Ruin Mist Chronicles Bundle

by Robert Stanek

  Gripping his elbow, the she-beast began to lead him. Rastín did not resist, but he did move cautiously. The passageway opened into a vast courtyard surrounded on all sides by the serpentine towers. The she-beast led him deeper into the yard. Grass-covered hillocks dotted with trees gave the perception that he was in endless grassland—the kind of grassy land of which his father spoke; but as one born a slave in this land he had never seen.

  Carved into the hillocks were holes; and within the holes he saw movement, shadows deeper and darker than the rich, brown earth. Despite himself, he began to tremble. And as he did, the she-beast’s demeanor hardened, as did her viselike grip on his arm. She began to pull him around like a possession, a thing, a toy. Her toy.

  She abruptly pulled him into one of the holes. At once they came to an antechamber with crude furnishings of a sort he had never seen before. The interior of the hole was dimly lit by something similar to a torch, but it gave off neither heat nor smoke.

  Beyond the large, central round of the antechamber was a room with a dark hole in the middle surrounded by rough stones. The she-beast lifted him off the ground, moving him much like one of the dilapidated beams at the dig site, and put him in this hole.

  To his surprise, he found the hole was filled with water, waist deep and cool. The first time the she-beast dunked him under the water he thought she was trying to drown him, and his struggles brought her into the water with him. Once she was in the water with him, she began dunking and swishing him as if he were her life-sized doll.

  Beneath her tangled mass of hair, he saw her eyes glowing in the pale light. Locks of her hair, thick like a serpent’s body, were twisted and tied. As she moved, her hair moved, shifting as if a hundred tendrils of a many-headed snake. The dark land had such snakes, and he now thought that the she-beast was a snake person not unlike those his father talked about. These people were from a time in his father’s childhood when his father and his grandfather journeyed freely between the realms.

  The very idea of walking free carried Rastín’s thoughts away. He stopped resisting, allowing a bit of himself to slip away with each breath until it was as if he was no longer present—almost as if what was happening to him now was a dream from another’s life. The dreamer was cleansed, rinsed, and bedded by the she-beast. The living, thinking, breathing Rastín walked free with his father and grandfather across flat, open grassland he had never seen with his own eyes but knew well. It was the land of his people, his land by right of birth.

  Chapter 4

  Rastín woke to the movements of the she-beast. She covered him with mud, applying thick layers to his entire body. Not understanding what was happening or why, he resisted; but his strength was no match for hers.

  Finally, sullen and beaten into submission, he gave in. Later, he ate and drank what she offered. He followed her when the time came to go to the dark land. Caked in mud and clad only in a wrapped cloth, he looked more like a he-beast than one of his own kind.

  In one of the many wide corridors leading from the immortal city of the ageless, he joined the moving mass of beasts, quickly finding himself in the dark land on the other side of the gate. When he tried to rejoin his kind and moved to pick up tools for the dig, the she-beast tackled him and dragged him away to the ropes and carts. Soon afterward, a gargantuan he-beast was placing a harness around his neck. The harness, made of wood and leather, extended down his chest to his waist. It formed an exterior cage over his small frame and had hooks of several different types to which he could attach ropes and tools.

  Before he comprehended what was happening, the large he-beast attached ropes to the harness; Rastín found himself pulling one of the large, eight-wheeled cart trains piled high with ropes, pulleys, and excavation gear. Although he had worked for many cycles in the excavations and was as strong as any full-grown male of his kind, he faltered under the load and managed only a few steps. The she-beast was there in an instant, pushing the cart train as he pulled, and then pulling with a second harness as they climbed into the high lands.

  Although he had labored among them, the world of the beasts was entirely unknown to him. Early in the day, he was overcome with an inexplicable fear that the overlords hovering overhead would see him for who he was. This fear intensified whenever the she-beast was near him. It kept him focused on something other than the backbreaking work. It also alerted him whenever the enforcers with their whips walked near.

  As a laborer among his own kind, he had been watchful of the overlords but not of the enforcers. As long as he did his work, he need not fear the enforcers’ whips. He feared their whips now, though, and he wore that fear despite his best efforts to the contrary.

  To calm himself, he whispered a prayer to his mother. “Protect and keep me,” he implored.

  He learned quickly that any time he thought he was alone, he was not. The she-beast was always near even if he could not see her. From time to time she took dirt from the earth, mixed it with water from a leather bag at her waist, and then applied this mixture to any exposed area of his flesh. As the day wore on, he realized the thick cake of mud kept away the sting of the ropes and harness. It also was useful to close open wounds, and already he had four long gashes on his exposed torso: two from an enforcer’s whip for failing to keep pace, one from a cart slip, and one from the she-beast herself for attempting to speak to one of his kind.

  By midday Rastín could barely stand. His spirit was broken. Broken by the whip. Broken by the work. Broken by his inexplicable fear. Staggering, he dreamed he walked off the cart trail and that the cart train he was pulling followed him down the side of the excavation pit, rolling over him and then dragging him down with it. He felt every impact as his body was tossed about. He heard the tumultuous roar of the cart train as it careened downward, felt the tremors when the first cart exploded into splinters as it slammed into the bottom of the pit. The second cart followed, breaking apart in similar fashion.

  When he hit the ground, he felt as if the world had stopped. His first thought was that the harness cage was shattered and he was free. His second thought was that he felt no agony or perhaps that his body was so racked with pain that it had overwhelmed his senses. He saw the face of his father whispering words that he could not understand. Finally, he thought about death. He felt sure death had found him, but he was not afraid. In an odd way, thoughts of death were calming, bringing him back to the here and now.

  As he came around, he realized it was well past midday. The she-beast was tending to him, giving him food and water. He knew then that it was the time of the second meal. Across from him, less than a chain away, he could see those of his kind taking their meal breaks.

  He thought of ways he could signal them to come to his aid. Subtly he tried to make them aware of his presence. They took no notice of him, however. This angered him until he realized that before the previous day he could not honestly say that he had ever noticed any of the beast kind. They were the faceless, the unseen, and the unknown.

  Only a preternatural sense of caution kept further action in check. Somehow, he knew must not continue to try to draw the attention of his kind, so he resolved to wait until he knew more about what was happening to him and why. Although he tried his best to hide this change within himself, the she-beast noticed the subtle shift in his demeanor. She seemed to approve of it, and to show this she moved closer.

  By evenfall, only the she-beast kept Rastín on his feet, and she did so with surprising care. As packs of beasts moved to the thousand-fold gates, she helped him to the gates without drawing the attention of the overlords and enforcers. She moved with him across the platform and into the gate. It was the first time Rastín had ever entered the way gate with another. What happened in that brief moment he would not be able to understand until much later, but it was perhaps the reason the gate guardians ensured his people entered the gates one at a time.

  Everything after entering the gate was a blur. Rastín barely managed to maintain consciousness. He vaguely
remembered the she-beast bathing him and that he slept close against her mane to keep warm. When he awoke in the morning, it was as if his senses were on fire. He heard a tiny buzzer flying in the far corner of the room. When he looked for it, not only could he see it, but it was as if the buzzer were right before him. He could smell his blood on the buzzer and knew it had been feeding on him. In the blood, he could smell iron and earth and so much more.

  He tried to stand, but as he did so the room seemed to shift under his feet. The she-beast was at his side in an instant, guiding him, acting as his legs and arms. Looking at her as she held him steady, he was suddenly aware of minute movements—gestures involving the muscles of the face, the eyes, and the ears—that conveyed meaning and became to his mind words. She was telling him something but he did not understand, and this frustrated her.

  She repeated herself several times and finally he understood. She was telling him her name. Her name was Akharran. She was of the Wërg people. He tried to tell her he was Rastín Dnyarr Túrring of the Élvemere people. But she became frustrated and cut him off—such a long name made no sense to her. Finally, he told her that he was Dny. This seemed to please her as she responded in gestures that said, “Yes, Dny.”

  As she repeated this, Rastín saw such movements for what they were for the first time. They were language. The beasts were neither mute nor dumb. They simply communicated in a way no one else understood.

  At his understanding, the she-beast did something that he did not understand at the time but would later know as emotion expressed through movement. These were her tears, but they represented overwhelming joy, not sadness. Gesturing in her language, Rastín tried to ask what she had done to him, but her response was unexpected.

  “Hurry, danger,” she told him.

  “Yes, hurry, danger,” Rastín replied using gestures.

  Rastín followed her as she left the hole and made her way back to the transition corridors. She did not speak to him as they walked or as they worked out in the dark land. Although Rastín found this odd, he did not try to speak to her, either.

  Several days passed before he was comfortable enough with her language to try to reach beyond the basics of things like food, shelter, and work. Akharran seemed pleased with this progression but avoided the deeper, more meaningful discussions for which Rastín longed.

  While walking and working among other Wërg, Rastín began to learn things Akharran may not have wanted him to know. For instance, the Wërg constantly passed messages among themselves using their expressive language. Messages passed in this way up and down corridors, across the Wërg camp, and throughout the fields in the dark land.

  The Wërg were more intelligent than Rastín had ever imagined. Their language was terse but not without its nuances, but he was convinced the Wërg would not understand poetry, books, or music. Such things would have taken too long to convey and would have seemed wasteful—lavish.

  Yet he learned the Wërg language also could be conveyed using rhythmic touch. The first time he tried rhythmic touching with Akharran, she became angry and made gestures that were the equivalent of shouting. She did not speak to him all that day, but by evenfall her mood seemed to shift and she seemed to forgive him. Later, Rastín asked, “What wrong done?”

  Akharran pretended not to understand, which made Rastín angry. He ignored her until she snuggled closer to him and told him, “Great wrong done.” Using only her touch she told him, “Father, mother. Sister, brother. Son, daughter.”

  Together, Rastín knew this conveyed the sense of family. He asked her, “Only father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter?”

  She replied with what he understood as “clan.”

  He rolled over and ignored her after that, falling asleep until morning. When he awoke, he convinced himself that if there was fault to be assigned, the fault was his, because Akharran must have known what he felt. Deep down he saw Akharran as a person but saw the rest of the Wërg people as beasts—talking beasts, but beasts just the same. After that, he forced himself to think of the Wërg as kithfolk rather than beasts. He told himself that she was Akharran of the Wërg people, and the Wërg were a good people who meant no harm. As he thought this, he absentmindedly expressed it by touch as well, which caused a commotion among the Wërg who walked with him in the transition corridor. Akharran calmed the tumult quickly, but in so doing betrayed something she clearly had not meant for Rastín to know. Akharran told the Wërg around her that she was Wërg and was not to be doubted. It was the equivalent of his father saying, “We are elf kind, High King of Élvemere.” He knew in an instant what it meant; it meant Akharran was not just any Wërg. She was a queen or as close to such as her kind had.

  For the past few days they had entered the gate together, sharing themselves with each other in those moments in ways that Rastín did not quite understand but had began to look forward to. Today, however, Akharran pushed Rastín ahead of her, forcing him into the gate alone.

  Entering the dark land alone, he felt the sudden sting of loss—loss of a thing he could not quite name. For a few heartbeats he seemed juxtaposed in time and place, as if living two lives. In one, he was not just with the Wërg but a Wërg. In the other, he was elf kind and knew his father waited for him to return from the day’s labors.

  Akharran set him to rights, wrenching him from the gate platform and out into the dark land. She was increasingly on edge whenever they worked the excavation site. It did not help matters that the last unearthing had been Holsteb’s, days ago, and with each passing day the overlords and the enforcers became increasingly brutal and merciless.

  The tackmaster Zrteth placed a harness of wood and leather around his neck and waist, and then attached ropes to the harness. He said nothing to Rastín, but he had plenty to say to Akharran before sending both on their way with a large eight-wheeled cart train overflowing with ropes, pulleys, and excavation gear.

  Together they moved out across the fields and up into the high lands. Rastín did most of the work, as Akharran seemed to want nothing to do with pulling and pushing the cart. At the dig site, Akharran became so distant that Rastín dared to speak to her openly, asking her, “Still wrong?”

  Akharran’s response was to throw the boulder she was shouldering at him instead of into the cart. Rastín’s quick reflexes allowed him to jump easily out of the boulder’s path. Looking up as he did so, he saw Akharran express emotion in the way of his people—feelings of sorrow and anguish that reflected Rastín’s own conflicted feelings.

  At midday, Akharran spoke to him openly for the first time, telling him, “Madness comes. Danger, great danger.”

  Rastín sat beside her. “Madness?”

  “Angry madness. Danger.”

  Rastín tried to understand what she was telling him. When she repeated herself and he smelled her fear, he finally understood. He replied with the exact same phrasing, “Angry madness. Danger.” Then he dared to speak a word aloud in his own language. That word was “war.”

  Akharran erupted into a frenzy, capturing his expression just as he said it—a mixture of sorrow and anguish—and passed this out to other Wërg. It became their watchword. Akharran and other Wërg repeated it over and over in the transition corridor on the return from the dark land, and Rastín felt self-loathing build within him each time they did so. He was the one to give a name to the thing the Wërg had never known before the ageless came to their world.

  In her hollow, Akharran did something she had never done before. Instead of sending Rastín to the bathing hole, she sat him down and commanded him to speak to her. Rastín defied her and went to the bathing hole instead. He lingered in the cool waters longer than usual; and although he wanted to refuse food, his hunger was such that he could not.

  Akharran looked pleased when he joined her in the large round and approached the eating stone. She insisted he sit beside her and he did so. On the eating stone, she had arranged more food and drink than he had ever seen before. Wërg food consisted mostly of r
oots and tubers, much of which was grown in dark chambers within the hollows where they lived. Some roots and tubers were served raw. Others were cooked, dried, or pounded into powder or paste. Some powders and pastes were mixed with water to make flavored drinks of a sort he had never had before.

  Akharran’s close attention to him as he ate told him she wanted something from him but either did not know how to ask or was waiting for the right time to ask. He was surprised when she said nothing and instead made it clear she wanted something else entirely. Rastín complied, giving himself to Akharran as she gave herself to him.

  Chapter 5

  Days among the Wërg turned into many turnings, and Rastín began to yearn for a return to his people. He wanted more than anything to see his father and speak aloud in his own tongue. Akharran saw this and understood his longing. In the dark land while they worked, she would extend certain kindnesses to him that she extended to no other Wërg. These kindnesses helped him endure the heightened cruelty of the overlords and enforcers as they claimed of flesh what they could not claim through discovery. Discoveries in the dark land had become things of the past, and everyone suffered as a result.

  Rastín was glad the Wërg were a hardy people who found ways to sustain themselves. Other peoples were less fortunate. Day by day there were fewer and fewer working the excavations. Whole peoples faded away, and Rastín saw their kind no more.

  This day as they returned from the highlands, Akharran was distant, and Rastín did not understand why. It was not until they were within sight of the thousand-fold gates that she grabbed his arm, signaling him to stop. When he turned to face her, she pulled his hand to her stomach and then said, “War.” If she were elf kind, he would have sworn that she had tears in her eyes when she said it. He had never seen Akharran or any Wërg express emotion in this way, so he cast the thought aside.