by E A Bagby
Without a word, we left the yellow room. The Silver Dare sat before us slightly askew, as it had when we left. We scuttled back to it, kicking up the thin layer of dust left there before. No one cared. The grey stuff already covered our clothes, skin, and hair, which was matted down by sweat.
“Did anyone hear anything besides the beast and the cab?” I said, still heaving while I talked. I received only blank expressions.
“What did you hear?” Cleo asked.
“I don’t know . . . it must have been echoes.” I shook my head. I wanted to believe I’d imagined the voice, or that my fear and stress made me lose my senses.
Or, could it be that like the maze, the Guardian tried to trick me with a psychic attack, as it did to the hero White Cloud after he escaped Azer? He survived, but spent ten years wandering in seclusion, struggling to fend off an engulfing madness.
As soon as the thought arose, I repressed it.
Inside the cab, tassel-goat-fur stuffing from the pillow I had torn up floated about and clung to our sweat-laden faces and clothes.
Cleo and I sat on a stack of pillows, on top of which rested the torn one. Masses of fibers and fur mixed in with the dust in her hair. Our hands clasped tight under a mound of loose fur.
“Oh . . . the Sun,” she said, still catching her breath.
Dayodec, the earth-mother, whose womb is the world below, stole light from the Sun to make the Underworld visible. “Yeah, perhaps,” I replied. I’m ready to see the real Sunlight.
Meritus tossed a handful of the long, jewelry-like silver strands, which he had taken from the maze, onto the floor.
As he and Erikal prepared to fly, they both let loose deafening shouts. Cleo joined them and screamed with manic relief. Alana and I looked at each other, too stunned to join in.
Stark quiet quickly replaced the excited purgations.
The drivers deactivated the cab’s Sunfire lights. Only the cave’s moonlike glow entered the interior.
The Silver Dare carefully rose and sped towards the world between the earth and sky. The broken wing facets hung loosely from their struts, fluttering and clanging against other parts as we went.
I felt as though I held my breath all the way to the tight, rocky portion of the cave, where the wind howled. There, the broken facets fluttered violently.
The yellow of a Sunrise greeted us as we flew upon the Boromount Plateau. The colors and the contrasts, the shades and shadows, stood out in ways I had never noticed. The sea air entered through the vents, and I drank it in.
Our short descent felt like days.
“The world between the earth and sky,” Meritus said. We all felt its beauty, I was sure.
Any momentary bravery or awe that I had found in the bright Underworld had gone with the monster.
We slept or remained mostly silent while we hovered alongside the Camchaw. The damaged wings did a good enough job carrying us in the clear weather. Erikal drove, and Cleo and Meritus again took turns helping him.
When it was Cleo’s turn, I watched her and Erikal at the controls. They chatted quietly. She seemed less animated, less bright than usual. He had seduced her with his machine and enamored her with adventure. I sensed her regret. Maybe now she realized how thoughtlessly he had destroyed our dreams.
The pair floated us up the side of Ceridia while dusk approached. No one said a word.
Soon we would come upon the first artificial lights of Deoan homes. The pit in my stomach grew heavy as I watched the world pass by. Every mile brought me closer to the consequences of my actions, including my angry parents and the disappointed council.
And madness?
The twilight’s deep blue disappeared, giving me a slight reprieve—a sense that I could find temporary refuge in the night’s darkness.
Meritus left Alana’s side to drive, and Cleo, exhausted, sat beside me. Erikal looked back at her. Was that longing? I gave him a sidelong glance and caressed Cleo’s hair. She sat motionless, seemingly stricken. Fear? Or trauma?
Erikal had the arrogance to risk our lives multiple times, and perhaps risk my sanity, to bring us to the grim truth of where we go when we die, all based on Alana’s delusional hunch about a message, a computer glitch. He had forced me to see a truth I wished I had not seen.
The first artificial light flickered between the trees. They reminded me that for the next two weeks, I would spend every waking moment perfecting The Sun and Moons, the content of which I now struggled to square with the world below. Thanks to Erikal, I realized my knowledge of lore amounted to little. For me the stories had become puzzles, or worse, delusions.
A sudden fury rose in me. Indeed, Cleo surely felt it too. Erikal’s arrogance and the trauma it caused would impact her, and me.
I turned to her and whispered into her ear. “Can you believe Erikal did this?”
She smiled. “I know. It’s all so astounding.”
* * *
Meritus and Erikal stopped the Silver Dare over the garden of my home. Since my house was the furthest west, they dropped me off first.
“Giels,” Cleo said as I opened the cab’s door. “Is the message still there?”
Half-asleep, I smiled, pretending to be chipper so as not to give away my anger. I pulled the device from my pocket. Pressing the back button several times, I managed to have it play the first words. “Can you hear me?”
“It seems it is,” I said.
Cleo smiled, her enthusiasm clearly evident. “Then Salihandron’s work is not done, and neither is our story.”
I tiptoed my way into the house, relieved my parents had already gone to sleep. I sat on my bed. My right hand unfurled, revealing my recorder. Something on there, I wanted.
I toyed with the controls, hearing voice after voice, sometimes mine, but more often, my friends talked. It did not matter whom the device recorded; their words sounded crisp, as though a quieter version of them sat next to me. I had the volume low.
It took me an hour to find what I was searching for—a recording of my mother and me practicing The Sun and Moons.
Finding the beginning of our study session, I joined my recorded self in echoing my mother, reciting sentence after perfect sentence.
Other Voices
Far, very far, below the Maze of Azer, in an empty, desolate place, a young, immortal woman sat cross-legged. She listened to the thoughts of an ancient one who occupied a space much further below than she. The contents of the man’s mind flew to her faster than time.
“You cannot allow him to stay home. But understand that he will soon become important to his tribe, making your job more difficult.”
Coming soon—Episode 2, Illyia.
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