Be brave, he had said, you are our future.
'Watch,' said Ravan, shaking her from her reverie. The Intoli stretched out both of his arm and extended his hands, splaying the fingertips. His pallid skin looked taught to the point of rupturing. The Aviti felt the magic building within the Intoli. She tried to take it, but she felt the restraining presence of Sevika, ready to strike her down if she did. So, she forced down the urge and examined Ravan, with all her senses.
He pulled more and more power into himself, acting like a lodestone. She could taste the magic. The grey-brown dirt at his feet shimmered, as if reality distorted around him. Then with a flick of his wrists, the Intoli pushed the energy away from himself. Like a storm concentrated into a few meters of air, the power coursed from Ravan to his target - a huge oak tree at the perimeter of the field. The ancient wood was powerful. It had stood for centuries, watching winds flee and seasons pass, but it was no match for such a brutal and targeted assault. The oak tree exploded with an immense report. The backlash from the expanding air threw Aviti to the ground and caused Sevika to retreat a step. Ravan stood and let the wind blow his hair in a cascade of argent, and then he smiled.
'Here,' he repeated once the hurricane had passed. Aviti lurched to her feet in a trance, but as her senses returned, she was filled with revulsion at this petulant display of power. If he thought her cowed, he was mistaken.
'You,' Ravan said to her pointing a digit at another oak tree.
Aviti took a breath and shook her head. 'No,' she said. Ravan's eyes burned. He flicked his focus to Sevika and, in an instant, Aviti's world exploded in pain. As she writhed in its embrace, she fought the urge to reach out to Tyla. She did not want the Intoli to know of it. If they learned of it, they might rob her of the only thing she owned.
Then the burning sensation in her mind lifted. She smelled the trees on the wind once more. To her surprise, she had remained standing during the ordeal, but she was doubled over. So, she straightened herself. Pain, she could endure, Aviti told herself.
Ravan pointed at the oak tree once more. Again, Aviti denied him with a toss of her braided hair. And again, the pain came to take her.
This time it had not come alone. The magic was there too, pushing at her. It would vanquish her pain in a second. She could obliterate the hated Intoli with a thought and be free. If she let a little in, she could hold it herself. She could keep it from them and it would be hers alone. The pain was so great. Just a little. It would be enough.
The instant she opened the door she knew her mistake. Sevika seized control of the power and drew more and more into Aviti and the desert girl revelled in its sweet sustenance. The pain remained, but it was such a paltry thing now; so insubstantial.
Then the pressure began to build within her; the pressure to release the accumulated tidal wave of force. Release it into the sky, she thought to herself. Just let it go. But she was powerless now. She had become an instrument, a tool. And tools had power if its wielder saw fit to use it. As the Intoli forced her to release the energy into the trees, she realised it was worse than that. She had become a weapon. And she did not care.
The air filled with a violent cynosure of missiles: needle sharp fragments of wood and flash boiled sap. Aviti sensed Ravan creating a barrier, protecting them from the hail.
She must have collapsed on the ground this time; the course dirt pushed at the back of her head. Aviti lay there; her soul torn between the pain she had endured and the lost ecstasy of the magic. The bar in her shoulder throbbed like an articulation of her conscience.
After an age, she stood up and shook the earth from herself. She watched numbly as the twigs and debris made a halo around her. Then she looked up. Behind the second blasted stump was a scene of devastation. A semi-circle of trees lay uprooted. Soil, moss and centuries of growth were scattered in an arc as wide as she could see.
'Take her to the river,' said Ravan. 'Return when she has recovered.'
-*-
Aviti let the cold water take away the ingrained mud, but the cleansing purity of the river did little to assuage her guilt. She had no part in choosing the target for destruction, but she had let the magic in.
The tree. She had shattered it. The water contained within the tree was more than she would use in her lifetime. But Aviti forced down her culpability and thrust her hands into the sharp coldness of the river. She splashed water from her hands down her arms and over her breasts. She had stripped without compunction as soon as she had seen the water, so great was her need for absolution. The ever-present wind caused her skin to tighten, forcing her to retreat from the riverside and don her desert-stained clothes.
Sevika watched her dress and Aviti returned her stare. Aviti would have felt her presence without seeing her, but she wanted to force this Intoli to acknowledge her. She wanted to try and force it to accept responsibility for what it had done. As she examined the Intoli she became aware of the differences between Sevika and Ravan. Ravan must outrank Sevika in some way, but there Aviti saw a more fundamental difference. There was hesitation in Sevika.
'Why do you do it?' asked Aviti. 'I know that he,' Aviti indicated back over her shoulder to the field,' forced you. But why use me at all. Ravan has the ability, and you can obviously control it.' Aviti fought down the urge to belittle the Intoli for what she had done to her. 'So why use me at all?'
And there it was again, that hesitation. 'I... The Intoli,' began Sevika but then she stopped. 'The history of the Intoli is of no consequence to you.'
'No consequence?' Aviti erupted. 'No consequence? You use me like a slave, force me to destroy a part of nature… Did you feel its pain? Did you? I did. Scores upon scores of years, annihilated for what purpose? To break me? If this is the best of your people, then keep it. I want nothing from you.'
She turned back to the river and cursed herself. She had not meant to lose her temper. But she felt so humiliated. But she was angry at herself too. She had let them in. If she had not weakened. If she had just held on.
But was she not the same as the creatures? She had forged an unasked-for bond with Tyla. What torment had she forced upon him? The Lyrat had not recovered from the loss of Faric, his Lyrat pair. And she was invading his life.
'There is no choice,' said Sevika to her back. 'We must face the darkness. It has moved. You have seen it. We must. We are the guardians of the source. We must suffice; there are no others.'
An avalanche of responses, justified and selfish, blazed through her mind in an instant, but this time she held them back. She counted this as a victory; a small victory and as her father was fond of saying. She would need many of them.
Aviti finished dressing and turned back to Sevika. Marshalling all the courage that remained in her, she said, 'Let us go then. You would not want your master to turn his attention to you instead of me.' Brushing past the static Intoli, she stormed up the hill.
As she walked, a blast of wind from the north eviscerated her bluster. She shivered, feeling a bite in the air. What would she do now? Submit to whatever this cursed Intoli wanted? No, she could not, but how could she resist. She could have withstood the pain and internal torment that the Intoli induced in her if it had come alone. But with her own desire for the magic, she was lost.
Before long, she approached the field again. As she crossed the boundary, she felt a dark oppression cloud her mind. Like a black mood, it came on her. She turned around to see the black sun burning its hatred down upon them. Sevika flinched under its first touch. It was odd to see such a sign of weakness in the Intoli. She might have passed for human at a distance.
Looking away from the awful sight of the black disc, Aviti looked back at her destination. For an instant, the field looked empty. But then she blinked and he was there: Ravan, as if he had never moved from the spot. He raised a hand towards the two Intoli guards. They turned around and headed back to the town.
Sevika overtook her as she entered the field. As they drew close to Ravan, Aviti hoped for somethi
ng; she hoped for a miracle.
'The desert girl returns,' said Ravan. His bitter words hit her. The words themselves were unimportant, but the force behind them was as palpable as a slap.
Sevika started to speak, but Ravan silenced her. He gazed at the black sun – the Kalsurja as Sevika and Ravan had called it. His face lost all expression as he focused upon it. Sevika and the other Intoli refused to acknowledge its presence.
'It will devour our link to the Source,' prophesied Ravan, 'this darkness at the heart of the Intoli. So says Krura, so said Vigopa.' The Intoli inclined his head as he said the names. The other Intoli's did the same. 'The prophecy our twin Sakti delivered to me was her final act upon this earth. She is gone, the threads of her soul released and we were left with a sole Sakti.'
Sevika shuffled around behind Aviti. 'Let us not deny the instrument of our victory the knowledge of her responsibility, Gau,' said Ravan. Sevika stiffened at the use of this formal title Gau.
Ravan moved his hidden gaze from the dark sun to Aviti. She felt something malignant, something lustful in his shrouded eyes.
'Although no Intoli but I have ever seen the deserts of Tapasya, and you are the first native of Mashesh to behold my people, you are indebted to us.'
Mashesh? How could he know?
'You, and all your kin, have received an aeon of service without price.' He paused for second, inviting Aviti to ask the obvious question, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. 'Ignorant of the Intoli that have spent their existence guarding without rest. If it were not for the constant vigilance of the Intoli this land would have been consumed by the insufferable dark of the Waren.'
'The Waren?' Aviti had not meant to speak aloud.
'That is what it is called in your tongue. A simple word for a timeless, deathless, indefatigable foe.' As the Intoli spoke, Aviti saw the two guards return, and they were not alone.
'The Intoli kept the Waren contained in the Dhuma,' he continued. 'We fed the Dhuma with our power,' he motioned to the corner of the field where Aviti had eviscerated the trees. The bitter taste of boiled sap lingered in the air.
Then Aviti watched as the guards shepherded some men, about a dozen forest dwellers, into the field. They moved them towards the spot the oak had stood. Their feet shuffled as they walked and the clanking of brass chains filled the air.
'But a few centuries ago, a rupture in the earth disturbed our work. But worse than that, it stabbed a shadow into our heart; a great unease for which there was no surcease. And while we pondered this darkening of our spirit, the Waren slipped from the Dhuma and bled into the world.' Ravan's voice rose in pitch, as he gained momentum.
The two sentries reached the remains of tree. There, they tethered the humans together; joining one to another with the golden chains they had dragged along. Not that any of the wretched souls attempted to move. They stood without hope or volition.
'But, just as the Waren slipped free, so the answer to the problem was revealed. The Arkasona!'
'And so it falls to the Intoli to set the world right. But we shall not be content with recapturing the darkness - the Waren.' Ravan shook his large head in a manner that would have looked comical to Aviti if her life was not dependent on these perverse creatures.
'No, Krura decreed that we shall wipe it from this land and I shall see it done. With the Arkasona it shall be done!' Ravan had worked himself into a frenzy. He signalled to the other Intoli to move away from the prisoners.
'Destroy them,' said Ravan to Aviti, his voice as cold as the words he spoke. 'They are a product of the Waren.'
Aviti gaped. 'No,' she laughed. 'No, I will not kill another human. No, I will not.' She repeated her litany several times, her own hysteria building now.
This time she would deny them. With every fibre in her body, she would deny these creatures. Aviti looked at Sevika. Sevika had not expected this either. Her face flickered and rippled. But Ravan commanded here, and with a flick of his languorous hand, Sevika mastered herself.
Then the pain came. The bar inside her burned once more. She thought she had been better prepared to face this physical trial now, but under the baleful glare of the dark sun, the agony was magnified. But she did not succumb, despite the intensification of the pain. She thought she heard Ravan, but with the crippling level of pain she endured, she had no energy to spare for her external senses. Every ounce of her strength was needed to beat back the pain.
Then it lessened and the magic pushed at her, desperate to fill the void inside her. But an instant later the pain returned. She ground her teeth together, rammed her eyes shut and pulled herself down into a crouch.
Again the agony subsided and the magic pushed at her soul. Again the pain returned. In between the torturous pulses of pain, she caught a whiff of a rank, graveolent odour, like meat left to burn on the fire.
Then the pain abated once more and the wave of pressure from the magic that followed was intolerable. But she braced her will against it and turned it back. She could do this. She would not give in.
Aviti screamed as the latest wave of pain ripped her defences from her. She grasped for her bond with Tyla, but she fumbled with it. She had remade the link, but it had been done in the white, passionate heat of her last desperation. Now he would know her failure.
But even this knowledge could not stop her surrender, and when the pain left this time, the magic poured in through the door she had opened. Her control was gone. The magic filled her - it exalted her – lifted her up beyond mere mortals. She would use it; she had to use it. She would destroy.
Then the power was ripped from her, torn like rags discarded from her body. It flew across the space between her and the chained people in an instant. Instead of the mass of blunt force she had used against the trees, a line of perfect immolation sliced into the prisoners.
This time dust filled the air. Instead of blood and gore, a mass of sand-coloured dust billowed out towards them. It expanded upwards like a haboob, driven by the wind, like the ones that rose in the Great Desert and fell on Mashesh.
The dust drowned her as she collapsed on the ground. It filled her mouth and nose, choking her, stealing the air from her lungs. Then rain began to fall, as if the earth wished to cleanse itself of this aberration. The water soaked Aviti's broken face, carrying the dust down in rivulets into her mouth.
The Damned, she thought. He's used me to slay the Damned. But it was a small, quiet thought, buried beneath her pain and her need for the magic. She watched as tiny glimmers of starlight sparkled through the dust storm and exhaustion claimed her.
7 - Out of Step
Tilden had been in his grasp. All he had to do was smash him with that hammer. The thought of that violent act turned his stomach now, but so did his own weakness.
He had fooled him again. Tilden had goaded him into something again, but right now he couldn't be sure what that was, other than a mistake. The darkness from the Ghria Duh, from that black sun, bathed the back of his skull.
His feet bumped along the uneven, muddy ground, free of his own volition. When his senses began to return so did the control of his legs. He shook free from the massive arm around his waist. He allowed his path to be determined for him though, and he was bumped from one side of the trail to the other. Nikka tried to talk to him, but he ignored the Cerni. He must recapture his focus or he was lost.
By the time they reached Ionracas' tent, Wist became aware that he was accompanied by Nikka, Haumea and another Giant. It was the Giant that had delivered bad news to Ionracas. Oinoir, thought Wist.
Tyla waited at the mouth of the tent along with the two Giant guards. The first guard began to move, but Oinoir stopped him with a look. Together, they swept back into the Glaine's presence.
He stood with his back to them, tending to his fire. The tent lay in a state of disarray: stacked papers were scattered and weapons lay beside their stands.
'Haumea, ' he began, without turning. 'You return with calamity at your heels again. Make yourself us
eful.' The Giant pointed to the side of the tent that had sustained some damage. Haumea bowed her head and scuttled over. Nikka tensed but remained silent.
'Glaine,' said Oinoir, his deep voice now subdued. Ionracas turned to see his comrade. Oinoir inclined his head and, after a pause, his Glaine did the same.
'Ion,' he continued, 'the black sun, the Ghria Duh it...'
'I know,' Ionracas replied. 'I saw. What has happened?'
'For a moment,' began Oinoir, a tremor in his voice betrayed his fear, but then the Giant caught himself, straightened to his full height and began again. 'I went after Haumea as you instructed, but the men separated. I was left with a choice of following the desert man and Haumea, or the pale stranger. So I opted to leave the Giantess to her duty.'
'This stranger,' Oinoir indicated Wist, 'walked east of here, down the Market road, as the Humans have named it. He passed the farms and went to the edge of the town.'
'There he was met by an Intoli,' said Oinoir. There was a sharp intake of breath from Haumea who was still busy repairing the torn canvas. Ionracas flicked his blue eyes to the Giantess, remained silent.
'I remained out of sight, believing that I was more than a match for a single pale demon and a traitor.' Wist shifted as the gravity of his situation settled in.
'But then the Intoli was gone and in his place stood another man. At first, I thought I looked upon a vision – as if I saw two of him,' again the Giant pointed to Wist. 'But despite their similarities I could see the difference. The other man had a scarred visage and greyer hair.'
'It was clear that these two were no allies, for although I could not hear the words, the enmity was obvious.' Oinoir lifted his hands and pointed an accusing digit at Wist. 'Then this one lifts the dwarf's hammer and tries to smash it through the other stranger.'
'But he pulled the blow at the last second;' said the blonde-haired Oinoir, 'smashed it straight into the ground. Then everything went to Ifran. I felt as if I had been torn into parts. My past looked upon me, and I looked upon my future. And I quailed at what I may yet become.'
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 37
