The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection

by David Gilchrist

  Wist watched her go and then turned to Enceladus. The sentinel stood a yard from Wist. The wind did not seem to touch him, try as it might. Wist blinked as the scars along the back of the sentinel’s head vented steam into the frigid air. That had happened before, by the frozen lake in the heart of the desert. Wist had forgotten about it. That happened to him more and more now, forgetting things, losing his past that he had only just regained. But did it matter anymore?

  Tyla had stayed with them throughout their labour, or at least he was present any time Wist had managed to push his attention outwards. Wist turned away from Enceladus and smiled to the Lyrat. ‘You must be getting quite used to life on a ship?’ said Wist, but Tyla ignored his attempt at humour. He was staring at Enceladus.

  ‘Come on and let’s get something to eat,’ he tried instead. This time Tyla blinked and turned as if that was all he had been waiting for. Before he walked, Tyla said, ‘Faric said you could not swim.’

  ‘Faric? What?’

  Of course, at the river Corb, when Aviti fell in, he hadn’t gone in after her. ‘I couldn’t then. I never learned to swim until I was much older…’

  Tyla raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘I can’t explain. My memories were so fragmented back then.’

  Tyla shrugged and then walked, making Wist follow him.

  As they passed the foremast, Wist’s skin came alive with prickling heat. He stopped and rolled back the sleeve of his ragged shirt. Beneath the cloth, his dragon bloodstained arms looked black, and he struggled to make out the texture of his skin, even when Tyla brought his torch close. Tyla lifted an eyebrow again, but it was Wist’s turn to ignore him. He rolled down his sleeve and continued across the deck to the ladders. The sense of discomfort and unease followed him as they went.

  Wist misjudged his footing on the first rung of the wooden ladder, but caught himself before he fell, or more likely Tyla was forced to save him again. When he reached the main deck, he discovered the source of his unease. The black sun, the Ghria Duh, the hole in the sky, which he had brought into being and helped it to blot out the natural sun, had risen. The deck of the ship, which sparkled when under the moon and stars, was now black. Its obsidian surface crawled with distortion from the black light pouring down from above. The straight lines of the wooden planks bent into impossible angles, looping back on themselves. With Tyla close behind him, Wist hurried to get under the deck and away from the Ghria Duh’s influence.

  Even when he took a seat with the Giants in the galley, he could sense the Ghria Duh above him. Wist wolfed down mouthfuls of food that one of the Giant’s had prepared for him.

  ‘It seems I am back to being a scullion,’ said Haumea as she swept the bowls from the table. The two other Giants left without a glance at Haumea, but Tyla bowed to her before he left. The Giantess giggled then turned her back to Wist.

  The kitchen lit up as Enceladus passed. He walked along to the ladder that led down to the bottom deck of the ship and then he descended. With the light billowing from the cargo holes, the mid-deck of the ship took on an eerie cast.

  Sevika came to stand beside Tyla, but the Lyrat did not acknowledge her presence.

  Then Haumea began to sing to herself as she tidied. Wist stared into the guttering cook fire and sipped from a wooden cup, as her lilting voice lifted.

  My feet keep on stepping,

  Carry me on, from my kin

  Sing no songs about my homeland

  I miss the ocean once again

  I hear the wind sing about her

  I hear the sun tell her tale

  I hope my kin will remember

  The world is old and I may fail

  In Creidas low, they shun the sunshine

  Now, who can say they feel the same

  Now war and hate does not bother me

  Does this peace still threaten you?

  Eu-Dochas high has the herders

  Who sing their song of morning dew?

  Save the World from wolf and dragon

  Keep us safe from darkness hue

  And maybe one day

  I will be coming home to you

  When her song ended, Wist found himself looking at the Giantess. She had finished her labours and picked up her staff.

  The Giantess said, ‘Thank you for guiding me back to the light, Wist. Oinoir named you Dionach and I would use the title too, but I see it brings you pain.’

  Wist shook his head. ‘It doesn’t... not anymore. Use it if you wish, but I’ve not earned the right to claim any titles.’ Then he looked at Tyla and added, ‘...or accept oaths of fealty.’

  Tyla, and his dead Pair Faric, had sworn to follow Wist, in a cave outside Mashesh. Wist had tried to reject their pledge, but it made no difference to them. He was no longer angered by the titles or ashamed of accepting the Lyrats service, but he knew he wasn’t worthy of either. Letting his mind wander, he thought about what they had achieved today, but more importantly, he wondered about all they had to do.

  ‘How far do we have to go Sevika?’ Wist asked.

  The Intoli, who had stood motionless throughout Haumea’s song, turned her elongated face towards Wist, but did not reply. He had forgotten that the Intoli only spoke their own eldritch language, so he asked Tyla the same question. The Lyrat shrugged. Wist had hoped that Tyla might have been able to use the stars to gauge their progress, but how could the Lyrat possibly know? How many more times would he need to stand on the deck and propel this vessel forward?

  Without warning Tyla asked him, ‘Where do you think that your brother is?’

  ‘My brother?’ Wist replied, ‘Tilden?’ he said half as a question, half as a statement. Tyla stared at Wist, his eyes peering into Wist’s soul.

  Wist blanched and averted his gaze. He took an awkward gulp from the cup of water that sat on the table in front of him. It looked just like the cup of poison that his brother had offered him. Wist had refused to drink it and had instead thrown it over Tilden, scarring his brother’s face. The last time he had seen him, Tilden’s face still smouldered.

  Wist took a deep breath and hit the table with his cup as he attempted to set it back down. Then he said, ‘He will be at the Dhuma.’

  ‘You do not know?’ said Tyla with a voice as dry as a desert breeze.

  Wist shrugged at Tyla, drawing a rare smile from the Lyrat.

  ‘I need some air,’ Wist lied, standing and clattering into the table in the dim light. Tyla lifted a wooden brand and set it ablaze in the fire. Wist thought of telling the Lyrat to leave him alone, but as he turned for the stairs, he thought better of it.

  As Wist climbed the ladder that led to the main deck, he saw the black sun burning above him. He felt as if the world had been turned on its head and he had to cling to the ladder to stop from falling. When he clambered his way onto the top of the ship, he sat with his back to a wall in an effort to stop his head from spinning. The light that Tyla brought with him helped Wist to focus, helping him to bring his world back around.

  Wist looked up at the swirling Ghria Duh. He found he could hold its gaze now, without risk of losing himself to anger or despair. He looked away again to the deck and then to the mast. The ship was static, held fast in the ice now that nothing impelled it forward. They had broken their way through with force of will and grim determination. They would need to do the same thing again and again to get them to the edge of Prasad.

  Now, Wist just felt empty. He could do it. He knew he could because he must, but he feared for Aviti, the proud young woman from Mashesh. She had been through so much. Not just physically; she had freed herself from enslavement and had tied her spirit to Tyla’s. How much could one person endure and just keep going?

  Wist managed to stand and make his way to the prow once more, with Tyla in tow. The ladders to the upper deck creaked under his feet. They sounded just like the floorboards in his bathroom; back in his house, in his old life, on his own world. He caught the top rung as he stepped off and ended up on his hands and
knees. His mind flashed back to the moment of his suicide. The blade that bit into his skin slashed across his mind, severing past from present, and present from future.

  Colour exploded in his sight. Splashes of red erupted across the deck. He blinked several times and forced his mind back to this time, this place. As he did, the colour receded and reality returned. Tyla dragged him up and Wist thanked him as they walked.

  They stopped beside the rail that ran around the front of the boat. The peaks of the waves stood frozen in place; white caps left to float in space. The wind pushed Wist back, until he stood against the mast. After-images of his suicide still appeared when he blinked, threatening his stability.

  ‘You seem happier here,’ said Wist to Tyla. The Lyrat lifted the eyebrow that sat above the parallel scars on his cheek. ‘I mean, happier than you did when we were under the ground. I guess that’s hardly surprising though.’ Still the Lyrat did not reply. So, he tried a different tack. ‘Your bond with Aviti, is it the same as it was with Faric?’

  After a few seconds of silence Tyla said, ‘Yes… and no.’

  ‘Well tell me about it for God’s sake Tyla. This journey is going to be long enough as it is. Tell me about it.’

  Tyla said, ‘With Faric,’ then he stopped and began once more. ‘With Faric, I cannot remember a time when he was not there. Even now, even with this new link, I feel him there.’

  ‘Doesn’t that bother you? It must be like having a ghost living inside of you. I’ve never believed in God, or a maker, or a Creator, or in ghosts, and I never believed that anyone had a soul.’ He laughed at the preposterousness of his statement. ‘I don’t know how I could go on if I thought I’d live forever.’

  ‘Is that why you are here?’ asked Tyla.

  The question stopped Wist’s mind in its tracks. He shivered as its implications reverberated. As he formed an answer, he shivered again.

  Tyla glanced away from him to the sea.

  ‘Why am I here Tyla?’ Wist said and looked out to see what had caught Tyla’s eye. As he gazed out, he said, ’Why are any of us here?’

  It was like the world had closed in upon him. Which one of his own ghosts would rear up from the ice to pull him down?

  Tyla’s torch gave up its struggle against the night and the Lyrat dropped it to the deck. ‘Tyla,’ said Wist, but his attention was fixed on the horizon.

  Wist wanted to ask him what he saw, or sensed, but he couldn’t, he just wanted to lie down and sleep. Something was wrong. He knew it was. Why was he so tired? He could not think.

  The Lyrat’s discarded brand rolled towards the side of the deck. Then it disappeared into the blackness, and struck the ice below the ship. Something at the edge of his consciousness fought for his attention, but his mind slipped. The encroaching darkness should have terrified him, but the fear it should have induced did not surface. Instead, he heard whispered promises of rest and oblivion. After all, hadn’t he earned it? Wasn’t it time he thought of himself, the dark place inside of himself said.

  Standing to combat the lethargy that gripped him, Wist took one step and then another, which brought him level with Tyla. The Lyrat was motionless. Wist had seen him at ease, and poised to do battle, but this vacancy in the Lyrat unsettled him. And the feeling within him grew. The need for isolation and abandonment of his cares threatened to take him. As he looked out to the distance, he recognised the source of his ill-feeling.

  It had been different the other times. When it had assailed them, he had either been petrified with fear, or he had erupted with an uncontrollable fury, but those had been direct assaults, definite and targeted strikes against his psyche. This was a subtler attack, but no less dangerous.

  Wist gazed out to the frozen sea for any sign of the impenetrable darkness that would warn of their approach. However, in the presence of the Ghria Duh, everything was lightless. How could he hope to identify the Waren, the animate darkness, in an obsidian world?

  But he could sense their approach. The hairs on his neck struggled to break through the encrusted dragon’s blood that refused to wash off.

  ‘They are coming,’ Wist said to Tyla, but the Lyrat didn’t reply.

  Where were they? He should call Enceladus, but then a new idea occurred to him. ‘Haumea,’ he bellowed, sloughing off some of the dread from his heart. ‘Haumea.’

  There was no answer, but after an eternity of silence, he heard Haumea’s uneven steps make their way towards him. He dragged his eyes from the front of the boat to see her approach. Her gait looked exaggerated, as if the effort of coming to him cost her dearly. The butt of her staff scraped along the ebony wood as she walked. The night’s air oppressed the sound.

  ‘Haumea,’ Wist breathed. ‘Can you feel it?’

  Haumea nodded. Her face looked thinner in her torchlight. The torch shook in her hand throwing what little of its light remained over Wist.

  ‘The Waren,’ Haumea said in a gasp. ‘They draw close.’

  This time it was Wist’s turn to nod. ‘I can’t see them,’ he said, gesturing out to the front of the ship, ‘can you?’

  ‘No, but it is so dark.’ Then she paused and ran a gnarled hand over her staff. ‘It is different up here.’

  Wist began to speak, about to agree with the Giantess, but then she said, ‘it was worse down below.’

  Worse?

  Wist cast his gaze out to the sea once more and then back to the ship. This time he looked past Haumea, to the edge of the lower deck. There, fingers of impenetrable darkness bled over the edge of the plane. Like a hand reaching to imprison them, they slid forward.

  He grabbed Haumea’s staff and thrust it before him. The Giantess made no effort to stop him and, robbed of the item, she lost her volition.

  ‘Back off,’ he shouted at the Waren, but the darkness kept coming. A needle-thin lance of fear penetrated his heart.

  ‘Back,’ he shouted again, like an impotent lion-tamer, but the fingers slid forward, growing bolder.

  Why wasn’t it working? The darkness surrounded them now. Wist could no longer see Tyla, and then Haumea started to fade from his vision.

  It was just him now, all alone in the dark with just a stick to cling to.

  ‘No!’ he shouted, but the tinder of his heart refused to catch the spark.

  His vision narrowed to a pinhead and his mind brought forth a face from his past. Memories of that face had threatened his sanity back on Pyrite. Autumn’s beautiful visage had unleashed the self-loathing he had kept buried in his heart, but he had salvaged a minor victory from the disaster in the cave below Dilsich. He knew now that his self-hatred and despair did not define who he was. So, he let the image of his lost lover fill his consciousness.

  Then, once more, he said, ‘No.’

  His voice was firm and resolute this time, not desperate or enraged, and as he spoke the word, his vision returned. The darkness was not gone; the Ghria Duh still burned in the sky, robbing them of the beneficent sunlight, but the creeping blackness had lifted from the deck.

  Tyla blinked and turned his face towards Wist. Haumea started as if she looked upon a ghost.

  ‘You...’ Haumea said and then began again. ‘You started to vanish.’

  Wist shook his head, but Tyla said, ‘I saw it also. The Waren reached out for you and you faded.’

  Wist shook his head once more trying to deny the Lyrat’s words, but how could he contradict them both? Instead of arguing he said, ‘Where are the others? Gather them here please.’ Tyla nodded and then went to obey. Haumea passed her torch to the Lyrat.

  The moon slipped out from behind a low cloud. Its argent reflection lay immobile on the unmoving vessel. Its fight against the Ghria Duh’s oppression should have given Wist hope, but its surreal image unsettled him.

  Wist blinked as Enceladus appeared with Sevika beside him. He hadn’t heard either of them approach, although he hadn’t been listening for them. A few seconds later, Tyla and the rest of his companions gathered around him.

 
‘Did you feel what happened there?’ said Wist.

  Wist noticed Oinoir avert his eyes from him, but Decheal nodded. ‘Yes. I was asleep, but when I awoke, I found that I could not see. Not at all. And my heart...It shames me to say that my heart quailed with the thought of being imprisoned on this boat for all time.

  ‘What happened?’ said Aviti, still looking exhausted. ‘I was also asleep.’ Wist examined her as she spoke.

  ‘Something happened whilst you were asleep, didn’t it?’ he said, noticing the discomfort in her eyes. The Masheshi woman bit her bottom lip and then nodded.

  ‘What was it Aviti?’ he asked after a few seconds of waiting.

  ‘I dreamed,’ said Aviti.

  ‘You dreamed?’ Wist frowned in confusion.

  ‘I dreamed,’ she repeated and Wist noticed the watery sheen in her eyes reflecting the moonlight. ‘I have not dreamed in such a long time; not since coming to Pyrite. I was so convinced that it was real that when Tyla woke me, I was ready to fight him.’ She still looked disorientated.

  Wist said, ‘We were attacked by the Waren again. When you and the others slept, it came upon us again.’

  ‘You were attacked,’ said Oinoir.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said.’

  ‘No, you said that we were attacked, but we were not. You were.’

  Wist thought about it for a second and then said, ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘What difference does it make anyway?’ said Oinoir. ‘It will come for us all eventually.’ Then he shrank back from the group.

  ‘What if it was my fault?’ said Aviti.

  ‘How could that be so?’ asked Haumea.

  ‘I dreamed of my father,’ she said, as if that explained her fears to the rest of them.

  ‘Why would that be significant?’ Haumea asked.

  ‘His spirit is trapped within the bond I forged with Tyla. I have committed a great wrong, a great sin, as my brother would have said. Is it not a black deed? Does it not betray the darkness in my heart? What if I am the lodestone to which the darkness is attracted? It would be better if I had not accompanied you. I bring disaster with me.’