Final Passage (The Prisoner and the Sun #3)

by Brad Magnarella

  Tradd’s luminous eyes swelled, then softened as he looked from the attendants back to Skye. At last his arms sagged to his sides.

  “But they’ll put you to sleep,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said gently.

  “I don’t want you to…”

  “I know.”

  Tradd fell to his knees and wrapped her round with his giant arms. Skye held his head to her chest. Great sobs shuddered through her embrace. She kissed his tangle of black hair and whispered through it, then rested her head on his crown. Iliff recalled the evening she had taken Tradd’s young hand and led him from the wood to the township. She was so natural, he recalled, and he so receptive. She might have been his mother. Skye stroked his hair now and guided him to his feet.

  “Be brave,” she said.

  Tradd nodded and swiped his hand beneath his brows.

  “Farewell, Tradd.” She raised her eyes to Iliff. “Farewell, my love.”

  The attendants eased their hands beneath her arms.

  “Wait!” Iliff called.

  Her blue eyes turned toward him as he removed his cloak. It was the one Adramina had given him when he set out from her dwelling on his journey. The cloak had remained fresh and fragrant these years, retaining its magic.

  “Here,” he said, placing it over her shoulders. “To hold you in your sleep.”

  The cloak conformed to Skye’s shape at once. It then gave a flutter, shifting from the burgundy color of old to a soft green, gifting new life to their space. Skye smiled while Iliff fastened the silver clasp at her neck.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Iliff bowed his head and pressed his lips to her soft, scented hair. He squeezed her hands once more and, at last, let them fall from his. Tradd came to his side. Together they watched the attendants turn with Skye, watched them guide her back into the quiet. For a long while after the attendants had vanished, Skye’s golden hair continued to show through the mist, ever fainter, ever smaller. Iliff thought he saw her turn once.

  Farewell for now, she whispered inside him.

  Then she, too, faded and there was only mist.

  Chapter 25

  They stood helplessly as the mist thickened into an unfathomable wall, embracing the sleeping, barring the living. Barring them. Try as he might, Iliff could no longer feel through the mist. But in his heart, he felt Skye. And with her presence, he felt the truth of what she had told him. At last, when he sensed her being helped into the bed, sensed the sheets being tucked around her and the duvet draped and smoothed over, he gave Tradd’s back a gentle pat.

  “Are you ready?” he asked quietly.

  Tradd nodded.

  Reluctantly, Iliff turned from the wall. Years before, he would have plunged back into the mist, but now he understood, he knew, that Skye’s freedom lay before them, not behind. He listened for a moment, his eyes large in the mist. Soon the bird’s chirp sounded again. Iliff guided them toward the sound, Tradd’s plodding steps falling in just behind his.

  Little by little, the mist thinned, and soon Iliff could once more see trees around them. But they were not like those in the Far Place with their pale trunks and perfect boughs of leaves. The emerging trees leaned into towering ascents, their trunks scored by age and weather. Limbs and dark debris covered the ground.

  “Do you see a path?” Iliff asked.

  Tradd stooped and, after a moment, shook his head.

  A wind, strong and sudden, agitated the leaves and blew away the remaining mist. They found themselves on a hilltop, and when Iliff looked between the trees at their backs, he was startled to find that there was no longer any mist to be seen. Their hill fell unbroken to a gray wash of sea and sky. He scoured every bit of land in his sight. He reached throughout it with his awareness.

  But there was no wall, no Far Place. It was as if they had never been.

  His heart clenched as his hand flew to his chest. But after a moment, his breathing calmed. She was still there.

  “Iliff…”

  He turned to find Tradd standing and looking out over a wide plain, where giant trees rose, but more often lay fallen and crosswise to one another. With the few standing trees climbed the land, farther and farther to the horizon, until it was as if the earth had been suddenly seized and pulled skyward. The dwindling trees fell away altogether, replaced by massive stone shelves. The upheaval was so tremendous and distant that the highest peaks became lost to Iliff’s sight.

  Lost among the clouds.

  “Is it the same one from the stories?” Tradd asked.

  Iliff nodded slowly. At the seeming end of the earth, the Mountain could be no other.

  The thick chirp sounded again. Iliff glimpsed a flash of black among the branches ahead of them, but he could not move his eyes from the horizon, from that impossible monolith crowned with clouds. For he knew that above the clouds stood the Mountain’s summit, and from its summit one would see the Sun. They would see the Sun. The whole time he looked on it, his hand did not move from his chest.

  “It’s a long ways,” Tradd said, sounding older suddenly. He turned his head to Iliff. “We should get started.”

  Iliff nodded and they set out.

  * * *

  They were a long time reaching the broken landscape that stretched between the forest and the far foothills. He and Tradd saw at once that it was more confounding a place than it had appeared from a distance. Fallen trees, too large to move or scramble over, steered them from their straight course and into a maze-work of wreckage. The remnants of a great storm or fire, Iliff thought. More than once, he and Tradd trekked a good distance only to discover they had become hemmed in by toppled trunks stacked two and three deep, their root structures like splayed hands warding them off.

  They ended the first day lost within one such tangle. Blackened trees zigzagged around them for as far as Iliff could feel. He eased himself to the ground and leaned his back to the lone standing tree. He sighed and rubbed his legs. Now that they were beyond the Far Place, he felt his age again. Tradd sagged beside him.

  “It’s no use trying to find our way in the dark,” Iliff said, turning to him. “We’ll rest here tonight.”

  Tradd nodded.

  “Here,” Iliff said. He removed Salvatore’s bag from his shoulder. “There’s food and water inside.”

  Tradd opened the bag, then hesitated. “What about you?” he asked.

  “I’m not hungry. Not now.”

  And it was true. Though his stomach felt lean, Iliff had no desire to fill it. His awareness had become consumed by the Mountain that climbed in the distant dusk. He could think of little else.

  “It still looks far away,” Tradd said.

  “Yes,” Iliff said. “But we will get there. Just as we made it through the Far Place.”

  Once more, he explained to Tradd what had happened with Skye. He explained how her essence remained inside him. When they arrived at the Sun, he assured him, so would she.

  “So we’ll see her again?” Tradd asked carefully.

  Iliff nodded. “We’ve only to get there. We’ve only to look upon it.”

  Tradd’s gray lips swelled into a smile. He lifted his face to the Mountain, which was nearly disguised by night now. A chill wind blew down from the foothills. Iliff went to pull his cloak around himself before remembering that it held Skye now. The thought comforted him.

  “Should I light a fire?” Tradd asked.

  “Please,” Iliff said.

  Tradd had already removed the tinder pouch from his pocket. He made a nest of some kindling, beneath which he set a few fragments of fungus. Spark gave to fire instantly, and Tradd built up a small pyre over the flames. He rejoined Iliff beside the tree, perspiration shining across his brow. When Tradd spoke, his voice sounded distant.

  “What will we see?”

  “Hm? You mean when we get to the Sun?”

  Tradd nodded, his gaze remaining on the flames.

  “To be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure.”
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  “What is the Sun?”

  Iliff turned toward him, his mouth opening.

  “Yes, I know the stories,” Tradd said before Iliff could answer. “I know it’s where we’re supposed to be from. I know we won’t know peace until we return there. But what is the Sun to you?”

  Shadows deepened the lines where Tradd’s brows drew together. Iliff smiled to himself. Troll had asked him the same question upon their emergence into the world many years before—indeed, beside their own first fire.

  “When I set out,” Iliff said, “I believed the Sun to be something that watched over me, like a parent watches a child. I believed it would reward or punish me according to my adherence to the path. When I became lost in the mines, when the forest fell to fire, I thought surely I had failed. I believed that the Sun would never allow me to arrive before it and look upon it.”

  “But you’re closer than ever,” Tradd said.

  Iliff nodded. “That’s because I was wrong. The Sun does not judge. It does not choose who will get there and look upon it and who will remain far away. That is not its nature. That is our choice.”

  “Our choice?”

  “When I arrived among the Fythe, I built walls to separate that which I deemed light and virtuous from that which I thought dark and corrupting. That became my mission, and I pursued it zealously. But neither is that the nature of things. Neither is that the nature of the Sun. And so long as my walls stood, I remained separate from this truth. By my choice, I denied myself half of life.”

  “That’s why your walls had to fall,” Tradd said.

  “Yes,” Iliff said. “And by Skye’s grace, they did.”

  Iliff followed Tradd’s gaze back to the fire. Neither spoke for a long time. At length, Iliff felt Tradd’s thoughts drift from Skye to his father.

  “Adramina told me that the journey would require many deaths,” Iliff said, glancing toward Tradd. “I did not understand her then, and all these years the idea frightened me. But our deaths are the sacrifices we make of our old ideas of ourselves. They are so we may grow with our growing awareness. ‘As the world you know becomes greater,’ she told me, ‘so too must you.’”

  Iliff imagined Troll’s hide falling away and crumbling to the earth. Once more, he watched Skye disappear into the mist of her people’s beliefs. Tradd’s eyes shone in his periphery.

  “Your father understood this,” Iliff went on. “As did Skye. Now I’ve come to understand it as well.” He turned to Tradd and smiled sadly. “The fire’s burning low. We should get some sleep.”

  “But you still haven’t told me what the Sun is to you.”

  Iliff thought for a moment, his finger to his lips. He considered the ruin around them, the Mountain rising beyond. “It is the Final Passage,” he said at last.

  “You mean from life to death?”

  “No,” Iliff said. “From death to life.”

  * * *

  The morning dawned gray. Iliff remained bundled beneath their blanket, Tradd rumbling at his back. Iliff became aware again of the fallen trees around them. He hoped for better progress today. He closed his eyes and reached beyond himself. But just as often as he felt openings in the wreckage, he felt more impediments. At last his awareness drifted to the Mountain, probing over its shelves and stony crags before becoming blunted by the dense cloud ceiling.

  It is the Final Passage.

  He had hesitated to tell Tradd this last night. He was concerned it would frighten him, overwhelm him. But Tradd had nodded thoughtfully, then sat watching the flames until they dimmed and fluttered out.

  The Final Passage.

  And then what? Iliff wondered, opening his eyes to the blanket that covered him. What would happen?

  Two chirps sounded, thick and insistent.

  Iliff folded the blanket back and sat up. The bird stood in the remains of last night’s fire. It shone black save for two small feathers that rose ashen from its head. The bird hopped from the fire ring and flew onto a fallen tree. It shook its head and preened away the remaining ash with a clawed foot, becoming solid black again.

  It tilted its head toward Iliff and chirped. Beside Iliff, Tradd coughed and ground his knuckles into his eyes.

  “Look,” Iliff whispered. “It’s the same one that guided us from the Far Place.”

  Tradd sat up and squinted toward it.

  “How do you know?”

  The bird hopped the length of the fallen tree, stopping suddenly. It broke into a scrap of song.

  “I can feel it,” Iliff said. “Come along now.”

  They packed quickly and went to where the bird continued to sing. Beneath where it stood, almost hidden by branches, a generous gap showed between two of the trees. Tradd tore the obstructing branches away, and they climbed through. More fallen trees littered the way. Not to be deterred, the bird selected another tree and resumed its ragged song. Another gap appeared among the branches.

  Iliff and Tradd proceeded in this way for the rest of the day, the bird hopping, flapping, and singing them along. It was a young bird, Iliff decided, for it did not seem to tire. If anything, it became more and more lively as they went. In addition to gaps between trees, it showed them spaces between trees and the ground, deep enough to crawl beneath, as well as intricate ways around the wreckage.

  “Why does it help us?” Tradd asked at one point.

  “Another thing I’ve learned on this journey,” Iliff said, “is that once you declare your intention, help can come in any number of packages—more often odd ones. One has only to trust in them.”

  “Can we trust this one?” Tradd whispered, as though the bird might overhear him.

  Iliff lifted his chin to where the Mountain loomed larger before them.

  “Oh,” Tradd said, following his gaze. “I guess so.”

  They stopped at dusk, pleased with their progress. Tradd built another fire and dined on some provisions from Salvatore’s bag. Iliff accepted the water skin, but for the second night, declined food. He had no appetite for the dried bread and fruit. His thoughts returned to the Mountain.

  “Look there,” Tradd said.

  The bird had perched on a fallen tree on the verge of the firelight and was now trimming the feathers beneath its wing. Its body shone oily against the night. When it cocked its head, its eyes flashed white.

  “I was worried it had flown off,” Tradd said.

  “No,” Iliff said, smiling. “Whatever it is, it is determined it should be our guide.”

  But late the following day, when they had worked their way past the last of the fallen trees, and the foothills swelled up before them, the bird gave a final thick chirp and flew toward some far trees and out of sight.

  “I don’t guess we’ll see our little friend again,” Tradd said sadly.

  Iliff raised his face to the formidable Mountain out ahead of them. Could birds even fly that high?

  “No,” he replied. “I don’t suppose we will.”

  Chapter 26

  They began their climb early the following morning, disappointed that the bird had not returned during the night. Trees rose sparse in the low hills, and though some had fallen, none now impeded their way. Ever up, thought Iliff. And that is the way they went. By late day, the trees thinned and low grass gave way to stone. Iliff stumbled, and Tradd caught him.

  “You need to eat something,” Tradd said.

  Iliff leaned his arm against a boulder. It was true he had not eaten the day long and his knees had begun to wobble with the effort of their climb, but it was also true that he was still not hungry. He raised his eyes to the Mountain, whose sides looked sheer and hard in the late day.

  “I just need some rest,” he said. “And maybe a little water.”

  Tradd frowned as he handed Iliff the skin he had recently filled. His gaze joined Iliff’s on the Mountain.

  “The closer we get,” Tradd said, “the more forbidding it looks.”

  Iliff wiped his lips and nodded.

  That night they e
ncamped in a cleft that rent the side of a cliff face. Cold rain fell outside, but fire soon warmed their enclosure. Iliff watched the flames from the blanket, his head heavy with fatigue. He watched Tradd squatted before the whispering light. Soon, he could no longer keep his eyes open.

  The voice that awakened him that night was Adramina’s.

  Iliff pushed the blanket from him and rose. The fire had fallen to ash, but a soft light shone from the rear of the cave. Iliff walked toward it, the stony room extending back farther than he remembered.

  At last he arrived before a blue door. Light seeped around its edges. Iliff recognized it as one of the doors from Adramina’s dwelling.

  “You may open it now,” Adramina said, her voice coming up beside him.

  Iliff tried to turn toward her, but could not. He grasped the door’s handle and pushed. Light poured through. After a moment, he could make out the township. He could see the bluff with its six pillars, the bustling boatyard below, the fruitful fields beyond. And it looked to Iliff to be late spring, for the lake was thawed and the snow gone, the gardens around the cottages blossoming with flowers and berries. Fythe and Garott children chased one another over the fresh greens.

  Then Iliff saw himself and Skye strolling down the main lane together, hand in hand. He listened to their easy laughter.

  “How can this be?” he asked. “It is spring, yet still she lives.”

  “A part of you desires this,” Adramina answered.

  Iliff’s heart ached at the image before him.

  “But it is not real.”

  “No?” she said. “Remember, I am a granter of wishes. You have but to step through.”

  Green eyes shone from the darkness beside him. Iliff looked down at the stone threshold, then up again at the idyllic picture. The image and sounds were so vivid. More so than life, it seemed.

  “But I’ve made no appeal. I’ve none left.”

  “This desire is beneath your knowing.”

  “What of the quest?” he asked. “What of the Sun?” He did not move his gaze from the township.