City of Illusions

by Kim ten Tusscher

  The numbness slowly left Lumea’s body. She took greater note of her surroundings and of the feeling that returned in her limbs. Her feet felt as though a thousand tiny needles were stinging them. She tried to crawl towards the snow to dull her senses again, but Elion stopped her, forcing her to lie back down.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Lumea, but I have to do this.”

  He pulled her boots off her feet and rubbed her feet. It only made the pain worse, and Lumea raged against Elion for doing this to her. She kicked and lunged at him so wildly that Siard sat down behind her and restrained the woman. She struggled in vain to break free of his grip, weakened as she was, so she yelled and screamed at Elion to stop hurting her. When he did not cease she gave up, mostly out of exhaustion. Siard felt her body go limp as she lost consciousness. The two men lay down on either side of her to keep her—and each other—warm.

  Elion whispered an uncertain prayer that day, thanking the gods for bringing Lumea back to him. It had been a long time since he had last prayed, and he was unsure of the right words. He just hoped the gods would forgive him for improvising. After he changed the position of his arm, which he had tucked under Lumea’s head, he fell into a deep slumber.

  12

  At some point towards the end of the afternoon, Elion woke up from a tingling sensation in his arm. Lumea’s head was still lying on his shoulder, and it had cut off his circulation. When he opened his eyes, he saw Siard’s back disappearing between the trees with their bag over his shoulder. The elf moved carefully, not wishing to wake Lumea, but she opened her eyes in spite of his efforts. Startled by her position, she tried to roll away, though the elf stopped her.

  “You don’t have to move. It’s nice and warm like this. Siard will be back soon with something to eat or drink. We have to leave after that, but for now you can still rest a bit.”

  Lumea put her head back down and Elion drew their mantles closer about them.

  Only a little time had passed before Siard came back out of the woods. He had made a small fire to cook some water, but he had been afraid to start it near the wall. He was carrying a steaming bowl which he gave to Lumea.

  “What is it?” she asked curiously.

  “It’s an herbal tea. I don’t know if it’s any good, but at least it’s warm.”

  Lumea took a careful sip and passed the bowl to Elion. After they had eaten, they talked about what to do. A few days ago, they had decided that the wall should be their destination because they did not know what else to do. Now that they had reached it, they were still none the wiser, so they decided to follow it in order to see where it led.

  Siard helped Lumea get up and she took a few tentative steps. Her feet hurt every time she put them down, and she labored to walk. Elion made her walk on her own anyway, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. It would do her good in the end, and the movement would warm her body up.

  The belt of lifeless land near the wall made Siard suspicious, and on his advice they returned to the relative shelter of the trees. There was hardly a path for them to follow, and they had to make their way through bushes and snowdrifts as dead branches slowed their progress. Elion kept a watchful eye on Lumea and was concerned when he saw how her strength was slipping away, until it was impossible for her to go on.

  “Come on, Siard and I will carry you.”

  Lumea wanted to protest, unwilling to admit that she needed help, but with a fluid motion Elion had already swept her up onto his back. She held on, and they went on. The men alternated carrying Lumea, but it slowed them down considerably. Now that she had the chance to rest again, she fell into a kind of half-sleep. Elion noticed her grip on him slackening, and though she became harder to carry, he did not try to wake her.

  As they walked, the sound emanating from the wall grew louder, shifting from a hum and into something akin to the screeching of a dying animal. The darker the sky turned, the more foreboding the sounds became. At first, Lumea did not hear them, but slowly they drove the sleep away until she woke to the sound of screams filling her ears.

  When she opened her eyes, they went very wide at what she saw. She quickly closed them again, hoping that the vision would go away. Through her eyelashes she took another look, hoping that it was gone, but there it was. From the wall, a face was looking at her, gaunt, with hollow cheeks. Its piercing scream chilled her to the marrow. She looked away, but there was another face, and another. The whole wall seemed filled with the hollow faces of tortured spirits. Her own cries were drowned out by their screeching.

  Elion quickly let her slide off his shoulders and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. Lumea did not notice, but kept staring at the wall instead. Following her gaze, Elion and Siard were startled as they noticed the faces, and in unison all three of them started running. The fear that Lumea felt for the faces was stronger than the pain in her body. Elion held her arm as they ran. As soon as they stopped running to catch their breath, though, the faces were there again.

  Afraid that their pursuers were watching them from the wall and that they had been discovered, they began running again. They ran on and on until their breath came in ragged bursts and they had no choice but to stop. Lumea tripped over a hidden tree stump and fell to the ground. Elion and Siard sat down beside her, breathing hard. They turned their backs to the wall so that they would not have to see the faces, though they could not keep out the sounds.

  They were relieved to find that with the dawn the screeching transformed back into the soft hum, and the faces disappeared. In the daylight they had the feeling that the sights and sounds of that night had been nothing more than a dream, so unreal did they seem in the light of the sun. The oily sheen on the wall had returned, and it resembled a giant soap bubble once again. All they heard was the hum.

  They followed the wall for some nights, and always the faces returned. By now they were satisfied that whatever was in there could not get out, but it was still frightening and emotionally draining. Every morning, when the sun rose, Lumea and Siard would tumble into a deep and dreamless sleep, but Elion was afraid to close his eyes. The wall seemed to intensify his nightmares tenfold.

  Since they had reached the wall, his nightmare was the same. It began with the memory of his parents’ death, a common enough night terror for Elion. From the safety of his hiding place among the bushes he watched as enemies cruelly cut down first his father, and then his mother. His mother stared at him with obvious panic in her eyes, and she screamed at him to help her, but he did not, he stayed hidden. His mother’s cries came to an abrupt end as their enemies slit her throat. The new part of the dream was that her plea for help did not stop there. It was taken over by a dozen different voices, and they gave him no rest, whether he was asleep or not.

  Elion wondered how he could help these voices and what they expected from him. Every time, he woke up more tired than when he had gone to sleep, confused over the meaning of it. The nightmare did not portray the way things had really happened, o so long ago. The farther they followed the wall, the stronger his nightmare became, though he tried to keep this hidden from the others in his group.

  Lumea found out about it one day, though. Elion was tossing and turning, and she crawled over to him and drew his cloak tighter about him. This time the gesture did not help; he remained just as restless. She wanted to help, so she did what her mother used to do when as a little girl she had nightmares: she put her hands on his brow and sang a soft tune. Her mother had been able to take over the night terrors in this fashion.

  Now it was Lumea who watched from the bushes as Elion’s mother was murdered, Lumea who felt powerless when the one voice was replaced by a dozen others. She wanted to draw her hands away, but she forced herself to sit still. Elion’s sleep became more peaceful, though Lumea was awake for the rest of the day, shivering and unable to sleep. Instead, she went to look for food, and even melted some snow to replenish their water supplies. When Siard woke up, she offered him some fruit.

  “How did the two of you me
et?” Lumea asked him.

  “Elion was working near my house. Unlike most Omnesians, I did not look down upon the workmen. I met him once in the forest, and later we started talking.”

  “But did you know about the workmen being... elves?”

  She felt that she should have chosen a better word. She hated the way it made Elion seem somehow different from herself and Siard, while she did not feel like that at all, as the question could make it seem as if the difference was more important to her than it really was.

  “No, I never would have guessed.”

  “But how did you know about Elion, then?”

  Lumea realized just how curious she sounded, and she watched Siard’s face to see if her questions annoyed him, but the answers that came were calm.

  “I met him again in the forest one day. Apparently, there’s a hot spring there, though I didn’t know about it at the time. Elion did, and he had just taken a bath when I stumbled across him. He hadn’t fully dressed yet; he was still holding his kerchief in his hand. He actually seemed almost frightened to see me.”

  Siard was quiet for a moment before continuing his story.

  “I was surprised, of course, but it somehow seemed fitting, so the discovery wasn’t too much of a shock.” Lumea agreed and Siard went on.

  “Not for me, anyway. He, on the other hand, quickly disappeared between the trees. We did talk more after that meeting, though, and as it turned out, he shared my distrust of Hydrhaga. We made plans to come and investigate what was going on here. I never mentioned his elvish heritage, and I think he appreciated that. But to be honest, I just had no idea how to bring it up.”

  By the time Elion awoke, it was late in the evening. Lumea avoided looking at him, afraid that the elf could see that she knew about his dreams. He always seemed so strong and independent, and she was fairly sure he would not appreciate her glimpse behind his mask. When he had eaten, they continued their journey. The noises and images on the wall were already going strong.

  Eventually, they reached a set of thick cables that ran up to the wall, and where they touched it, there was a noise like a herd of horses galloping past. The wall shimmered from the energy being pumped into it, and there was no sign of the faces here. Siard suggested they follow the cables, and the other two agreed. Despite the ominous feeling that all three shared, they wanted to know what was feeding energy into the wall.

  On their next stop, Elion made a small fire, not so much for its warmth—as there was enough of that coming from the cables themselves—but more for the sense of security that the flickering orange flames gave them. The crackling of the wood brightened their moods.

  Siard was staring into the flames with a happy expression.

  “What are you thinking about?” Lumea asked him.

  He looked up. “One time when I was still a little kid, my father took me and my brother out into the desert. We’d brought warm blankets and we were planning to stay the night. I was so excited! My father picked a good spot and built a fire, just like this one. Then he tucked me and my brother in under the blankets. It slowly grew darker and one by one the stars appeared. My father told us that gigantic stilt walkers were going through the heavens, lighting the stars. I remember looking up into the sky, hoping to see one of them.

  “Then my father showed us all the different zodiacal signs, and he told us their story. The one that most impressed me was the one about the Lady with the Shining Eyes. As he told the story, I saw her appear, and her eyes did shine brilliantly, high above our heads.” “What’s her story?” Lumea was curious.

  “The Lady lived in a dark time, full of turmoil and grief. Her mother died giving birth to her second child while her father was far away at the Eastern Horizon, fighting a war. Years went by while the Lady took care of her brother as well as she could, though food grew scarce and the world ever darker.

  “One day, a man knocked on her door and chose her for his wife, though he refused to adopt her brother as a member of his family. The woman protested. She warned the man that if he took her as his wife, she would die on their wedding day, and yet he persisted. In the end, she was forced to accepted the man as her husband, and they left together, but she promised her brother that she would always be there for him to show him the way.

  “Events unfolded as the Lady predicted. On the day the man married her, she died. That same day, a new sign appeared in the heavens. With a sad heart her brother decided to follow the stars. After a long journey he arrived in the east, where he found his father.

  “When the Lady appears in the sky, you can see the Horse Warriors in the east. As time goes by the two approach, until finally they meet.”

  Lumea enjoyed Siard’s story, which told of bravery and hope. But she sympathized with the Lady as well, who had fought against the fate that had been forced upon her, and lost.

  “Is your father an astrologer?”

  Siard seemed insulted. “Most definitely not! He was an astronomer. He didn’t believe in all that nonsense about stars determining the course of people’s lives. My father was a talented man, a scientist who mapped out the heavens. He devised the Armillary Sphere, and he invented the telescope. Using it, he realized that it was the earth that circled the sun, not the other way around like people believed not-so-long ago. He built bigger, more advanced telescopes and eventually even the Omnesian Observatory. He was a genius, and other astronomers learned a lot from him.”

  Siard’s voice was proud, but his contempt for astrologers had not escaped Lumea’s notice. Astrologers were a very important aspect of life in Lunadeiron, and Lumea had felt good about them. The stars and planets were not objects to be studied, they were spirits whom you could work with, whose powers could be of benefit to you. The stars were a way of the gods to send their message, but she refused to go into that, asking instead, “What about your brother? What happened to him?”

  Siards eyes suddenly looked sombre, and Lumea regretted having asked the question.

  “Like the Lady looked after her brother, I have to look after mine. He’s the one that brought me to Hydrhaga. Twenty years ago, he decided to come here, and I know that he was determined to go back home some day. He never did, though. He was fourteen years older than me. As a little kid, I used to sit by the window, hoping to see him walk up our street. I never heard from him again, but in my heart there was always the hope that if I came here, I would find him and he’d be all right.

  “A little voice in the back of my head told me that he was gone forever. My distrust against Hydrhaga and what was going on here slowly grew.”

  Siard shook his head with a sad sigh. “He was not here when I came, and nobody seemed to remember him. There was only one man who remembered him, and he disappeared the day after I spoke to him.”

  “I’m sorry for bringing him up, Siard.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s nice to talk about him with other people. It makes him come alive again, if only a little bit.”

  The young man poked between the burning branches with a stick. For the rest of the evening, they talked about their families, bringing back memories of their childhood. Elion did not speak much, but he listened to Lumea and Siard’s bickering with an amused expression on his face. There were moments when they recognized themselves in the words of the other person, but at other times their opinions were polar opposites. The heavy discussion that followed never lasted for long, because both of them knew that these differences were too hard to overcome in one night, as stubborn as both of them were. They would never be able to make the other come around to their own way of thinking.

  13

  The first light of dawn touched the sky when Elion, Siard and Lumea reached a glade. In the middle of it stood the building where the cables originated. At the top of a high flagpole a blackbird was singing, though no other bird answered its call. The low building seemed impenetrable. It had no windows and only a single simple door. The snow was slushy and brown from the trample of too many feet. Elion suggested that the
y sit in the shadows for a while and watch the entrance of the building. By doing so, perhaps they could find out something important.

  “I’ll be the first to keep watch. When the sun reaches above the treetops, I will awaken Siard.”

  Lumea and Siard agreed. Elion picked a spot where he could sit with his back to a tree. He was planning not to sleep at all. They might have left the wall behind, but he was still afraid of his dreams. He did not want to scream and betray their location.

  The sun had already come above the treetops when Lumea awoke. She went over to sit beside Elion.

  “You should get some sleep,” she said.

  “I’m not tired.”

  Lumea looked skeptically at the dark circles under his eyes. She was not sure what else to say, so they were silent for a moment.

  She decided to tell him. “I know about your dreams.”

  It was the last thing Elion had expected, and he looked at her with wide eyes.

  “I woke up a few nights ago, and though you were sleeping, you seemed restless. I looked into your dreams and took them away. You can sleep now, you know. If you have any more dreams I will take them away again. I will stand guard.”

  When Lumea spoke in that commanding tone of hers, like she did now, there was no denying her.

  “Lumea, I was nine...” Elion’s voice sounded panicky as he realized what she had just said. “That’s not how it happened!”

  “It’s okay, Elion,” she answered. “Of course it didn’t happen like that. Nightmares have a way of showing your worst fears to you, they’re not real. I do not judge you for your dreams; if you want to tell me what happened, I will listen, but I won’t force you. It’s up to you.”

  Elion was relieved, and he went to lie down, but after about a quarter of an hour he got back up, and came to sit by her again. He kept his eyes shut as he started talking, and she knew that he was trying to play down the emotions that would inevitably come to the surface.