.”
“But people are in agony, suffering dreadfully while they wait for you,” said Amber pleadingly. “They were about to die when you announced your strike, and they’re begging you to come and get them.”
“They’re waiting for me?” asked Death in surprise. “Well! If they want me to, I’ll come, I’ll go back to work. But only on one condition.” Death looked deeply into the girls’ eyes, and her gaze was unfathomable. “No mortal has ever come here before. I will call off my strike only if you promise me that when we meet again, perhaps after many long years, you will follow me without cries and weeping. As if we were just good friends happy to see one another again and who will go together to a pleasant place.”
“We promise,” chorused the three girls.
“Well then, I won’t try to keep you here any longer,” continued Death, “because I sense that you are in a hurry to follow your destiny. Rokcdär will guide you to the edge of my realm. Although I cannot read the future, I do feel that you are in peril. I can wait patiently until we meet again and I trust that you still have many happy years ahead of you.” After a pause, Death continued gravely, “For a long time I have been associated with evil, and yet I am beyond that. I belong neither to good nor to evil and I do not judge either one. Nevertheless, I do know, see and sense good and evil. You should be aware that the power of these two forces has reached its peak and that the battle between them draws nigh. One or the other will be annihilated, temporarily, but they are both too strong to disappear completely from the world. In the human heart, these two enemies will strive together for ever.”
Then, with a worried look, Death asked in a faltering voice, “Are you absolutely certain that I don’t need to go on a diet?”
“Absolutely,” insisted Jade in a firm voice, before giggling helplessly.
After affectionate farewells, Death smiled sadly at the departing girls.
“I’m unhappy that you’re leaving. If fate weren’t always in such a rush, I’d try to keep you here with me for a while. But I know I’ll be seeing you again…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Elyador
THE YOUNG HOVALYN could not bring himself to accept the evidence. How could he be the Chosen One? He, who had served the Darkness! It was impossible. The Ring of Orleys had made a mistake. The other knights tried in vain to persuade him to attend the celebrations Tivann had organised in his honour throughout the day, for he remained cloistered in his room, brooding. Late that evening someone knocked at his door, entering in spite of his protests. It was the stalwart Gohral Keull.
“I know what’s eating at your heart,” he told the young man. “Go and see Oonagh. She will help you.”
The Nameless One seemed lost in thought.
“Tivann of Orleys is already preparing your marriage to his daughter Orlaith, but I sense that you do not love her,” cont
inued his visitor.
“I’ll leave. I’ll go and consult Oonagh. All these people, here in the manor — they believe in me. I don’t deserve it. I have to go.” After a moment, he added, “I am not the Chosen One.”
“I know that,” replied Gohral Keull. “I know about your past.”
Startled, the young man looked up.
“You know who I was?” he asked softly.
“Yes. And I also know that you have changed. Let me go with you to Oonagh. I know many things about you of which you yourself are ignorant.”
After a brief hesitation, the Nameless One made up his mind.
“I’ll leave when it’s completely dark. I’ll run away like a coward, and if you wish to join me, then come along.”
“I will,” replied the older man firmly.
The two hovalyns spent the next hour preparing for their journey and then slipped out to the stables; they mounted their horses and galloped away from the manor of Tivann of Orleys. From time to time the Nameless One glanced curiously at his companion, who maintained a stubborn silence, content simply to breathe in the invigorating air.
“I know some shortcuts,” said Gohral Keull finally. “They will bring us rapidly to Oonagh, where you will learn what your destiny is to be and submit to your fate.”
“What do you know about me? Can you tell me my name?”
“It isn’t your name that makes you someone, it’s what you are, what you do, what you feel. You’ve had your share of names, but I cannot tell you the one your parents gave you.”
“Then tell me what you know about my past!”
“The present is more important.”
For many hours after that, Gohral Keull refused to speak further. The two hovalyns rode across Hornimel all night long, and at dawn, when the colours of a new day blazed in the sky, the Nameless One spoke meekly to his companion.
