by D. H. Dunn
She had not known what she hoped to do with the hat. Tanira had used it to control, but Nima did not want that. She could see how it would work, but the pressures of the Helm were already setting in. It felt like heavy rocks on all sides of her head, pushing lightly. Kater’s creation might be a way to control, but as she saw her own thoughts and worries reflected on the side of the mountain, she could sense another way she might use it.
The other Dragons were not here, but she still sensed Drew and the Thread. They might be frozen in body, but they were here all the same. She knew why the Thread was here, and she knew there was a chance he might listen. More than the others, he was like her. She wondered if the paths to his pain had been similar to her own.
I know you are here.
She sensed its recognition. The Thread heard her, understood her. She did not detect a response, so she continued.
I do not wish for any more killing, any more loss. I don’t think you do either. I want to understand you, so I will show you me. I will show you my pain.
The sides of the crystal shifted, a rainbow of hues and tints coming into the clear surfaces. They swirled and moved, focusing on the many cracked gems that formed the Khumbu glacier on the lower mountain. The colors formed into a scene, showing a little girl running through the night toward a small stone house.
This is my pain. This is what is behind me.
The girl scales the wall in the back of the house, hoping to sneak into her bed without being seen. Her mother is waiting for her, arms crossed. She points at the girl’s ripped clothes, the result of the tree she had climbed. The muddied shoes, still bearing dirt from the river. The skinned elbows from the rock face down by the old forest.
The girl looks up at her mother’s eyes and knows she does not understand her need to explore, her drive to see what was over the next hill. It did not matter that the girl had done her chores, she always did them. She could mend her clothes herself, she could clean her shoes and bandage her arm.
What she could never do was erase that look in her Ama’s eyes. The look of a woman who wanted something else in life than what she got, and never seemed to see the child in front of her.
To Ama I was not a daughter, but a problem.
Maybe there might have come a time when Ama might have been able to understand her, or she might have come to understand her mother. But life did not include that in its plan, and Ama had died leaving Nima with questions, but no answers. Pain that had no salve.
This is where I began, this pain is where my path starts.
“Show me” she beckoned the Thread. “Show me where you began. Let me see.”
She sensed the Thread’s resistance even as she allowed the images that had covered the Khumbu to dissolve and fade. It was listening, and that was a start. The mountain rippled before her, Nima registering Drew’s influence on the images in the crystal.
An scene formed on the western side of Everest, greens and grays covering the South Col. Nima watched as she saw a young Drew appear, an older man next to him. They stood in front of twin stone markers in a green field, rain pouring down upon them.
Both wore dark, drenched suits and severe expressions.
The image grew closer, more distinct and Nima could read the names on the stones. Margaret Adley. Arthur Adley.
The older man was Drew’s father. His hands were clenched, water dripping off his shaking fists. He looked at Drew once, looking with eyes that could have been Ama’s.
“You took them from me,” the man said in a voice of ashes and anger. He then turned and began to walk away.
“Dad,” Drew pleaded to the man in the suit, now only a shadow moving into the rain. “Dad, I’m your son too. I lost them too.”
Nima could just make out the shaking of the man’s head as he walked away, Nima knowing the truth of Drew’s heart. Drew’s father did not see him as his child, as someone who had lost the same loved ones. As someone who needed his love, his support.
He saw not a son, but a villain.
The image faded from the mountain, its sides returning as it became an Everest of clear crystal again. A paper upon which their pain and anger could be drawn and shared, if only the Thread would do so.
“Show me,” she repeated to the Dragon. “Please.”
There was no wind in this world, no stars or sky. There was nothing but the mountain of crystal and the colorless abyss around it. Nothing to show Nima the passage of time. She could still sense the Thread’s presence though, so she pressed on.
“Then I will show you more,” she said. “There is more to who I am than what happened to me. My pain, my hurt and anger began there for me. With Ama. They are inside me still. But I chose not to water that seed.”
Again the crystalline slopes of Everest brought to life her memories. She showed the Thread Valaen, let him see them run laughing through the forests of Sirapothi. Showed him how Val had brought back the Scrye, risking his life to save his people. The same people who had rejected him, branded him a traitor.
She showed him the moment where she and Val had kissed, had planned to perhaps explore a life together. A future that was cut by Tanira’s knives, Val’s blood and Nima’s tears mixing on the snows of Varesta.
She ended with the simple image of Val that she carried in her heart, a man who smiled at her. A man who loved her. A man who was not a traitor, but a hero. He loved her for her joy.
“I am happy, not because I ignore what happened to me. I can’t do that. I am happy because what happened to me is not all of who I am. I have to be more.”
The images on the mountain blurred, taking the form of the Under. They showed Drew climbing down into the chasms inside the mountain, saving Kater when he nearly fell. Freeing Upala, and helping her and Merin reach their home. As Drew journeyed through Aroha Darad to Sirapothi and back, even as he struggled with changes, his expression began to lighten.
Nima and the Thread saw a man changing. Accepting. Growing.
Not a statue, but clay. Perhaps defined by the past, but not confined inside it. Altered. Willing to listen, willing to change.
The mountain cleared again, now an empty cathedral of crystal. There were no more images for Nima or Drew to show, nothing left to do.
The pressure of the Helm increased on Nima, the pain in her head growing. She ignored, and again reached out to the Thread. Not commanding, but asking.
“Show me. Show me as we have shown you.”
The whole of the mountain began to shimmer, as if it were snowing on the inside of the structure. The flakes shifted to become many colors, and those colors coalesced into forms.
The Thread showed them a group of Dragons, fourteen in all. Gathered on a world that had been built, just as they had been. Placed on an artificial construction of Sessgrenimath, a place for experiments and study. Their creator would bring other creatures to their world for them to test themselves against, and always the Dragons would prevail.
But for one Dragon, this was not enough.
The Thread had a gift which allowed him to link with the other Dragon’s minds, and this built in him a desire for more. He wanted to bring new Dragons into the world, to build a society of their own where they could decide their own challenges and fates.
But the Dragons had been made sterile and barren, for their creator did not want more of them.
The Thread began to work on this in secret. When he discovered he could not complete his work on his own, he augmented the local Rakhum to assist him. Giving them some of the powers of his own race, he created the Manad Vhan.
This angered Sessgrenimath, and he closed the portals to his created world, trapping the Dragons within it. Chastising them for wanting more than they deserved, he abandoned them inside the prison world of Aroha Darad, reminding them not to forget what they were.
“Not beings, but tools.”
The image blurred and shifted. Nima could see a great city, with many Manad Vhan living amongst the Dragons. Yet the city was for the Dragons, th
e Manad Vhan lived in the desert in simple dwellings. Even as the image showed the Thread laboring on a great machine in caves, the rest of the Dragons were shown pushing the Manad Vhan as slaves, for their work or amusement. The Thread even showed himself using the Manad Vhan in his construction efforts, pushing them mercilessly.
“Treating them not as beings, but tools. Just as I had been taught.”
The regret in the Thread’s voice was clear as the visions faded, but there was surprise there as well.
The increasing pain and pressure on Nima’s head made it difficult to focus on the Dragon’s words. Red light began to show at the edges of her vision.
“But what am I to learn from this?” the Thread continued. “That my existence has been even more wasted than I imagined? I see that the Manad Vhan and Rakhum are merely trapped in the same cycle we have been. We visit upon our creations that which was done to us.”
“I don’t know,” Nima admitted. “I think I wanted you to see that you could break that cycle. Look at the Manad Vhan and Rakhum as beings, like yourself. Seeing what you have in common with them.”
“And Sessgrenimath? My true enemy? I watched you fail to kill yours. The one who took this Valaen from you. Is that the path you recommend? Forgiveness?”
“No,” Nima said. “Maybe just acceptance. It happened. What do you want your life, the life of your kind to be about now? The past and what was done to you? Do you want Sessgrenimath to decide your future too?”
Everest’s crystals had begun to take on a crimson glow as the pain increased. Nima felt like tiny crevasses were forming within her, thin tendrils that burrowed and twisted. It was as if her insides were becoming more brittle, like ice in the morning sun.
Kater’s device was too much for her, her mind and body could not withstand its staggering power for much longer.
Yet she could not back down now.
Finally, the Thread responded.
“I cannot say that I understand, but I can say that I no longer wish this angry path. As you say, I wish to define my future for myself.”
Relief ran through her, the urge to rip the crushing device from her head was nearly overwhelming. Yet there was still one more thing to do.
She thought back to her time in Sirapothi, in the Hero’s Temple. She conjured up as many memories of the Machine she had seen as she could recall, forcing their images onto the sides of the crystal Everest for the Thread to see. She left the final vision of the hatched egg, before allowing it to blur away.
“I don’t know if that helps you. I think that is your Machine.”
Even summoning the words into her mind were challenging. The world was becoming crimson, she could hear a shattering sound that might have been inside her. Everest in front of her eyes fractured further, splitting in two as fire streamed out of its sides.
Nima heard a scream, but was unsure if it was from her. The crushing force of pain buried her with its weight, the world turned black.
Chapter 32
“Little sister?”
Nima was kneeling. She could feel the cold air on her face, the metal of the helm in her hands. She opened her eyes, the simple helmet staring back at her from her lap. She looked up to Drew’s worried face and Lhamu rushing over to her.
“I’m. . . I’m ok,” she said to Drew, taking his hand as he pulled her up. She had the biggest headache she had ever felt in her life, a throbbing, pulsing pain that seemed to jab at her from behind her eyes, but she was alive. White clouds mixed with the smoke in the dark sky above her.
The long, azure form of the Thread stood a few feet away.
It nodded at her, its deep golden eyes looking into hers.
“I have much to consider,” he said. “My kin and I have much to discuss. My anger before. . .” he looked around at the bodies of Rakhum, Kater, and the pieces of Terminus’s mutilated corpse littering the square before the bridge. “My anger was misdirected. Nothing would be gained from further conflict, but much will be lost. Yet what is the path forward? Where now can we go?”
Nima began to walk forward towards the great Dragon. Her feet felt like they were walking in mud, but her heart was light. It was over, at least for now.
Succumbing to her impulses, she threw her arms around the wide base of the Thread’s neck, squeezing it as she lay her cheek against his warm scales. For all that the Thread seemed to be different, he worried about the same things she did.
In front of her she saw an enormous beast that had inside it the same problems she had carried all her life. Asking itself the same question.
What now?
“You don’t let Sessgrenimath beat you,” she said, stepping back and prodding the purple scales of the Dragon’s chest with her finger. It felt sandy, like the beaches of Caenola. “Don’t waste your time fighting him, fight instead what he has done to you. Fix it. Find a way through the portals, find a way to the machine. Or build a new one here.”
The Speaker stepped forward, Nima noticing he walked with a severe limp on his left side. His white fur was streaked with blood, and she could see several of the crystals in his back had stopped glowing.
Yet a smile seemed to glint in the Yeti’s eyes, a spark she had never seen from him before.
“My people know much that may have been kept from you, Dragon,” he said. “We may be able to assist you with the portals. It would seem to be part of our new rocha.” He reached down, putting a massive hand on Lhamu’s shoulder. “A rocha that has been taught to us by the Foretold.”
“I have seen this machine as well,” Merin said. “There are many among the Rakhum who learned the ways of gears and metal from Kater. We may not be as skilled as the Manad Vhan, but perhaps. . .”
“Perhaps working together,” the Thread said. “We might accomplish more than apart. It is . . . profound. We must discuss this, my kin and I. There are other matters of concern. Now is a time for consideration of new paths, new directions. Not an ending, but an understanding.”
Upala stepped forward, Nima watching how the crowd of Rakhum looked at her differently than before. She saw less anger in their eyes, tired though they were.
“In that spirit,” she said, addressing the Thread. “I would like to pledge my assistance to you. I have – spent all of my life in fear of your kind. Too much harm has been done in the name of fear. I would like to help you, and myself, find a new path.”
The Thread’s long neck lowered, bringing his snout within a few hair’s breadth of Upala’s face. Nima saw her shudder, but she stood as the beast looked her over. He then raised his head a bit higher, something that might have been a smile upon his snout.
“I would … confer with you, Manad Vhan.” His voice was deep, and sounded older to Nima. More tired. “On this and other subjects. Yet I would do so alone. I will meet with you, outside the city at moonrise this evening.”
Upala nodded, Drew coming over to put his arm around her shoulder. The Thread turned to Nima, twisting his long, purple neck again.
“I thank you for your gifts, small one. Both the knowledge of your past and pain as well as the machine. If you look in your mind, you will see I have left a gift for you there. I hope it may bring you some relief.”
The Thread turned and spread his wings across the courtyard. The other two Dragons on the bridge launched themselves into the night sky, but the Thread lingered for a moment, staring down at the corpse of Terminus. He then lifted, slow and majestic, into the dark, his long lavender form coiling into the clouds.
“His gift to you?” Drew asked. “What gift? What did he mean?”
Nima searched her thoughts, and suddenly it was there. She could see the mountain nearby in her mind’s eye, knew exactly its location. There was a small Vault there, now empty, but it had once held the Weight. Inside was a portal, the images in the swirling mist belonging to a place she had begun to think she could never see again.
A world that contained her brother, her father, and many assigned tasks still undone. She found her heart f
ractured at the sight, just as the great crystal Everest had been in her mind.
“He means,” Nima said, watching the Thread soar into the moonlit clouds, “If we want to, we can go home.”
Chapter 33
Upala watched stars gather around the mountain peaks, the fires and smoke in the air adding a reddish tint to low lying clouds that coursed through the night sky.
Around her, the fields were full of the smoldering remains of the battle, with shattered carts and farming gear strewn across the blasted grasses like twigs after a storm.
She had fought the Voice not far from here. She could see the tunnel in which she had run from the beast, the constant ringing in her ears a reminder of the Dragon’s final moments before Drew’s avalanche had buried them both.
He had wanted to come, both he and Nima had. Yet they respected the desires of the Thread to speak with her alone, though she did not understand why the creature had made such a request.
There was a soft sound behind her, a rustling that sounded to her damaged ears like sheets being rubbed together. She turned to see a Rakhum woman standing a few paces behind her, a small girl holding her hand.
Both wore the tattered, brown clothes of farmers, and each sported cuts and bruises that peeked through the rips in their cloaks.
“She’s the one, momma.” The little girl pointed up at Upala, a smile forming on her dirt-covered face, dark hair falling into her bright eyes. “The one I saw. She fought the Dragon for us!”
Her high-pitched voice mixed with the ringing in her ears, but her the girl’s grin was a loud as thunder. She moved to run towards Upala, but her mother pulled her arm back.
“Aye,” the older woman stared at Upala as she held the child’s hand. “That she did. She is also why they were here in the first place.”
