by Brindi Quinn
At the sight of the altar, I also become incensed. The thought of again seeing Awyer drives me to excitement. At his back, I push and prod until he, too, steps onto the altar and regains his form. With an invisible giggle, I circle him to ensure that nothing has been lost during the trek. Finding no defects, I throw my arms around his neck. He responds by slipping his hands around my waist and pulling my body to his.
I delight. But though I delight, my elation immediately falls into a deeper sensation – one which makes me wish for stillness and darkness and Awyer. In the core of my stomach, the sensation is most prominent.
“Ahem.” Techton clears his throat in our direction, grin wily.
I do not tarry to remove myself from temptation.
To the gloer, Techton issues, “We can take a break here before going on?”
The gloer bows his horns.
While Techton and Mael and Pedj spread out upon the black disc, I flit to the edge and stare into the drab. Surrounded by a world we cannot see. Upon an altar whose purpose is unknown. Are there other gloers out there watching us, invisible to our limited view? Just as the naefaeries observe, do the gloers even now watch me as I stare straight through them? Do they get lonely as I get lonely to have a gaze travel blankly through everything that we are?
At least the most important person’s gaze can find me with ease. The most important person . . . My most important person. More important than ought rightfully be.
A secret given to the witches.
For him, I . . .
“Grim.” Awyer’s voice is in my ear. “Come.”
If it is my will to protest, I cannot. From behind, I have been pushed, thrust into the white jungle.
Thud.
Awyer lands upon the white ground behind me. His form quickly turns to white. And then it is lost. He slips to a side of me not backed by black altar. He camouflages into the Gloerlands.
“My ward?!”
I do not receive answer.
“I mean, Awyer?”
At his name’s calling, Awyer’s hands find me. I am brought to a figure I cannot see. I feel his warmth, his hands and his chest. I cannot see him, but I can feel him. His mouth is very near to my ear. His breath is very warm on my neck.
“When this is done, you will stay with me,” he says, “even after your debt is repaid.” It is not a question.
“O-of course,” I whimper. “I will stay with you until the last of your days.”
“You and me,” says Awyer. “Together. No one else.”
“I will remain with you if choose to reside alone or with many,” I say.
“Grim.” Awyer’s tone turns dark. “That is not what I mean.”
“What, then, do you mean?”
To my query, I am answered. But I am not answered with words. I am answered in another way. Awyer’s unseen mouth lands upon mine. Warm and soft and strong, it is not the mouth of a boy; it is the mouth of a man fueled by the intent of a man.
With my being, I wish to kiss him deeper. Lip upon lip – it is a thing I have not before experienced, and I am not wanting of its end. Around us the silent whiteness spins. It spins and spins and then it comes crashing, for I have come crashing.
To my knees I crumple, slipping out of Awyer’s passionate embrace. To the ground I go, where I land in hover. Those wet drops that should not be show themselves from my eyes. Something has happened to me. I have transformed from what I should be. These days, I am less of a naefaerie . . . and more of a girl.
Awyer, too, drops to the ground. I cannot see him, but I feel him. His hands upon my cheeks. “Grim,” he says, concerned, “what is it? You did not want me to–”
“No! I did want it,” I admit through shaking tears. “I have long wanted it.”
“Then . . .”
“It is nothing,” I say. A lie. A LIE. A LIE! Streaming through my teeth.
Awyer’s manner changes into ferocity. “You torture, Grim. You play with me! If you do not tell me, I will think a number of things!”
“I do not mean to! It is not my intention that you should suffer!” I put my mouth into my hands because I fear what my young heart may drive me to confess.
It comes.
“You will die, Awyer.” My voice breaks, weak. “Soon, you will die.”
Awyer’s hands fall from my face. “What?”
“A naefaerie is reborn at the very age their ward will die. When you were a boy – when we first met – I was old, was I not? I was different. I was a different Grim. That was the end of my pact with your mother’s brother. I looked that way because that was the age he was destined to die. When you accepted me, I was reborn this age, the age you are destined to die.”
There is silence. White silence.
When Awyer again speaks, his voice is flat. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Because . . . I am also fond of you,” I say, ashamed, for it a most shameful thing for a warden to confess to her ward. “I am very fond of you. In a way I should not be. In a way I have never been. And I do not wish for your death.”
My head is hung.
Awyer lifts it by the chin.
“That witch,” he says. “You were once hers.”
“Hamira? She cheated her death using forbidden means. Our pact was all but severed at her rightful time of death.”
“I will cheat mine,” says Awyer.
I shake my head. “You do not know what you say. To cheat your death would be to corrupt destiny.”
“I will cheat it.”
I cannot see his eyes, for they are whitely blended in with the rest, but I feel their searing contact with mine.
“Are you . . . are you angry with me?” I ask with trepidation.
As he has answered before, he answers again, “I would be if I had the energy.”
Since my mouth seems not to know restraint in this moment –
“There is something else,” I tell him. “At times, when I touch you, I am shown small insights into your future. We make it there, to the Golden Lands, and you deliver the Amethyst to your ancestors. But when they attempt to reward you, you turn their gift away. You give it to another. I do not know for certain, but that choice may very well be your demise. I can see nothing beyond that moment.”
“I will accept the gift.”
“At times, I wish you would.” My words come unstably. “Then again, you are destined to die, and to defy what has been foreordained is a heavy sin, Awyer. There is no easy solution.”
A second time, Awyer’s hands find my cheeks. “Do not worry, Grim. I will decide what to do.” I feel his warmth draw near. I anticipate that his mouth is moving to mine.
“You should know, Awyer, that this is wrong,” I whisper. “I am not fully real.”
“You are to me.”
I misjudge. His lips land instead upon my nose.
Once composure is gained, we find our way back to the others.
“Tut, tut,” says Mael, who has not been fond of our relationship from the beginning. Techton and Pedj, in contrast, give Awyer a pat on the back each. Foolish men.
The mortals eat and rest away from our gloer guide. The antlered man appears quite content to be by himself. He sits with legs folded at the center of the altar, looking toward the white heavens. Praying? Mediating? Offering homage?
I gain interest in his horns. Techton claimed clarity when he touched them. Will the same happen for me? It is not as though he will know if I take a look. Without telling Awyer, I drift to where the gloer prays. I inspect his antlers, which are sharp in most places, dull in a few.
And then I do a thing that changes everything.
I enchant the gloer’s horn to accept me. I will that my touch would reach it. And when I make contact, the unexpected occurs. The future flashes at the front of my mind, hazed like a dream yet certain as death:
An army of Pates and Azurians and their hostages taken from Fetra’s Nerve lie upon the black disc altar, defeated.
One of their corpses looks up to
me, eyes hollow and haunted, and recounts the tragedy that has befallen his people:
Their leaders have split forces. Maestro Feligo is upon the Bloődite Capital with an army of thousands, while this much smaller collective, lead by Count Bexwin of Eldrade, is charged with searching for Amethyst deposits hidden deep within the Reck.
But something has gone awry. Upon stepping onto the altar, everyone has been sucked dry of enchants. Bloődite hostage and Azurian warrior alike, their magicks have been extracted and poured into the mouth of a man called Ark.
They did not know, the corpse tells me, that they were marching to their slaughter. They did not know why they were made to exert their enchants along the way. They did not know that by staining the trees blue, their veins were being loosened in preparation for extraction.
The altar, the corpse says, is also capable of transferring soul energy into void energy. With the souls of Pate and hostage and soldier, Ark’s whips have been fed. The hellbeast has been fed.
Of their envoy, only one survives. I see him as he staggers away into the white jungle, gravely injured, with plum cloak trailing along the ground.
From his mouth, a sting of words is audible:
“Warn the stripling.”
With a harrowing gasp, I am pulled from it – from this forememory that is not my own. The noise erupted from my throat is cause for alarm for my resting sphinx. He dashes to where I float, clung to the gloer’s horn. The gloer takes no notice of me as he continues to pray to the sky above.
A ramble begins:
“The gray man attacks them – ARK attacks them! They get here, but . . . only Count Bexwin survives, and for some reason he seeks to warn you about the coming danger!” A thought dawns on me.
“You shouldn’t have done that, stripling. . . . If you know what’s good for you, you’ll retract it now.”
“A nasty lie. . . . I purely offer council to the troubled denizens that wish to repent their misdeeds.”
“The Bloődites are hoarding Amethyst . . .” A sneaking claim he makes knowing it is a lie.
“Why Count Bexwin chose to passive-aggressively pursue you through the Maestro Feligo . . .”
“Warn the stripling.”
“I feel . . . we may have misjudged that Count! I feel he is aiding you! Perchance, he has been aiding you since Eldrade!” The more I think on it, the more it is logical. “He warned you not to take the Amethyst! He sought the Azurian army on the Bloődites to distract them from you. I believe that Bexwin has your interest in mind, Awyer!”
“Grim.” Awyer draws me from the gloer. “Calm.”
“We must go, my sphinx! The army will make it here. Ark will slaughter them to gain their magicks, and then he will come for you.”
Awyer is not so readily accepting of my theory. “Why did he not take me at the Rise?”
“Maybe he did not have the power he needs. But he will. After sacrificing all of those people, he surely will.”
“All right,” says Awyer, taking my hand. “Let us go.”
Chapter XVIII: Tails
At the end of the white stretch, it is as though days have passed – and also as though not a moment has passed. To be timeless . . . Is that the way of the gloers?
On the edge of a flat green plain, our guide bows his head to us a final time. With his permission, Awyer crosses from white into green, and his hands sear gold. So, too, do the gloer’s. The deed is done. The terms of the deal have been met, and the brass box is rightfully property of the antlered man.
In silence, we part ways with him.
Again on our own, we turn to the one who may show the way. The shadow upon Mael’s wrist pulls her southwest. And southwest we shall go.
Such an abrupt change of scenery is sure to cause at least a little discombobulation. Passing through the whiteness has thrown us into a wholly different region. Pale green meadow tosses itself in the wind, and there is not a jungle vine nor waxy tree in sight.
“Ah!” says Pedj pleasantly. “This is what’s more like it! Ain’t it like when we took that trip to Láeer, Mael? ‘Member? Granddar caught his foot in the burrow?”
To the zombie’s disdain, Mael does not appear to remember. It is with an air of absence that she looks over the tranquil field and clucks to her shade bird.
“Never mind, then,” says Pedj. “You’re smack outta it as usual.” Seeking understanding, he rolls his eyes at my sphinx as if to say: what can you do?
Feeling friend-like, Awyer makes attempt for a comic relief. He holds forth his fist. “I recall it, Pedj. Granddar was a spectacle.”
“Tch.” Shaking his head and grinning like a cat, Pedj bumps Awyer’s fist twice. The mission is accomplished. Their friendship deepens. For the first time, it feels strange for me to note on such.
“Tech, you said we’d rest once we got on through,” Mael accuses.
“So I did,” says Techton. He taps his hair-patched chin. “Can’t have Lady getting mad at me. It isn’t only up to me, though. What do you all think?”
The mortals agree that a rest is in order. More than four hours of sleep will serve to lift spirits. But it is on my recommendation that they do not rest so close to the Gloerlands. Flying above to take survey of the jungle through which we just crossed, leads to an unsettling revelation. From this side, the expanse of the tree cover over the Reck, as far into the distance as I can see, is white. An illusion? There is no way to tell how far the Gloerlands actually go. There is no way to track the moving cloud of Azure. And there is no way of telling what might come butting out of the white jungle.
A half a day’s travel should be enough separation to make me ease.
With begrudging legs, the weary trek.
The sun is unblocked and warm, and casts my shadow along with the rest into the long swaying grass. I enchant a portion of the blades to receive me, and they are soft, ticklish, and feathery, topped with clusters of seed.
I delight in this locale. A pleasantness accompanies the light, accompanies the sky, accompanies the day.
For the first hours, there is nothing but grass and sun and warm wind. It is in the later part of the day that we first encounter a change. Breaking the flat, swishing horizon, we encounter a large structure of stone.
“What do you suppose that is?” Techton points to the erection in the distance.
Upon the grass a giant stone cylinder rests on its side, the interior of which has been smoothly hollowed. Likewise, the outside has been polished smooth. It is as though a portion of a tunnel has been cut, uprooted, and set within the field.
“A barrel,” says Mael. “A big rock barrel.”
Hence, that is what we call them from here on out, for as we press onward, there are more. Dozens more of varying size dot the landscape. All are large enough to allow comfortable passage through. Some are even as tall as the Grand Grimoire Library.
“Hulloooooo!” Mael calls down one of the vast ones. Her voice bounces off the walls during its passage.
Techton joins in her game. “Whoooop! Whoooop!” he calls beside her, mouth cupped. His raspy voice does not allow for any great volume of cry. Even so –
“Your echoes are nice,” Mael says.
“Um, thanks, Lady . . . I think.”
A suitable camping place is found within one of the cozier barrels. It is optimal for beings in our situation. We will be shielded from rain and detection here. Although rain might be a welcome intruder. I suspect the mortals’ water stores are running low.
No matter. If it becomes an issue, Awyer may will the sky to cry. Not that he will agree to something so extreme unless the situation is dire.
A night of peaceful sleep is had by all that require it.
In the morning, Awyer asks, “Grim, did you pull my hair in the night?”
“Why would I wish to pull your hair?” I reply.
Awyer shrugs.
I fear that the long journey is taking its toll.
For the following several nights, we form a pattern. Throu
gh grassy day we travel, by night finding shelter within one of the stone barrels – the true function of which remains a mystery. I keep watch atop the structure, searching for signs of life or pursuit, but finding neither.
Not until one silent night in a place where the grass grows taller than the rest.
The first rainfall since entering the meadow proves for a sloppy day of travel followed by a heavier-than-usual slumber. It is in the midst of acting lookout for four exhausted mortals, who have finally had their fill of drink, that I notice something. The even horizon of grass is broken by a few taller, thicker, faster moving . . . pieces? No, they are most certainly not grass blades. I squint at the thick, wiggling things, unsure as to their identity. It is not common for grass to sprout appendages after rain.
Reaching no clarity, I resort to flying to one of them –
“Ah!”
– and am shocked to find that the wiggling grass is not grass at all. It is a tail. And not only is it a tail; it a tail connected to a woman.
A naked woman.
She does not see me, for I do not really exist, but her eyes are keenly set on the barrel in which my slumbering pactor rests. She is crouched, hidden in the meadow, betrayed by only her tail. Her hair is wild and red – vibrant, I imagine, when hit by the sun. I hurry away to another of the wiggling tails. A second naked woman crouches within the damp grass, eyes fixated on the stone barrel.
There is word to describe her expression.
Ravenous.
“AWYER!”
Faster, possibly, than I have ever flown, I barrel to where my sphinx lies at the far end of the . . . barrel. Over sleep-talking Mael and snoring Pedj. Over out-cold Techton. To where a strong-shouldered form lies.
“Awake!” I am over his body in a flash. “There are women in the meadow and they are naked and I fear they wish to . . . eat you?” It sounds ridiculous when I say it aloud.
