by Rich Hayden
To Amil, the most intimidating feature of his task was that he was going to have to suffer this burden alone. Now, it seemed that loneliness would have been a blessing. He wasn’t the only one lost and wandering about within the enigmatic confines of Aphelianna’s house. He was just another traveler. He gave a thought to the countless others that shared his plight, and began to accept the gravity of this foreign existence. This was a foreign world, one in which all were made equal by the fear of joining the ranks of the Wastes. Those with a bounty of memories and those without all floated through this land in the search for something that resembled life.
Amil trembled as he imagined all those that had fallen to the Wastes, and the countless others who would assuredly spend the rest of measurable time running from those cursed beasts. He wondered how many others felt the weight of keys around their necks, and felt the lingering twinge of hope as he contemplated the likelihood of The Eternal City. Could it really be a place among all this ruin where the dead could again find life?
As he carried on into the scorched wasteland, he hadn’t given much thought to The Pine that Cal had spoken about, but as it rose before him, Amil was humbled by its presence. Up from the spent soil grew a mighty forest. It stood in defiant opposition to the laws of nature, and, as it stretched from one side of his vision to the other, it left him with no choice but to accept its embrace.
He stepped inside, and left the unpleasant rays of the sun behind him. It didn’t take long before Amil came to notice that this forest was unlike any spotted upon the surface of the earth. The floor of his path was as hard as cold iron, and not a stretch of root or a gathering of leaves dirtied it any longer. In fact, the ground was as smooth as planed wood. Were it not for the dull covering of dirt, his reflection could probably have been viewed upon the forest floor. It puzzled him momentarily, the uniform flatness that spread out underneath his step, but the more he thought of it, the older the forest revealed itself to be. It had existed for so long, and was left undisturbed by any description of life for so great a time, that its surface had spread out and settled, the way glass appears to eventually drain from out of a windowpane.
The trees, massive pines that towered high into the air, did so upon petrified trunks. The bases, and even the thinnest of branches, were one in the same with the composition of stone. His fingers tapped against the brittle bark, and with the dull sound produced by his nails, the ancient rock hinted at its true age. As he gave a closer inspection to the needles, Amil realized that they, too, had lost their nature and yielded to the pressures of an unconquerable expiration. Each narrow, acerate leaf looked to have been molded from glass, and as they shimmered with the remnants of the sunlight above, they cast a green ambiance over the forest.
As Amil walked through the stillness of the frozen forest, he remembered the town that was rumored to exist somewhere among the cool emerald shimmer. He couldn’t grasp what they possibly could have fashioned a village out of, until he remembered the dilapidation of the town out on the road. Clearly it owed its dismantling to the cannibalistic necessities of relocation. What a truly miserable place this hidden village must be. He thought of all the different people that might be there, and all the nasty injuries that they brandished. It was a chilling thought. Were they all like Cal, mad and irrational? Or were they more like him? Amil stared through the paralyzed thicket, and, as the green light washed over his skin, he silently prayed to avoid the hamlet.
As the minutes passed, the glow of the needles began to darken, a sure sign that the sun above was about to retire for the day. As daylight began to flee the woods, Amil nearly choked on the anxiety brought about by the prospect of nightfall. But when it seemed that this elaborate arrangement of stone might carry on forever, he found himself on the other side of the forest, and faced with a new puzzlement.
With a line of petrified evergreens behind him, Amil stood upon the tan surface of an empty beach. Sand squished below his step and waves of frothy clear water rolled in from an ocean unknown. The air tasted of salt, and as an ambitious wave washed up over his feet, the touch of the water felt cool and familiar. He turned an eye to the forest at his back, and then returned his vision to the massive size of the aquatic entity. In that moment, he felt truly lost, but was not without a means to find his way.
Placed in the shallows, where the water often kissed the sand, was a door. Much like the one that brought him here, it connected to nothing, or at least nothing that his limited senses could detect. He stared at the dull coloring of the surreal object and slowly advanced toward it. His shoes carved their imprints in the sand, and, as his hand was placed on the knob, he closed his eyes and gave a fleeting thought to the simplistic beauty of life as it once was.
To his relief, the barrier was unlocked. Again, what was held behind the door was cloaked in blackness, but as he stepped forth, the dark soon revealed its secrets. As if spat back from a mouth ill-pleasured by his taste, Amil found himself still firmly planted with his feet in the sand and faced once more with the sinuous roll of the waves. He rubbed his face in consternation, as his eyes absorbed the most startling fact about this reprise. Where there was once only one door, now there were hundreds. They dotted the beach, spaced evenly apart, and postured straighter than the truest line.
The first handle that he jostled was locked, as were the second and the third. Amil ran down the beach, twisting every knob as he went by, but they all demanded the same offering: a cherished turn of his key. He continued over the sand for what felt miles, until he could no longer refuse the inevitable purpose of the tool which hung from his neck. As he turned the steely key, he could feel as it eroded within the sweaty grip of his fingers. All the implications of failure rang louder inside his mind.
An entire vat of misfortune and dire circumstance was upended on Amil, for as he crossed over another threshold, he found himself placed mere steps further down the beach. He stared into the crystalline forest as he leaned against the door at his back and allowed the lick of the waves to dampen his clothes. With nothing more than a discouraged sigh, the lost man chose another door, and slid his key into place. An encore of his previous action was played out, and, again, Amil was forced to choose another path along this maddening beach.
In his frantic attempt to flee the insidious riddle of the shore, a series of unlocked doors was found. However, this boon didn’t last for long, and he was forced to expend turn after turn of his deteriorating key. In the grip of panic, focus was abandoned, and logic was barred from his decision making. He burned a total of eleven finite chances to save Ali, but still, he remained upon that wretched beach.
Defeated by the weight of his hopelessness, he crashed to his knees in the sand. He mourned for the loss of his life and for the fragility of the common existence he once knew. As his salty tears added drops to the ocean around him, thoughts of which door to next choose filtered out of his mind. He no longer cared. He already had tired of fighting the undefeatable. Amil fell to his side in the cool embrace of the shallow water and permitted the sand to crawl over his skin.
As he lay partially enveloped by the grains, Amil took in a sideways observation of the woods with half-lidded eyes. Its image sunk into his vision no different than it had before, a monstrous amalgamation of rocky trees and jagged needles. But as he continued to gaze into the frontier that had become his prison, a curious vision was uncovered. Something had changed. Something that was not there previously had materialized. Recalling his stroll past the portraits that hung in The Hall of Worship, Amil thought back to the memory of a woman he had noticed, and how she looked off into the distance of a great forest. The definition of the figure before him was raw, the way an apparition appears inside the eyes of the insane, but, undeniably, she was there all the same.
With caution woven into his every fiber, Amil rose slowly from the swampy embrace of his gritty bed, and walked as quietly as possible over toward the woman. She stood with her back to him, and her blonde hair spilled out across her back
in heavy spirals. She was dressed quite plainly, and the gaze that she fixed upon the forest told of a solemn mood, of a longing for a loved one to return.
“Hello?” whispered Amil, as he neared within a few feet of her.
“I wait, every day, for his return,” she responded, without a turn to Amil’s direction.
“Can you please help me?” he asked.
“He set off to win the affections of a girl. Through the orchard and to the fountain is where he strayed, but he never came home. And now she is a beast. Oh, Goddess Aphelianna, what have you done with my son?”
“Goddess Aphelianna,” stammered Amil, as he overheard the woman’s lament.
“Do you know of her?” the strange woman questioned, as she turned to him.
“Yes, yes I do. Please, I need help, can you-”
“Have you seen my son?” the tired-looking woman tenderly asked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who-”
“He was always shy. He liked to hide in the orchard and tease the girls that he fancied. He was a mischievous boy, but very sweet. I do believe he truly loved her,” she explained.
Amil felt his stomach rot as he pieced together the cryptic ramblings of the mournful woman. He couldn’t know how it happened, nor did he care to uncover the truth, but as he thought of the torturous orchard, and as he recalled Aphelianna’s explanation of its master, Amil knew that he was in the presence of the Spirit Ripper’s mother. He was a young man, perhaps even a boy by some estimations. What could he possibly have done to warrant such a fate? The questions that swirled inside taunted Amil. They flooded him with the waters of unease over the pact that he had made with Goddess Aphelianna.
“I’m sorry, Miss, I didn’t see anyone,” Amil muttered.
“He should have come home by now. It’s getting dark,” she stated, with a fresh collection of water in her eyes.
“Miss, can you please help me?” he asked again.
“I wait, every day, for his return,” was the only reply he received.
He grew silent, and resigned himself to the notion that he would be unable to draw any assistance from the woman who barely acknowledged his presence beside her. As he stepped back, Amil came to view the living subject of the painting that hung in the gallery. It was an eerie resemblance, as though nothing had changed from that day to this. It was then that he took in the totality of the scene before him. This poor woman, who had lost her son eons before, returns to the sight of his disappearance each day in the hope that hers may be the first face he sees when he emerges from the forest. It was a minute cycle of unimaginable pain that repeated each day, and as Amil looked to the stoic figure, he realized that she had waited for so long that the world around her had turned to stone.
As he left her side, Amil wondered if his journey could last as long as hers. What had she done to deserve such a punishment? He approached another door and gave not a thought to what might lay on the other side. Like a cruel taunt orchestrated from powers unseen, this door was unlocked. Amil shook his head in aggravation. Before he gave the knob a full turn, he looked back to the young mother as she mumbled incoherently about the whereabouts of her baby. As he worked the knob and cracked the door open, hope vexed his thoughts. It was a poisoned hope that for the sake of the woman, she would never find her son.
Part 3. The Wishing Well
Finally, he found himself held within something that resembled a proper room. Even the door that had permitted him entry was commonly framed. Just the ordinary placement of a ceiling and walls seemed a small miracle, and their presence offered mild hope. A floor of smooth stone the color of a summer’s sunset flowed out under his feet. The white mortar that fused the rocks together swam in irregular lines, and as Amil stepped over the veins, he felt that a transitory sensation of life was held within the space. He trod slowly, with this inexplicable feeling as his only companion, as his eyes scanned back and forth over the curious shape of the room.
As it took the shape of a hexagon, six walls held six doors. After a substantial reach into the air, the walls all bent inward and continued their ascent until a common point was met at the center of the ceiling. The appearance of the overhead lining was nothing more impressive than pale sweeps of plaster, but at the center was the room’s lone window. It was oval and clear, with iron bars crisscrossing the glass, and in between their weave, light cascaded into the area.
Directly below the stream of light was a well. The rounded body was short but robust, and it was constructed out of dull bricks that had lost their shade to the passing of the ages. A wooden framework topped by a pitched roof rose mere feet above the hole and supported an axle and crank. Each corner of the rotted little topper held a bucket, which was tethered in place by a short length of frayed rope.
As Amil walked closer to the well, he observed the walls around him and the odd decorations that they held. Although the walls were dull, built from the same stones that comprised the well, elaborate images had been painted onto the brick. The depictions arrived in random arrangements, and the skill level of each piece varied wildly. Most of the representations were of people who appeared to be praying. Beside them were images of all sorts of things, children, money, and animals. It was almost as though the subjects in the pictures were attempting to recreate what they most desired.
Amil viewed the unskilled and crude illustration of a woman as she lay at the feet of a praying man. He glimpsed images of boats, plentiful fields, and what had to be the victim of a brutal murder. The painting spoke of vengeance desired, to set right the infliction of unspeakable wrongs. Or perhaps the illustrator was just a common madman, a lost soul wallowing in his own lunacy.
Amil ran his fingers along the stone as he passed. It felt cold, and the faded paints flaked off with the delicate stroke of his fingers. This place must have been a temple of sorts, Amil surmised as he gazed upon curious glyphs. They circled the upper portions of the walls, an incised border of enigmatic decoration. In his wonderment, he looked again to the well, and having advanced further into the room, Amil noticed an unsettling sight that his eyes had not been privy to before.
Behind the well, the body of a man was lain out upon a bench of splintered wood. Placed on his back, the man was dressed in a black suit that looked every bit as crisp as the day that it had been tailored. A plume of auburn hair was slicked back over his head and fixed into a long braid that crawled over the figure’s left shoulder. A thin beard balanced itself upon the sharp lines of his jaw, and two silver coins rested over the dead man’s eyes.
As Amil studied the figure, he soon came to realize that he had seen the man before. Just as with the mother of the Spirit Ripper, this inscrutable vision was also presented within the candlelit gallery. Although they were closed, they were a pair of eyes that Amil could not forget. Even with them sheltered below their lids and the weight of metal, he could feel their pierce. This was undeniably the fleshed-out figure of the man displayed in the portrait hall. In the oils, he squeezed a coin between two fingers, now he lay dead and blind under the press of silver. For as uneasy as finding another subject of the unknown artist made him feel, Amil couldn’t be pried away from the man’s side. The hands were folded across his chest, and between the nourished, tan flesh of his fingers, a note was held. The creased paper stared up at Amil and practically begged of him to read its cryptic message. With a tremble that nearly shook him out of his shoes, he plucked the note from its trap and carefully unfolded the clean white paper.
Lift these coins from off my eyes
Cast them into the well
And wish for my return
The command was quite plain, but the action itself proved hard to take. Amil looked into the well and saw as the rope that once twisted around the axle had rotted away. Whatever it once held had been cast down the hole into the nevermore. He tried to peer further down the chasm, but only blackness came to his vision. He returned his attention to the coins that rested upon the dead man’s face, and, with a fluttered sigh,
Amil scooped up the silver and threw them down the well.
He jumped back and turned away, too afraid to view what may happen next. As he stood in a corner like a frightened animal, nothing was moved to difference by the persuasions of change. He heard not a splash or clang, and the man from whom Amil had stolen remained cold and silent. He placed his palms flat against the wall and solemnly contemplated which door to step through next.
“They’re quite interesting, aren’t they?”
The smooth voice that offered the question carried with it a distinguished accent that Amil was unable to place, however, the origin of the man’s speech was trivial. Just the presence of words was enough of a shock to twirl Amil around in fear, and, as he did, he stared into that ominous set of eyes. For there the mysterious man stood, looking rested and energetic as though he had just risen from an afternoon nap.
“Who are you?” whispered Amil, almost too afraid to engage the slender figure.
“Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? Who are they? What is that? What is this? And so on and so forth,” he spat, in rapid succession. “All questions that really aren’t as important as you might think.”
“Can you help me?” asked Amil.
“Well that depends, I know not what you ask. However, I do suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude. Do you know, you’re not the first to pass through here and toss those coins down the well? But you are the first who has managed to revive me. For that, you have my thanks.”
“How did it happen? I didn’t do anything.”
“It is very plain, you wished me back to life,” he stated with vigor.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t wish for anything,” said Amil.
“Ah, but you did. I heard your prayer, and it cried out from the most tortured depths of your being. It was a terrible thing to hear, I must say.”
