‘He took the place of Ravan. I fear that it was he that destroyed Vigopa. I know that he corrupted the core of Krura and let her lead us to the loss of the source.’ Aviti listened as Enceladus repeated Sevika’s words, even maintaining their inflection.
‘I know that, but what did he say?’ There was urgency in Wist’s words, but there was no malice in them.
‘Ask Aviti,’ said her former captor, which drew another dissatisfied grunt from the Giants when it was translated.
Then, without any prompting, Sevika started to talk. Again, Enceladus, or Ravan as he referred to himself, translated his words from the sibilant Intoli tongue.
‘When Aviti and I rested by a pool, on our way to see our Sakti, Krura, we were visited by... apparitions. Points of light.’
When you dragged me through that damned forest, thought Aviti, but she said nothing. Why had she chosen now to tell this part of their journey?
‘They told us that we would damn the world and swell their numbers.’
‘But they also told Aviti that to save us all, she must reunite the twins.’
‘Reunite the twins?’ Wist said. There was a note of accusation in his voice. ‘You are certain; those were the words?’
‘Yes,’ said Sevika. Aviti was surprised that the Intoli had used a language that they could all understand.
‘Are the words important?’ said Haumea.
Aviti heard the blood pulsing through her veins.
‘Yes,’ replied Wist. ‘At least they are for me. Aviti’s father told me the same thing. Just before he died.’
Anger mounted within Aviti. He had stolen that moment from her. Then her ire melted away when she remembered that her dad had asked for him. It had been his choice. His choice with whom he spent his last moments. And now he was trapped inside the bond she had enforced on Tyla.
‘The twins,’ said Haumea. ‘Tilden and you? How can you reunite yourself with him?’
‘I… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. We were not… are not twins.’
‘What?’
‘Since I woke under the black sun, I can remember it all. Before, there were places I feared to go in my memory, but now, it is all there for me, but something is wrong.’
‘So, we are not going to talk about the darkness that assailed us in the forest?’ asked Haumea.
‘It was the Waren,’ said Wist.
‘Yes, you have said that, but what does that mean.’
‘The Intoli are the Source’s answer to the Waren,’ said Enceladus, ‘the light that combats the darkness.’
‘And what a great job you did of that,’ said Decheal.
Wist reprimanded the Giant, but Oinoir said, ‘Enough talking Dionach,’ using the honorific title. ‘We need rest more than we need words.’
Everyone agree and Tyla decided to stand first watch. There was a lot of shuffling before their camp settled down once more.
Aviti pushed the discussion to the back of her mind and tried to understand why she was not in pain, but as she mulled it over, sleep overcame her. There were no dreams for her and when she woke, she sat up, worried that her father had been speaking through her again. Tyla turned to look at her as she rose. He was up and folding his bedroll. Then he sat beside Aviti and fastened the metal spikes to his feet with lengths of cord.
Once he was finished with his own, he helped Aviti thread her pair. Aviti’s hands were still wrapped inside her gloves and layers of material.
Then the Giant’s awoke and lastly so did Wist. Aviti looked around for the Intoli, but they were not inside the structure. ‘They are outside,’ confirmed Tyla.
Haumea and the Giants packed, and when they were done, they joined the Intoli. The vast flat plan was still there, but now was bathed in the purest starlight.
The Giants walked unevenly with the new additions to their footwear. The ice cracked and gave beneath them, causing Decheal to slip and fall, but she rolled and got back to her feet. Then she stamped her feet a few times and took a couple of steps.
‘Not bad these inventions of yours Haumea,’ said Decheal. Oinoir grunted at them and they moved off once more. They made quick progress over the slick, black ice, but it was tiring work. Every step had to be forced; each mile bought with extravagant effort.
At first, the party stayed within their racial groups: The Giants, the Intoli and the humans, but before long the groups fragmented and overlapped, and Aviti found herself beside Oinoir. After a few miles of silence, the Giant said, ‘Wist said it was you at the river.’
Aviti glanced up, wincing when her eyes caught sight of the Ghria Duh which had risen an hour past. ‘River?’ she said.
’When the Intoli attacked us. It was you that unleashed the river.’
Aviti shrugged. ‘Yes. It was me.’
‘Our Glaine died there. Ionracas, our Prime Glaine.’
‘I am... sorry.’
‘You did not kill him, though many others were swept to their death. You merely washed his body out to sea. Although I fear that our hopes went with him.’
Aviti could think of nothing to add, so they walked on the starlight dimmed by the Ghria Duh. Only that, their torchlight and Enceladus’ inner light to guide them.
‘And at the Battle of Dilsich,’ said Oinoir in an over-loud voice ‘You stopped the Intoli. They would have slaughtered us.’
‘Or you would have butchered them,’ said Aviti.
‘No,’ said Oinoir. ‘We had lost.’
‘That is not what I mean.’
‘What do you mean? It was a rout.’
‘No, it is just that...’ her voice trailed off as she lost her train of thought.
‘Thank you for saving my people. Thank you for saving the Giants, when I could not.’
‘I did not do it for you or your people,’ said Aviti, but Oinoir was not listening. ‘I did it for myself.’ And the other humans, she thought. But she had been trying to save them all, and rid herself of that damned Intoli’s enslaving bar.
After a brief period of silence Aviti said ‘Where are you from Oinoir?’
Oinoir laughed. ‘I am from this land. This forsaken land.’
‘Yes, but from where?’
‘Does it matter now? It is all the same: black, cold and gone.’
‘Of course it matters.’
‘You are young and you still know hope,’ said the Giant.
‘Then why are you here? Why trek across this dead land if you have no hope.’
‘I have duty. What else does a warrior need?’
‘Love,’ said Aviti with an involuntary glance away.
‘Love?’ scoffed Oinoir.
‘Yes, love,’ said Aviti, as she pushed her scarf back inside her hood to try and block out the icy stabs of air. ‘Is there no one for you?’
Oinoir choked down another laugh. ‘No. I have my duty.’ Pain sparkled deep in his blue eyes.
‘What about family?’
Aviti waited for a reply, but when one was not forthcoming, she continued. ‘I have none now. My mother died years ago, and my brother… more recently.’ How long had it been? She did not know.
‘And my father. He died at the same time.’
‘My sister,’ said Oinoir.
‘Pardon?’
‘My sister, Oinair. It should be her here and not me.’ As the Giant spoke, the wind picked up, carrying a black mass of clouds towards them.
Aviti stumbled as she struggled to force her feet through the ice. Oinoir caught her arm and steadied her.
‘Thank you,’ she said and the Giant grunted in reply. ‘Why should your sister be here?’
‘She was the warrior. She had the ability to command armies, and she was never bested in the Games.’
‘Where did she die? Was she at Dilsich?’
‘No.’ Oinoir took a few breaths and forced his feet deeper into the snow. ‘No, she fell at Ghosa. She bought us time to bring Ionracas and his force north.’ Oinoir sighed and then continued. ‘For all the damned good it did u
s.’
There was a shout from ahead. Tyla had spotted shelter. More trees. They would have to risk another assault of the Waren.
‘I am sorry for the loss of your sister,’ said Aviti.
He grunted in reply, as the first flakes of fresh snow began to fall.
The wind changed direction and began to intensify, whipping the snow around them as they reached the first line of trees. These trees, although snow covered at the top, bore none of the torturous marks the Waren had left upon the last forest. Tyla found a tight grove in the trees where they managed to build a fire and get some rest.
Aviti woke disorientated. She could not gauge time without the natural light of the sun. This place was a wilderness. The trees even lacked the bitter smell that had smothered her senses in southern Pyrite.
They left after a brief meal. The forest went on for miles. They removed the spikes from their boots because the forest floor, although hard, had been spared the worst of the weather. Aviti stared up at the sky through the vertical black lines of the trees. As she did, the Ghria Duh slithered into sight above them.
Rather than turn away Aviti stared in defiance at it. At first, she looked at the centre of the black disc, but it gave her nothing. Then she looked at its edges where its black tendrils writhed. She forced herself to keep looking at it, as revulsion threatened to overwhelm her. There, between the black strands, slivers of sunlight fought to escape.
7 - Infinite Dreams
The land flowed away from them as they left the forest behind. The Ghria Duh had dropped behind the western horizon just as they had started the descent. This fresh layer of snow was much easier to walk on than the sheet ice that had coated the land on the approach to the trees.
As usual, Tyla went to scout ahead. Aviti looked at him, standing on a small rise at the bottom of the current downward slope. He was staring at his feet. The group traipsed towards him. They had been walking for hours under the Ghria Duh.
‘What is he doing?’ she said to the air.
‘What interests me more, is what he is standing on,’ said Wist.
As they walked, Aviti understood Wist’s meaning. It was not a hill or mound that the Lyrat stood on. It was the corpse of an animal.
‘It’s that god-damned Dragon,’ said Wist as he ran down the hill.
Aviti tried to run after him, but he flew over the surface like a man born to this land. He looked like a Lyrat coasting over the top of a dune.
As she and the Giants joined Wist and Tyla, Aviti could see the outline of the dragon’s head beneath a thin layer of snow.
‘It is one of the two that attacked us outside Medicaut,’ said one of the Giants.
‘And the other is over there,’ said Haumea, pointing to another mound twenty yards away.
‘These are the two that fled after you killed their mother, aren’t they?’ Wist said to Tyla. The Lyrat nodded and slipped out his blade.
‘We can shelter in the shadow of this beast,’ Tyla said. ‘Haumea, can you and the Giants do that and I shall cut us some meat?’
Haumea agreed and the Giants set about cutting another block of ice. Sevika and Enceladus stood apart watching the Giants’ labour. Wist leapt from the Dragon as Tyla sliced into its body. He started to walk toward the other mound, so Aviti fell into step beside him.
‘These two attacked us under the ground,’ Wist began. Aviti had heard part of this tale, but she let Wist talk as they walked towards the dead dragon.
‘We were forced under the ground to try and get to Dilsich in time. Miles down we came across a lake of lava. The fumes fogged my mind and made me hallucinate. I saw people from my past… a person from my past.’ He sighed and blew clouds of steam into the air. Then he ran his hands over his exposed head, tracing the dragon’s blood stains.
‘A woman from my past.’ Then he corrected himself once more. ‘The only woman I ever loved.’
‘But the fumes, they twisted things in my mind. Or my mind had twisted it already. Anyway, we were trapped by this lake, this laval lake. Tyla found a way across, but it meant climbing up the wall and making our way across a ledge. When the first of us had managed the crossing, we were attacked by dragons. There were three of them; immature, but ravenous things. Tyla dealt with one, but then my mother arrived.’
Wist laughed and then corrected himself, ’Then their mother arrived. I think I must have taken a blow to the head as I couldn’t see straight. All I can remember is the fury that poured from these beasts.’ He moved to the side of the second fallen Dragon. He prodded the thing with his foot.
‘I think it starved to death,’ he said.
‘They saved us outside Medicaut. When the wolves, those massive wolves attacked us. The dragons came down and ate them.’
Wist sighed and said, ‘And then they could not find any more. I don’t think there ever was any malice in them. Just hunger.’ Then he stepped away from the carcass and walked with his back towards their camp. Aviti went with him, as there was nothing useful she could do until the Giants and Tyla completed their shelter.
The ground here rose and fell, in graceless lumps. Black bedrock jutted out of the snow like the incisors of some huge beast. They were forced to scramble up to go any further, as the wind picked up, trying to force them back.
Each rise was more pronounced than the last and as they climbed Aviti became aware of a grinding noise. It was almost imperceptible at first, more felt than heard. Then it became obvious. It sounded as if the earth tried to devour itself from within.
Wist raced ahead of her. When they travelled across Tapasya, he had stumbled about like a lost child. Now, he left her in his wake. Then he stopped atop the steepest rise. It took her a few minutes to catch him. At the top of the hill, the noise was deafening. It was a grinding, cracking, thunderous roar that filled her ears.
‘It’s the sea at the end of the world,’ shouted Wist.
Aviti looked through the gale at the waves, or where the waves should have been. There were sharp lines of moonlight reflecting back from the scars on the tortured surface. The water should be dancing here. It should be free and unfettered, but the water here fought against its imprisonment. The plates of ice that met on the surface ground together as the pressure built beneath. Then there was a huge crack as one of the largest lumps split in two. It threw splinters of reflected light high into the sky.
‘And how the hell are we going to get across that?’ Wist yelled, and then he laughed and howled into the wind.
‘Have you lost your mind?’ Aviti shouted back. Wist smiled, the streaks on his face looking black. Then he jumped away from the edge and grabbed Aviti’s hand. He pulled her down and away.
‘No, I think, at last, I’ve found it.’
Aviti’s gaze followed the ragged coastline to the West until it fell away precipitously. ‘It follows us even here,’ Wist said. ‘Or rather we have followed it.’
‘Followed what?’ asked Aviti as the wind tried to push her hood down.
‘The scar,’ said Wist. ‘The bloody scar in the world. You can follow it all the way back to Tapasya, all the way back to your home in Mashesh.’
My home?
‘The Sundering, they called it in Mashesh. When Tilden first tried to kill me, it split this world, and sent me back to my own one.’
‘It’s here in this land. You travelled up one side of it with the Intoli and Dregan. Tyla, Nikka and I followed it on the other side. A land torn by war. A war bounded by the scar I left in the world.’
They walked back to the camp past the fallen dragon to its sibling which Tyla was butchering. The Giants had finished their labour and smoke drifted from the side of their new igloo. This one was neater than their previous effort, but the snow was marked with black speckles of dirt that absorbed the light from Enceladus. Beside the sentinel, stood Sevika. Tatters of her diaphanous robe were still visible underneath the rags she now wore.
Before they went in, Wist stopped Aviti, just out of earshot of the Intoli, and asked
her, ‘What happened to Dregan?’
Aviti swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘I…’ she began to say, but she faltered. Then she started again. ‘I killed him.’
She had expected an accusation. She would even have welcomed it if he had struck her. What she got was silence. Then he embraced her and the tears that she held back broke through her paper-thin defences.
‘They imprisoned him in stone,’ she said between gasps. ‘They bled him for his magic. Wist, they melted his mouth so he could not speak!” She broke down and wept once more. She let Wist hold her until it passed through her. Then she pushed him away. She put aside her anger at herself for this display of weakness and she put aside her pride, for the time being.
‘I think it was Tilden’s doing. He was taking his revenge for Dregan daring to challenge him in Bohba. And I ended his misery,’ she said drying her cheeks before the biting frost had a chance to act.
‘Just like Haumea ended Nikka’s.’ Wist said. Aviti nodded and took his hand then led him on.
They ducked as they passed into the shelter. Inside, the three Giants were gathered around the fire, which was set off to one side in a crude alcove. They had even fashioned a rough chimney. The fumes from the roasting meat passed out along this conduit, leaving the air inside the shelter breathable.
Aviti and Wist sat, and Decheal passed them some of the meat that had finished cooking. It was tough and bitter, but Aviti devoured it. Wist examined his portion and then looked at his hands. The dark-red meat bore more than a passing resemblance to them.
When they finished their meal, the Intoli joined them. They sat together on the opposite side of the fire from the Giants. Without thinking about it, they had split the group along racial lines once more: the Giants, the human and the Intoli.
They sat and exchanged glances, but no-one broke the silence. Decheal continued to gnaw at a bone that still had meat attached to it. The other Giants were still, Haumea even closed her eyes as if in prayer.
Aviti was amazed that the even the Intoli sat. The shelter was just big enough to allow Sevika and Enceladus to stand, but they had chosen not to.
‘How do we get to Prasad?’ said Wist unexpectedly.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 66
