by Remi Michaud
He sat numbed in the way that a hammer struck thumb is numb, feeling the burning of his abused flesh, wondering where his tears were, when he felt an alteration in the air. A shift in the winds both subtle and profound. He looked up and saw a figure approaching through the clouds of sand, strolling at a leisurely pace. He did not need to see the face to know who it was. He rose to his feet stiffly, hissing as chafed skin rubbed against sandpaper-like rags.
“Nice place you have here,” called his father as he emerged from the clouds. “I admit it's not quite what I was expecting.”
Jurel's face twisted and he looked away. “No.”
Gaorla approached surrounded by tranquility, smiling calmly, gently. The sands did not scour him, the winds did not scorch him. “How are you, son?”
Jurel snorted. “Wonderful. Just great. Couldn't be better.”
Gaorla chuckled. “Now, now. Is that any way to speak to your father?”
“I'm sorry. I don't feel like myself right now.”
“Who do you feel like then, if not yourself?”
He raised his eyes inquisitively to his father. “I don't understand.”
“You said you don't feel like yourself. Who do you feel like?”
“Well...like...I don't know. I just don't feel like I used to.”
“Ah, I see. Like before. When things were easy. When things were cut and dried in manageable little chunks. When you were just a simple farmboy whose most difficult decision was whether to do your chores now or later.”
A flash of outrage at his father's words. “There's nothing wrong with that,” he growled.
“No, there isn't,” Gaorla said mildly. “But that's not who you are. You know that.”
“And why can't it be who I am?”
“My boy, some people were made for farming. Some were made for trading, some for sailing the seas, and some to rule. Everyone has talents that come naturally to them. You could no more be a farmer than a fox could soar through the sky with the eagles.”
“But I used to be.”
“Too much has happened since. Now, you would not last a week on a farm.”
“My father—Daved—did it. He was a soldier, a cavalryman, and he retired to Galbin's farm with me.”
“Your father did what he needed to at the right times in his life. He knew when he was a soldier that it was right for him. And he was good at it. His men respected him, his superiors trusted him. He also knew when he could no longer be a soldier anymore. He realized that time in his life was over and he accepted it. Much to your benefit, I think. It made him a happy man.”
Valsa'a words came back to him, whispering through his thoughts: To grow toward what it needs to survive even as it remains a flower.
“But why me?”
A deep resonant laugh bubbled up from his father, so rich, so purely, serenely clean that it was contagious. Jurel could not help his own chuckle as Gaorla turned to face the storm and stared into the distance.
“There was a young lady once, many, many years ago, it was. She was pretty but not outstandingly beautiful. She was the daughter of a minor clan chieftain and her life was a violent one as the lives of clansfolk often were in those days. She was a warrior maiden in her clan, and a good one too. She could wield a dagger in ways that left many of her opponents dumbstruck, wondering where her next attack would come from. Many of them never realized that the attack had already come and they were leaking their heart's blood all over their feet.
“Yet for all of the death she caused, the pain, the suffering, this young lady had a beautiful heart and she mourned every time her blade struck home. I spoke to this young lady, chose her to be one of mine. The duties I imposed on her went against all she knew, all she had been taught. It was not long before she asked the very same question.”
“You're talking about Valsa.”
Gaorla turned to him, with a twinkle in his eye, and tapped the tip of his nose with his finger. “Of course. Can you imagine? A warrior maiden who suddenly found she turned everyone she met to lust filled jelly? A killer who became the very embodiment of life? It was the same thing with the other two. Shomra had to endure the worst of it. No surprise considering his duties. But all of them asked the same question.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“Doesn't it? Think on it. You will understand.”
Lowering his head, Gaorla took a step, then another before a thought seemed to strike him. He turned back to Jurel. “I would never dictate how my children keep their planes, but I can't imagine this place is very comfortable for you. And if you bring any of your mortal friends here, they would be dead before you could blink.”
He turned again but this time, it was Jurel who stopped him. “Father?”
“Yes?”
“What is this place? Metana said it was a reflection of my mind. Is that true?” Even the act of saying her name brought a new pang to Jurel. He pushed it away. Gods help him when he allowed himself to mourn everyone else he had killed.
“Yes. Partly. But it's more than that.” He hesitated, doubt clouding his eyes for a moment before he went on. “It is difficult to explain to one who has so much yet to learn. I will try. This place is a conjuration of your mind. That much is true. But it is as real as the world you spend your life in. It is as real as any world at all. But it is not of that world. Do you understand?”
Jurel mutely shook his head. His father clicked his tongue.
“All right. Imagine this. Take a sheet of parchment,” and suddenly a page, white as snow, appeared in his hand, “and imagine this to be the world of mortals. Now take another sheet,” a second page obligingly winked into existence, “and imagine it to be this place, your world.”
“All right,” Jurel said, drawing out the words slowly.
Gaorla laid one page on top of the second, pressed them together. “This is not exactly right. In time you will understand more, but for now, you can imagine it this way. They are two separate worlds, what we call 'planes' and you can't just step from one plane to the next. You need a bridge of sorts. But they are very close to each other, right beside each other and we're able to build bridges easily enough. It's generally one of the first things young Gods learn. Probably a defense mechanism, an emergency escape of sorts. Ask Maora about that. He would know. Does that help?”
Jurel thought about it for a time. It seemed simple enough, he supposed. He nodded slightly.
“Good. Now remember: this place is real. It may be a place conjured by your mind—a reflection of you, as young Metana so astutely put it—but it is real. Anything that happens to a person or an object here will still affect them as it would in the world of mortals. You, for example, are going to chafe for days from your wind burns no matter where you go.”
Jurel did not think it was the best time to inform his father that he might just spend the rest of his life right there.
“And if you think you're going to spend the rest of your life here, remember two things.” Gaorla paused and smiled at Jurel's shocked expression. Apparently, he was cursed to have his every thought known to everyone. “One, there are people who need you and love you in the other world. Two, you are my son, and a God. A young one, but you have begun to grow. You have reached an important point in your growth; you will be here for a very, very long time.”
Chapter 26
After Gaorla left, Jurel sat against the blasted bole of what remained of the lilac tree to ponder Gaorla's words. In his distraction, he did not notice that the sandstorms slowed, waned and finally dissipated. He did not even realize that the temperature dropped from deadly hot enough to incinerate meat and turn bone to gritty gray dust, to just uncomfortably balmy.
His father had said many things, many of which would undoubtedly take years (centuries) for him to fully understand, but there was one thing that nagged at him. One tidbit, one piece of information that, on the whole, did not seem overly important, that stayed with him. He did not pause to consider that his mind may have res
ted on that bit of relatively irrelevant trivia because it did not want to ponder other more pressing, and far more depressing things. An emergency exit of the mind, as it were, through which he dove headfirst.
He thought of the pieces of parchment, one atop the other. What he focused on was the fact that the pages covered each other, that each sheet touched a great amount of the other. His father had said that it was not quite right, but Jurel wondered. As he wondered, an idea formed. Hazy at first, it coalesced into something that caused him to tremble with excitement. Only one obstacle remained: how? He thought for a time, picturing the two parchments, picturing them so strongly that they appeared in his own hands—which caused him to jolt and lose his train of thought for a moment—and he thought, worked it, nagged it, tugged and twisted and turned it until he had what he believed might be a working theory. Of course, he had doubts. This was a strange, unreal thing he wanted to try and if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that just a few months ago—just yesterday, really, he would have scoffed at the idea. But sitting there with two pages of parchment that had not existed a few moments before, in a world that was created from his own mind, he decided that there was only one thing that mattered.
There was no way to know for sure unless he tried...
He closed his eyes. In his mind, he carefully constructed an image he remembered from his childhood. He saw board woodfloors, rough but covered with fresh, clean rushes. Circular tables with wooden stools cluttered the floor, each with its own tiny lantern. At one end of the room, he pictured a bar, long and shining as it had always been kept by his father, his first father, its brass rail gleaming copper-gold in the smoky light. Behind the bar, he envisioned the racks that held bottles and decanters of various sizes and shapes: tall, slender, short and fat, wood, pewter, iron, or glass for a precious few. Along one wall, he envisioned the well-used staircase that led up to the second floor, the one he had leapt from as a child, to swing from the wide circular chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Lastly, he placed himself in the middle of the room. As painstakingly as he created the image of the tavern, he created his own image.
He opened his eyes.
The world, his place, was shimmering uncertainly, the light of the sun flickering like a torch in a breeze. He still sat on caked mud, but in spots he thought he saw floorboards as though someone had swept away a thin layer of dirt in random places to reveal the wood beneath.
He closed his eyes. Something was wrong. His world did not want to give up its grasp on him. Why? He kept the image of the tavern firmly fixed in his mind and let his thoughts race ahead. He remembered the tavern well—of course; it was forever etched into his memory. He saw it and knew it should work. Except...
Except that tavern did not exist anymore. That tavern had been sacked in the siege that had taken the lives of his parents. Bitter disappointment filled him. Of course it didn't work. The tavern was destroyed, disappeared beneath the sands of time. Like he himself.
All right, try something else.
He pictured, not the inside this time, but the outside. He saw the wood beam sides, like a log cabin. He saw the windows spaced evenly on either side of the door. He saw the upper floor, inset from the ground floor so that it looked like a giant step stool. He did not bother with the sign above the door. The simply, elegantly painted horse and chariot would be gone. To the right of the tavern, there was a seamstress' shop. Bella's. That was the name. He saw the sign of thimble and thread above the door. To the left of the tavern, stood a jeweler's shop. It had not been a high class place; they were too far from the rich part of the city for that. It had been mostly polished river stones and glass set in brass or iron or copper. To a five year old boy, it had been a place of glittering wonder and shining treasure. Above the door had hung a placard that denoted a sparkling gold ring with a great huge diamond set on top. Old Guy, the owner, had thought much of himself.
He pictured all this, and more. On the other side of the mud-slicked, broken cobbles of the street, there was an empty square that served as a sort of neighborhood park, a gathering place for folk to chat and relax. At one time, there had been a rambling hostel there, but it had burned to the ground and no one had bothered to rebuild after the ruined bits and pieces had been hauled away. The square was flanked by a chandler on one side, and a lumber yard on the other.
There was a lurch as though the ground shifted under him. A wave of dizziness disoriented him, weakened his knees.
Once again he opened his eyes.
* * *
In the black depths under the weight of millions of tons of granite and quartz, a hundred paces beyond a forbiddingly beautiful facade carved into the very face of the mountain, the creature stirred. It felt something different, a subtle change in the air, or in the earth. In the blackness, it raised what passed for its head and snuffled like a bloodhound catching a scent. A hissing sound, a rustling as of snakes sliding against snakes whispered harshly in the cavern, echoing hollowly. The endless moans that so comforted it, rose to shrieks; its displeasure was the closest thing to physical torment those shadows could feel.
The air changed. Somehow, the pitch blackness managed to get even blacker. Anyone who walked into that cavern right then would have fallen to the floor in terror, would probably lose their minds, would definitely loose their bowels. Even outside, under the sun and a mile away, where huts and shanties huddled against each other as though to ward off the permanent chill in the air, villagers felt shivers scrabble up their spines, knowing it had nothing to do with the weather, and they turned their frightened gazes to the mountain that rose like a broken sword into the sky.
The thing in the cavern stirred, its ruined head turning left and right, and in the darkness, two red orbs could be seen glowing brightly. It screamed.
Though the people in the village did not hear the scream, they moaned as the ground under their feet trembled.
* * *
The oxcart trundled almost right on top of him. He cried out in alarm and leaped from the path of the oncoming oxen, careening into a pair of roughly dressed men who had stopped to gape at Jurel's sudden appearance from thin air.
“Watch where yer goin, y'idiot,” roared the swarthy cart driver.
“Sorry,” Jurel called and waved apologetically. “Sorry.”
He turned and surveyed the street. Could it be? It did not look quite right. The jeweler's shop was still there, though the sign was two rings now instead of one. The seamstress shop was almost exactly as he remembered it. On the opposite side of the street, there were haphazard kiosks, roughly built, seeming about ready to fall in on themselves at any moment, in the once empty square, and the lumber yard appeared to be more a lumber store now. Slowly, with trepidation, he turned toward what had once been a tavern and a home to a happy family.
When his eyes found it, he almost choked. There, in front of him, in the place that at one time had been the Horse and Chariot tavern, his earliest childhood home, stood a brothel. The structure was familiar. The same log beams, the same neat, even windows, the same door. But when it opened and a heavyset man stepped out, arranging his shirt, smiling lasciviously back at the very scantily clad young lady inside who quickly closed the door, there was not much doubt in Jurel's mind.
A brothel!
Indignance, outrage, anger: it all flowed into Jurel as water flows into an empty channel. He surged forward and gripped the leering man's wrinkled lapels. “What do you think you're doing?” he wanted to ask, or “How dare you do that in my house!” Thankfully, Jurel had enough control to stifle his violent urges. “Where is this?” he asked instead.
As the man took in Jurel, took in his size and the look of murder in Jurel's eyes, his expression turned from shock to fear. “Sir?”
“Where is this?”
He knew. He knew full well, but it never hurt to have confirmation, it never hurt to assure that he really saw it and that his mind did not conjure up insanity induced imagery.
“The nort
h market place, My Lord,” the heavyset man said.
“I can see that, you fool,” growled Jurel, shaking the man hard enough that he heard teeth click. “What town? City?”
“K-Kill-Killhern, my lord,” the man wept.
Jurel let go; the fat man slumped to the ground like a rag doll. He turned, dumbstruck, eyes wide, and took in the scene. It was familiar, but different, like seeing someone after ten years: the features were the same, but the specifics had been altered by time's inexorable influence.
He threw his head back, and laughed, deeply, loudly. He laughed, and the folk of Killhern City, glancing askance at him, giving him a wide berth as they passed.
* * *
Gixen sat bolt upright in his cot. His head felt that it was about to burst apart. Roaring, he beat his temples with his fists. Trembling, hunching forward, his roar turned to a mewl.
Slowly the blazing pain faded until he was able to open his eyes. He saw nothing, nothing but that impenetrable blackness, feared that he had somehow gone blind. He could not countenance blindness. He could not survive it. Blind? Only for the weak, the pathetic. He would not—
A flicker. A fire. He breathed a sigh of relief and silently berated himself for his stupidity. It was night; of course it was dark.
Rolling from his filthy cot, he fell gasping to his knees, his head pounding like kettledrums, his bones all aflame, groped for the crude lantern, nearly knocked it over, had to grasp it in clutching, shaking fingers to steady it. It took him four tries to light the wick, and when it caught, his tent came to him in a blinding blaze of ruddy light that made his eyes water until he became accustomed to it.
