by D. H. Dunn
“You may tell Drew Adley,” his deep voice echoed from the shadows. “I consider my debt repaid. I will say hello to his friend for him when I see her.”
He chuckled, his voice growing fainter as he departed the cave. Upala collapsed forward, her strength leaving her as she finally allowed the energy shield to dissipate. Merin’s strong arms caught her as she fell to kneeling position on the cold stone floor of the cavern, her chest heaving from the exertion.
“We must go,” Merin said, her strength urging her to her feet. She was right, despite all the carnage in the room, there could be more of the Yeti in the cave and she was too exhausted to protect Merin again.
Upala allowed herself to be led forward, away from the dais and the shattered asan rashi, away from what she had thought was a just punishment for her crimes, as well as Kater’s.
Walking sluggishly toward freedom, towards Drew and perhaps towards a new chance to make restitution. Sinar was still free, and had to be stopped. Drew still needed her help, and if they would accept it, Merin and her people did too.
All around her, the bones and ashes of the Yeti reminded her of the cost of her opportunity. As the light of the sun began to shine through the darkened cavern, Upala vowed she would not waste their sacrifices.
Upala shivered, pulling her cloak tightly against her in an effort to ward off the night cold. The stars shone above them, the overcast afternoon having given way to a clear sky and a moon to light their path back. Merin had said she left Drew in Trillip’s care by a clearing of trees not far from Nalam Wast, expressing confidence that Trillip would be able to keep them both out of sight while Drew recovered.
She worried for Drew, Merin’s brief description of his encounter with Sinar was not nearly detailed enough. Her worries forced her to march on despite her fatigue, she kept her eyes scanning the horizon for the oaks where she hoped he waited for her.
Invasive thoughts about Drew kept pushing their ways to the surface of her mind, yet there was another concern fighting for her attention, wrestling with her concentration.
It was not Sinar, though she had grave fears for what the unpredictable Manad Vhan might do next. Neither was it the Yeti, though the survivors of Sinar’s horrific attack upon them would likely seek their revenge.
Her thoughts were dominated both by the woman who walked beside her. This mortal Rakhum woman whom she had both known and never known, a now-widowed mother who had risked her life to save her. A sacrifice Upala was not even capable of making if she wanted to.
Merin walked without speaking, without looking, her eyes focused on the path in front of her, the winding trail away from the Yeti’s home running alongside the rail line of Kater’s digcarts. Several of the long cars sat idle on the line, abandoned since her brother’s departure.
The empty carts and rails meant nothing to Upala, even the Manad Vhan lore they once carried held little interest to her now.
The silence between them had become a mountain of its own, one she was falling from, the bottom nowhere in sight.
“Merin,” Upala said finally, unable to keep herself quiet any longer. “Why will you not speak to me?”
The tall woman’s back stiffened, Merin taking several steps forward in a deliberate fashion. Upala had nearly resigned herself that Merin would continue to ignore her when she finally spoke, her voice filled with edges and angles.
“I am silent, my lady, not because I have nothing to say but rather because I have too much. I cannot put it all into focus, I cannot sift the anger from the fear, the truth from the mistruth. I am silent because the violence of my confusion overwhelms me.”
This was it, Upala thought to herself. In essence, what she had been both waiting for and dreading. She felt the pit of her stomach tighten, the urge to change the subject overwhelming.
She silenced her fears. She needed to hear this. Even more, she knew she deserved to.
“Please, Merin. I would ask you to speak without filter. I-I struggle with this new outlook, as grateful as I am for it. I do not know how to proceed, where to begin.”
Merin’s sigh was as loud as thunder.
“I will ask you a plain question then, my lady.”
“Ask it, but I beg of you again to stop calling me that. I deserve no title and want one even less. I would ask that you simply call me Upala.”
Merin stopped, her brisk pace ending with a quick turn of her heel. She now faced Upala, looking slightly down with an expression that was impossible to read, eyes somehow conveying anger, hope, and guilt all at once.
“Upala, on our way to rescue you Sinar spoke to me of a world. A world he intends to travel to in order to find his path to Drew’s Earth. This place is one I know of, this Sirapothi. I know of it because of your obsession with lore related to it, and your Manad Vhan hero, Orami Feram.”
Upala felt a surge of excitement run briefly through her, like lightning crashing across the sky.
Sinar had found the path to Sirapothi?
For a moment, the revelation drowned out all other thoughts and worries in her mind. For centuries she had looked for a path to a world she had started to suspect was mythical, only now to hear that Sinar, this mad renegade explorer of her own race, had found one.
“Yes,” Upala said, hoping she kept her reaction subdued. “I am aware of it.”
“I see you are still enticed by the prospect of this world,” Merin said.
Upala felt heat rising to her cheeks, cursing herself that she had not been subtler with her reaction.
“Sinar spoke to me of an artifact in the Hero’s temple there. Something called the ‘jai pavana’. He said it had the power to . . .” The woman’s voice broke as it trailed off, Merin’s hands momentarily clutching each other. “The power to restore the dead. Is this true?”
The jai pavana! One of many treasures rumored to be in the final temple of Orami Feram. No more or less mythical than Sirapothi itself.
“I have read some lore on it,” Upala said, unease spreading through her like brushfire. She knew why Merin wanted to know. “It is reputed to do as you say, many writings even indicate it requires no corpse, only the true mourning of the departed. If these writings are to be believed, it is somewhere in Orami Feram’s temple on Sirapothi, along with his armor and weapons.”
Merin stopped walking, her shoulders clenched. Her voice came from ahead of Upala, but it felt as if Merin’s words were raining down upon her from above.
“You knew this, and you knew this partially because of the work of myself and my husband. My husband who died helping us reach you in the Under, so we could free you. Myself, who just walked into a cave of Yeti with a madman at my side to again recover you. Yet you did not speak of this jai pavana to me. No more than you warned Drew of this rasi sakta illness that I am now certain you knew of. You knew these things, but chose not to share them with the people who have sacrifice so much for you.”
Merin turned, pointing her finger in Upala’s face. The stars in the night sky behind the Rakhum woman became fiercer in Upala’s eyes along with Merin’s rage. A million stars, enough for each person she may have wronged.
“You asked me not to be silent, and I told you I had too many words to say. Now though I find myself focused on a single word, a single question for you to answer. Why? Why not help me?”
Merin’s “why” might as well have been spoken by all of her race, all the Rakhum in both cultures. Why had she allowed all of this to happen to them? Why had she stood apart, or even worse stood above?
“It is a question you are more than fair to ask. I-I fear whatever my reasons were, they would be insufficient to you, and that would also be fair. As you say, you and Drew, not to mention your husband, you have sacrificed much for me. Even before the attack by Kater and the translation to the Under, even before you came to be my attendant and your husband my scout. Before and before. There is so much, too much to atone for.”
Merin stood motionless as she listened, offering Upala no insight into her r
eaction.
She continued. “Yet, that is also insufficient. Though the words mean nothing, I am sorry I have kept information from you and Drew. Even if I did not know if the information was valid and true, I should have shared it. There is . . .” She faltered for a moment. “There is so much I need to do, and though I am wrong to ask it, I would ask your help again.” Upala took a step closer to Merin, surprised at the fear she felt as she did so.
“Guide me when you see me astray. The truth is, since my emerging from the asan rashi in the Under I have looked to you to be my model. On how to treat people with fairness and respect. You have shamed me when I needed it, and I would ask that you continue.”
“Upala.” Merin turned away to stare across the dark plains. “I cannot say I have no desire to shame you, yet now that I see your guilt and remorse, they do not satisfy me. My choices were my own, as well as Kad’s. You do not own them, nor do you have to atone for them.”
Upala searched Merin’s strong back for clues and found none. Merin’s words now felt less like rocks falling from above and more like a platform, something that in time she might be able to build upon.
“I sense a sincerity in what you are saying,” Merin continued. “It will take time. It may take more time than any Rakhum has, to overturn not just what you have been party to, but what we have been taught about you and your brother. You are attempting to change how my people will view the Manad Vhan. Many minds will not be open to that change.”
Merin turned back toward Upala.
“You should know I am open to it, Upala. Though my anger and sorrow are great, I do not wish for them to define me. I am open to your change, or I would not have tried to save you. In Sinar’s eyes and Garantika’s, I see a darkness that makes me worry for the future of both our peoples. If we are to survive, it will be through the actions of powerful but decent people, those like you are striving to become.”
Upala felt tears welling in her eyes. She could not recall the last time she had cried, nor the last time someone other than Drew had stirred such feeling in her.
“It will be through the actions of both of us, Merin. Do not underestimate your own power.”
Merin offered a slight smile before turning back to the road. It was a small gesture, yet for Upala it was as wide and magical as any portal.
Chapter 21
Nima held the crying baby in one arm, frantically paddling with an oar in her other. The ache of fatigue running through her body was as strong as any she’d ever known. In front of her, Val was working just as furiously.
The sea fought them for each tiny bit of distance they put between themselves and the island, a land mass that seemed bent on self-destruction after whatever Tanira had done to the Pillar. The skies had gone black, the waves now tossing their small wooden boat with increased strength.
In the past, Nima had felt a chill in her spine when a snowfield looked ready to avalanche, or an ice pillar seemed poised to collapse. That chill had kept her alive in the mountains of Nepal, when she could make the choice. Turn left, turn right. Turn back.
Here there was no choice, even as that same chill raged through her body, there was nowhere to escape to, no zone free of danger. Like the waves, the risk was all around them, swirling like a maelstrom.
The fear continued to rise inside her, defying her attempts to stay calm. These were mountains of water, changing and shifting each time she blinked. There was no clear path, no stable route.
The child continued to cry in her arm, wet tears running from her large eyes, dark pools which never seemed to stop looking at Nima. Asking for a miracle Nima had no power to give. The brilliance of the white crystal made the child hard to look at, sparkles dancing in front of her vision whenever she did so.
“You said she wouldn’t cry!” Nima yelled over the wind and pounding waves. She was rewarded for her speech with a mouthful of seawater. “You said she would sleep!”
“She shouldn’t cry!” Val yelled back. “I mean it shouldn’t! I don’t understand, the Scrye should be--”
His remaining words were lost as another wave crashed over the boat, Nima dropping her oar to hold onto their craft with one hand. She watched helplessly as the oar sailed away with the wave, more water staying in the bottom of the boat. She tightened her grip on the child, its cries continuing unabated.
A quick look behind her showed only the vague shape of the dying island through the driving spray and rain. It was impossible to tell if the island was sinking or if it had ceased its tremors. The sea and darkening sky dominated everything.
Tanira, what have you done?
When the wind died, the change was so sudden Nima kept squinting her eyes against a gale that had vanished in an eye blink. The rocking of the boat dropped from its nauseating pitch to a gentle sway, the waves just falling into the sea like someone had pulled their supports out.
The sky was still cloudy, lightning still flashed though it was no longer accompanied by sound. Peering into the distance ahead of them, Nima could see rainfall. Just a handful of meters away, it was pouring. She looked behind them, to see the same sight. All around them the tempest still raged, but now they were left untouched.
The child in her arms had ceased crying and looked at her with drooping eyelids, the crystal still beaming unabated. At the other end of the boat, Val stared out at the impossibility, transfixed.
The storm was separated from them somehow, still raging a stone’s throw away. They were safe, but the chill running down Nima’s spine continued all the same.
“Val?” Nima asked, surprised at how loud she was speaking. “What--do you know what happened? Is this normal in your world?”
“No,” Val said, the oar hanging uselessly in his hands. The boat now floated peacefully in a circle of completely calm water, with not even a ripple crossing its surface. His voice cracked with fatigue and confusion. “I do not understand this.”
“Is it her?” Nima asked, looking down at the child who had gone back to sleep in her arms, as if they had not been close to a watery death just seconds ago. Peaceful, just like the sea surrounding them. “Could she be doing it?”
“I don’t see how it could be her,” Val said. “Ah! Spines of coral, Nima. She--I mean it is the Scrye. It is not a he or a she. It is just . . . just . . .” He stared past her, over her shoulder.
Nima turned and saw what had frozen Val’s speech.
A round shape had formed on the glassy surface of the water, rising slowly. Composed of a material so thin and clear she could easily see through it as it rose all around them. It was about three meters across and quietly rose just as high. Nima could make out faint shimmers on its surface as it continued to grow, forming a sphere.
It was like a bubble from the creek by her farm, caused by the glacier water as it flowed quickly over rocks and stones. Except those bubbles popped when Nima had touched them as a girl, ending their journeys down the stream.
The rising walls met above them, the half-sphere completing as silently as the raging storm outside its boundaries. Nima’s stomach gave a lurch as the sensation of sinking began. She clenched the side of the boat with one hand and the Scrye with the other, too terrified to speak as the waters of the ocean began to climb higher, the bubble falling beneath the surface of the waves.
Nima was frozen in her seat as the ocean closed over the top of the sphere. Looking over the side of the canoe, she could see a small portion of the ocean’s water filled the bottom of the bubble, allowing the canoe to float pleasantly, even as the strange sphere continued to descend into the depths.
“Nima!” Val yelled. His words echoed loudly through the confined space. He dropped his voice as he continued. “Maybe this is the result of whatever your friend Tanira has done?”
“She is not my friend,” Nima said. In contrast to the impossible scene rushing by them outside the bubble, she could feel a small release of tension just by talking about something else.
She would have thought herself dreaming, but
the fear in her chest seemed too real. She felt like her body was collapsing in on itself, just as she feared the bubble protecting them might do at any moment.
“Tanira was going to that island to do something,” she said, the sound of her own voice steadying her. The words didn’t really matter. “She was there to steal something. She knew something terrible was going to happen, but she did it anyway.”
“She freed you,” Val said, slowly removing his hands from the sides of the boat. The bubble seemed to be staying fairly close to the ocean’s surface, but was moving forward at an ever-increasing rate. Nima could see fish zoom by in a blur as they passed. “If she had not, we would have perished on the island, surely. We escaped, and you rescued the Scrye. All due to her actions.”
“Maybe,” Nima said. It was just as likely most of this happened without Tanira caring one way or the other. The woman did free her, that much was true. Free her, seemingly destroy the Thartark’s island, then vanish.
The bubble slowed slightly as it angled deeper into the water, the darkness growing. Maybe they were caught in some current, something caused by the storm? Perhaps the tremors had opened some fissure on the ocean floor, and they were being sucked toward it.
Her hands perspired as she held the Scrye. This was impossible, it was a struggle to keep her mind focused and simply accept what was happening even if she could not understand it.
The dark waters of the ocean stayed outside the surface of the bubble, somehow. Questioning it would do nothing.
“Nima,” Val said, pointing ahead of him into the dark depths, his voice filled with horror. “What is that?”
Directly in their path were two bluish-white spheres of light. Though the distance to them was impossible to judge, to Nima they still seemed very far away. She nearly cried out when the spheres closed, then opened again.
Like eyes.
Monstrous eyes, eyes that seemed dozens of meters across.
