by Troy Denning
Again Seema took the hands of Yago and Rishi. "You will see many strange things," she told them. "Do not release my hand, or you will be lost."
Seema stepped through the portal. The blue light began to swirl and eddy around her, and her movements grew smooth and slow. Rishi gulped down a deep breath and followed, but Yago stopped at the door and stared wide into the whirling radiance.
Seema said something that did not pass the portal, then opened her mouth wide and drew in a deep breath. A moment later, she exhaled, sending little eddies of current swirling away from her face. She smiled and pulled the ogre's hand. Yago took a deep breath and allowed himself to be drawn forward. As they passed through the door, Atreus felt liquid pressure all around him. The watery warmth made his burns itch, and he watched from somewhere outside himself as his mouth opened to groan. His heart began to pound in fear, but the strange fluid that rushed down into his lungs could not have been water. Instead of coughing or choking, he merely moaned. It was a strange, gurgling sound that reminded him of the chortling call of flying cranes.
They seemed to be in some sort of strange underwater labyrinth made of undulating weeds and rocky ledges, with no surface that Atreus could see. Seema started forward, leading the way across the sandy bottom as though she had walked the maze a thousand times. Atreus did not even try to keep track of their route. The agony caused by the warm water more than bridged the gap between his body and spirit. He could think of nothing but his anguish, so it was enough for him that they seemed to be heading uphill.
After a time, they climbed high enough that they began to see the crests of the maze walls looming above their heads. There were fish up there, swimming back and forth and gobbling each other up as only fish can do, but none of them ever seemed to drift down into the corridors of the watery labyrinth. Atreus thought this strange, until Yago finally broke the surface and emerged into the scorching hot air.
Atreus's body erupted into such anguish that he could no longer tell whether he was above it or in it. He simply opened his mouth and let out a bellow that sent the air-swimming fish wiggling off into the distant corners of the atmosphere. After that, he lost all track of his surroundings. He barely noticed the pools of burning water in which Seema cooled his wounds, or the billowing thunderclouds that rolled along the floor and stabbed up into the darkness with bolts of lightning, or the constant tolling of the wind chimes in the still hot air. All these, Atreus dismissed as fever delirium, so when they stepped through a dark portal and found themselves standing on a rocky ledge two miles above the floor of a broad, verdant basin, his first thought was that he was still hallucinating.
A gentle drizzle was wafting down from a mottled blue sky that might have been ice as easily as clouds. The first shadows of purple twilight were stealing down the sheer faces of the basin's granite walls. Here and there, a tongue of blue ice hung high on a cliff, creeping out from beneath the edges of the blotchy sky to send a long horsetail waterfall cascading toward the valley floor. The silvery ribbons turned to mist after a thousand feet or so, vanishing into the empty air long before they reached the slopes at the base of the cliffs.
The slopes themselves were mottled in deep woods and emerald meadows, flecked with thatch-roofed hamlets and crude stock sheds. A glistening web of narrow streams spilled down into the center of the valley, where a broad clear river meandered through several miles of neat green barley fields, disappearing over the edge of the basin into a deep, vast valley beyond.
"Welcome to my home," Seema said, at last releasing the hands of her companions. "Welcome to Langdarma."
This was too much for Atreus. Too weary and pained to rejoice, he simply allowed himself to believe what he saw, to accept the truth of Seema's words and not consider their implications, to embrace the lushness and the warmth of the place and not question whether it was real or hallucination.
He experienced a strange calm then, a peace that flowed up and through him, connecting him to the beauty below in some enigmatic way he could never understand. He felt himself return to his anguished body. His pain washed over him like running water, sank into his flesh like the bright warmth of the sun and filled his chest like salty sea air. This time he did not fight it. He embraced his agony as a part of himself, welcomed it as the scream of life still raging strong inside him, and then he felt the fear leave. His body released its hold on his spirit, now confident that he would not allow the pain to chase him away, and he saw the clouds of oblivion rise up to carry him into the world of numbness and rest.
Later, Atreus's slumber was invaded by a male voice much too dulcet to belong to his companions. For a time, he dreamed that he was back in the Church of Beauty, listening to a perfectly pitched tenor sing the goddess's praises. Never had he heard such a pure sound, untainted by the slightest tinge of coarseness or the faintest hint of hollowness. It was as lyrical as silk and smooth as a poem, and Atreus felt blessed just to hear it in a dream.
As Atreus grew aware of the bitter reek of a butter lamp, he began to realize he was not dreaming. The voice was real, coming from someplace down beyond his feet. Seema was answering, apprehensive and apologetic, her own sweet voice sounding twittery and flutey by comparison. As Atreus struggled to wakefulness, his pain began to return, though not as terrible as before. He could feel a piece of chiffon covering the burns on his upper body, and Seema's warm hand was smearing a watery ointment over his raw and naked legs.
An embarrassing thought flashed through Atreus's mind, snapping him instantly to full consciousness. His eyes popped open, and he found himself staring at the ceiling planks of a small stone hut. He was lying on a straw-covered pallet, with a flickering butter lamp resting on a rough-hewn table beside him. The room was remarkably warm, at least compared to the snow caves in which they had been sleeping the last few nights, and he could hear a fire crackling in a hearth somewhere nearby.
Atreus raised his head and glanced down the length of his body, discovering that his worst fears were true. He lay hideously naked from the waist down, with his scorched flesh and broken leg, crooked hips and ugly ogre-like loins fully exposed. Nor did he have any illusions about who had removed the remnants of his trousers, as Seema was rubbing her ointment onto a burn higher on his thigh than any female hand had ever touched before. He found himself suddenly thankful for his pain. It was probably the only thing that saved him from an even greater embarrassment.
Seema turned to look at him and said softly, "You are awake." If his grotesque nakedness caused her any discomfort, she did not show it. "I hope it is not because I am hurting you."
Atreus shook his head and started to say, "I heard a…" He did not want to call what he had heard a mere voice. He shook his head, then finally said, "I guess it was a song. I must have been dreaming."
"It was not a song, or a dream," said a male voice, the same dulcet voice that Atreus had heard earlier. "Though I thank you for thinking so."
A milky-skinned man with a slender build and the appearance of youthful vigor stepped into view. Wearing nothing but a white cotton sarong draped around his hips, he was dressed almost as immodestly as Atreus, though he was immeasurably more handsome, with cascading silver hair and piercing silver eyes that riveted the observer in place. Nor were his stunning good looks the most striking thing about him, for a huge pair of feathery white wings arched up behind his shoulders, creating a sort of pearly halo that followed him wherever he went
Atreus let his head drop back to the pallet, convinced that he was looking at one of Sune's divine seraphs.
"I must be dead."
"Do not say such things!" said Seema. She stood and stared at Atreus as though he had uttered a blasphemy. "Not in front of the sannyasi!"
"Atreus is not to blame. He is only speaking what he believes to be so," said the sannyasi, who motioned Seema not to be angry, then came to the sleeping pallet and lowered his hand as though to touch Atreus's sloping forehead. "May I?"
Atreus nodded, and the sannyasi placed a mil
ky palm on his brow. At first, it felt cool and soothing. Then Atreus's scorched flesh began to sting again. His broken leg started to throb, and the throbbing worked its way up his leg into his hip. The tingling in his burns seeped deep down through his muscles into his blood and turned his veins into channels of boiling fire, and the searing heat began to rush up through his body toward the sannyasi's hand.
All of Atreus's pain reached his neck at once, filling him with such a fiery agony that he thought his throat would open like a boiled sausage. He screamed and thrashed at the sides of his pallet and reached up to tear the hand from his brow.
The sannyasi's palm remained in place, holding Atreus down as firmly as it did gently, and even all of Atreus's anguish-borne strength could not tear the milky hand from his brow. For a moment, his head hurt as it had never hurt before. His ears ached with the roar of a thousand thunderclaps, his nostrils burned with lava, and his eyes felt like they were melting. His brains boiled inside his skull, and his ears roared with the hiss of escaping steam, then the pain vanished, evaporating through the thick bone of his brow.
Without being aware that he had closed them, Atreus opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the sannyasi. Now, the milky face looked as old as the mountains themselves. His lips were drawn tight and his brow was furrowed, and Atreus saw in his expression all the pain that had been drawn from his own body.
Before Atreus could thank the sannyasi, Yago and Rishi rushed through the door, the ogre's broad shoulders tearing out the door jambs and a fair section of stone wall. As soon as they saw the white-winged figure standing over Atreus, their mouths fell open in astonishment Rishi stopped to stare in gape-mouthed wonder. Yago crossed the floor in a single thundering step and grabbed a feathery wing.
"What you doing?" he said. The ogre drew himself up to his full height, knocking two ceiling planks out of the roof, and tried to pull the sannyasi off the floor.
He might as well have tried to lift a mountain. The sannyasi remained firmly planted on the rough-hewn planks, and nothing, not so much as a wing feather, yielded to the ogre's strength.
Yago scowled, then responded as ogres do to unexplained things, by trying to smash it with his fist.
The blow would have caved in the head of any man, but the sannyasi did not even flinch. Yago howled in pain and clutched the offending hand. Rishi's eyes grew wide and round, and he rushed from the room making occult signs and jabbering in Maran.
Atreus scowled at his friend. "Yago!" he shouted. "what are you doing?"
"Me?" the ogre boomed. The way you screamed, I thought he was tearing your guts out."
The Sannyasi turned to Yago. "Do not be angry with your son," he said. "He was in terrible pain."
Yago looked horrified. "Son?"
The Sannyasi motioned at Atreus and said, "Your son Atreus. He will recover soon." Oblivious to the insult he had just inflicted on the ogre, the Sannyasi turned to Seema. "Now you see what comes with strangers. You have brought violence and anger into our midst"
"It's not Seema's fault," Atreus said, propping himself up "She was only trying to save-"
"Of course," interrupted the Sannyasi, "but it is not permitted to bring strangers into Langdarma."
Atreus's jaw fell, and he wondered if he remained in the grip of his fever delirium. Certainly, the Sannyasi looked more like a hallucination than a real being, and refused to believe that Seema had lied to him about Langdarma being a myth.
After a moment, Seema said in a quiet voice. I had no choice but to bring them. They were in terrible danger, and to leave them behind would have been murder."
The Sannyasi considered this, then reluctantly nodded "If that is true, letting them die would have been a terrible stain on your soul, but you are still to blame." His white wings began to flutter ever so slightly. He gestured at Atreus and Yago and said, "This is what comes of visiting the outside world. You cannot escape its taint"
Seema lifted her chin. "Would my soul have been any less tainted had 1 not tried to save Jalil?" she asked.
The Sannyasi's milky face grew sad. "Even here," he replied, "death is the inevitable consequence of life."
"Jalil was a child!" Seema protested, shaking her head. "His time should not have come for many years."
"And you know this how?"
"By the pain in my heart"
"Ahh… then your heart has misled you." The Sannyasi's pure voice grew sterner as he continued, "It is not for you to say who will live any more than it is for you to say who will die. You left the valley to find a cure, and Jalil died anyway. The wisdom of a healer lies in knowing what can be changed and what cannot. To claim more is to usurp the powers of the Serene Ones."
Seema's expression grew apprehensive. "That was not my intention," she said.
"But that was the result," the Sannyasi said, then took Seema's shoulders and pulled her close, folding her inside his wings. "Seema Indrani, your vanity has cast a shadow on your soul and brought anger and violence into Langdarma. Your magic has become a burden you can no longer bear. I free you of it"
When the Sannyasi opened his wings, Seema looked weary and dejected. Without raising her gaze, she nodded and stepped back.
"As you will have it, Sannyasi," she said.
"No!" Atreus exclaimed, sitting up and facing the Sannyasi. "She did nothing wrong. You can't punish Seema for saving us."
The Sannyasi gently pushed Atreus back down and said, "I am not punishing her. Until Seema lifts the shadow on her soul, her magic is only a trap. It will poison her thoughts with vanity and folly, and she will bring more wickedness down on us all." The Sannyasi turned to Seema will watch over Atreus and his companions during their stay in Langdarma. If they do no harm and come to none themselves, your magic will return."
Seema bowed her head.
"Your wisdom shines like the sky, Sannyasi."
The Sannyasi smiled benignly, turned to Atreus, and said, "You and your friends may rest in Langdarma until you are well enough to travel. I ask only that you observe our customs, and that you speak no angry words inside Langdarma."
Atreus nodded.
The Sannyasi folded his wings tightly behind his shoulders. This will be difficult for you, but I know you will try." His silver eyes softened. He leaned down to touch Atreus's shoulders and continued, "And I am sorry for the grief you will feel after you leave."
"What grief?" Yago demanded from the corner.
"You will be tormented by the memory of paradise," the Sannyasi answered, continuing to look at Atreus. "There is nothing I can do to ease this burden."
"I wouldn't want you to," said Atreus. "Better to have the memory than nothing at all."
"You will come to think differently." The Sannyasi shook his head sadly, then laid his milky palm over Atreus's eyes. Now sleep. You must rest if you are to heal."
Atreus could not have disobeyed if he wanted to. Even before the sentence was finished, the Sannyasi's dulcet voice had lulled him into a dreamless trance. Atreus's eyelids fell, his breathing slowed, and he sank into a deep, vitalizing slumber.
Atreus passed the next three days on that same sleeping pallet, staring up at the plank ceiling or gazing out through the window at an unchanging panorama of looming cliffs and forested hills. Every morning he was awakened by the sound of groaning yaks and clanging bells as the herders drove their beasts out to pasture, and every evening he was lulled to sleep by laughing voices as they returned. During the day, he occasionally heard someone talking out in the street, though his window faced the wrong way for him to see who they were. Seema came five times a day to feed him and change his bandages. Though she often lingered longer than necessary, Atreus found it difficult to make conversation, feeling at once guilty about her sacrifices on his behalf and angry with her for deceiving him about Langdarma's existence.
At Atreus's insistence, Yago and Rishi spent most of their time touring the wonders of the valley, returning each evening so weary they barely had the energy to describe their a
dventures. The explorations seemed to take a heavy toll on Yago especially, as Langdarma's customary fare of grains, legumes, and yak cheese were poor substitutes for charred meat and sour mead. Although the ogre could easily have supplemented his diet with a few rabbits or deer, he observed his promise to the Sannyasi and refrained from hunting anything more lively than blackberries. Rishi also seemed to honor the hospitality of their hosts, if only because the people of Langdarma lived very simply and had nothing to steal.
On the fourth day, Atreus was strong enough to move out onto a small wooden balcony overlooking the tiny hamlet where Seema made her home. From his chair, he could look out across the stone huts down to the meadows where the villagers grazed their yaks and the terraced slopes where they grew their peas and beans. A small gully curled around below the terraces, marking the boundary between the village lands and the forested slope that led down to the stone-walled fields in the basin's fertile bottomland.
Late in the afternoon, Atreus was staring out across the fields, trying to imagine where he might find the Fountain of Infinite Grace, when Seema came out and sat beside him. She was carrying no food or bandages, and her manner was unusually reserved. For a long time she simply sat there and followed his gaze across the valley until he grew — nervous and began to imagine she had somehow sensed what he was searching for.
When she finally spoke, it was without looking at him.
"Truly it is a miracle how just sitting and gazing out at Langdarma can heal one's soul. I was hoping it might also heal what has come between us."
The comment itself did not surprise Atreus nearly so much as his reaction to it. He suddenly felt bitter and resentful, and he heard himself say, "That is a strange thing hear from someone who tried to convince me Langdarma does not exist"
Seema recoiled from the acid in his voice, and said, "Did you not promise the Sannyasi you would speak no angry words here?"
