Children of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 1)

by T. Wyse

"Enough of that, you can come watch me beat Craig at chess, pretty exciting!" Wendy offered lukewarm tantalization.

  It managed to be somewhat less exciting than advertised.

  Craig and Wendy played a match of chess, with an admittedly quick pace. Amelie understood the game, at least on a cursory level, and followed the moves. It turned out that Wendy's sarcasm apparently carried over to her pre declaration of victory as Craig managed to beat her three out of four times.

  The pair playing on the board adjacent to them left and were not replaced. Amelie sat down and arranged the pieces back to standard order. For a brief moment a flash of mild guilt hit her, the thought that she had just reset a game meant to be carried over to another day. She however, noted that the black king had been removed from the board, and with relief placed him back upon his square of magnificence.

  E joined her, sitting across from her, watching each piece land on its designated square.

  "What, you want to play?" She asked the little girl with some sarcasm. E apparently ignored her tone however, and moved a pawn forwards.

  "Fine then." Amelie moved forth her black pawn. She really wasn't very good at the game herself, but it would serve as a distraction until... Well she was unsure exactly what she was killing time until. She wondered if she would have to lead E to her bed. Perhaps Craig or Wendy would know. E pointed at Amelie, a stern face. It was her turn, and she was daydreaming. Amelie moved a piece, halfheartedly.

  "Got a savant there, do you?" Craig's voice came from above E. "Well she's certainly getting the best of you." He grinned, unhelpfully.

  Amelie moved a few times, taking a few inconsequential white pieces from the board. The black pieces removed from the micro world piled up quickly, and finally, "And, check!" Craig declared in proxy for the little girl. E let out no sign of victory, or smug satisfaction, despite having beat Amelie soundly.

  Amelie set up the board again, intent on paying full attention this time. The game began, the game ended. "Alright that's enough of this." Amelie growled. Four shards of white waited in the war's purgatory, while a legion of black languished in defeat.

  She went to the shelves and rooted around. She discovered the most vapid board game she could find, one featuring a prominent bubble whose sphere imprisoned two dice. "This game, then." She declared, setting it down on a table awaiting guests.

  Craig and Wendy both joined in, along with the silent girl. Pegs representing people, or horses, or some such foolishness crisscrossed the board, arriving at their final destinations.

  "Well it's nice to see you're keeping her entertained at least." Melissan's voice relieved Amelie greatly. The girl seemed incredibly weary, in spirit more so than body, and she offered her hand to E, who took it quickly.

  "I guess she doesn't want to see me lose again." Amelie cut sarcastically. She was terribly unlucky with games of any sort.

  "Thanks for watching her." Melissan smiled, a little of the girl Amelie remembered shone through. Maybe it would be all okay...tomorrow, Amelie thought. Maybe rest would clear the weight upon her.

  Amelie opened her mouth to offer the expected reply, but her words were lost as Melissan turned and left immediately.

  "We're off to bed now too." Wendy yawned, tossing the pegs back into their homes inside the box.

  "See you tomorrow." Craig smiled, and left, placing the box back upon the shelf.

  Amelie sat there, head in her hands, moping about the day’s events, feeling the call of that rotating set of images waiting for her when she slept. Crow too lurked in the centre of that pen. Could she find the words to soften that resolve? The cloud peeled away her thoughtless fog and she realized her stupidity. She needed to be back in the tower, now, else the flapping concert playing for her would prevent the others from sleeping.

  Her body fueled by purpose, she made quickened footfalls beyond the locked doors, and fell beyond the curtain into her alcove.

  "What's it like, being God?" Amelie asked. She lay there, limbs singing their ever sore lullaby, yet her mind swam with worry. Even the sleeping clothes failed to tickle her skin now, and her oval scar now slept soundly without protest.

  "I wouldn't know." Came the crackled response from beyond her feet.

  "But you've said, 'Ushers are gods' or such, what was it like?" She asked, feeling put out that the clarification was necessary.

  "Ah, gods not God." He purred. "The distinction is important, you must understand. God is the profound, the unknowable. Ushers are mere guides looked to by humanity seeking to idolize, to sanctify.” The darkness purred.

  "Fine,” she grumbled. “But, what is it like?" she asked a third time, rubbing her eyes in annoyance. The portrait of stars had been hidden behind the slipping veil of the crows, leaving nothing but the tiniest set of coloured squares above.

  "It is heavy, though also full of joy. There was much to be done, much to secure. It was always a balanced force, to help, to hinder. To judge, to battle."

  "What about the dark place, with the crest?" She asked, sleepily. "That must have been interesting at least."

  "Interesting...everything is interesting." He said, pensive. "The judgment of the spirit is one of the most profound, yet sad, things I have ever known. To understand 'what it was like' you must meditate upon the duality of everything. There is no life purely without joy, nor one lacking in misery. No human spirit, even the noblest, is without doubts, without subtle crimes to them. When they are bared, when they are judged, it is utterly raw, utterly grotesque. Yet when a soul lies bared, it is also the most beautiful thing I have ever known." His voice cracked, longingly.

  "Being an Usher, can seem wonderful, it can seem terrible too. Mortals think of immortality as a gift, but fail to see that it is also damnation of the most brutal kind. I have danced among the stars, feasted on things mortal minds couldn't even imagine, I have seen the world change many times. I have seen my people's joy, and their fear. I've sampled the bounty and famine, shone my light on them in the darkest night, and stood aside smiling proudly in their highest triumph."

  "What was Enut like then, as a person?" Amelie asked, her eyes closed.

  "It's hard to remember, really." He said, sadly.

  “But again, I mean, you’ve told me your myths and stories, but that doesn’t tell me who he was. You must remember that, must feel it somewhere?” she insisted.

  "I don't." His sadness more pronounced. "For all our power, we simply do not have the memory of perfection. You don't remember being a baby, learning to crawl, learning to walk?"

  "No." It seemed like an eternity ago, it might as well have been a century in her past.

  "It's something like that. I can remember the vagaries, I remember Enut leading them, going to war. I can recall some of his larger triumphs, the battles, sacrifices in thanks to the gods." He chuckled at the thought. “Yet I cannot sample the sweetness of the victories, or truly feel the whole of the sorrow as his people died around him.”

  "What about his family?" Amelie said, her voice barely audible.

  "He...he wasn't that type of man. Family was a different thing in ancient times." The voice sighed. "I'll speak no more, rest tonight." He ordered, the sadness taking him into the darkness.

  And she too sank into the darkness, a jingling tint of fear ringing a warning bell as the dark warmth embraced her.

  A sense of muggy darkness, of white walls shifting into view and her hands raising up, and then her eyes tore open.

  Something was wrong, very wrong. Sitting up in bed, she turned the blue lantern on, and left the curtained cubicle.

  Her eyes shot around the room, terrified, expecting some sinister visitor, some ugly monster. She strained against the darkness, forcing her frustrated vision of the wind against the hazy spheroid. Nothing. She swung the lamp, trying to illuminate whatever shape lurked beyond her vision.

  Then she listened, desperate, the clicking of her eyes as they blinked the only sound against the utterly silent night, her breath held still.

&nb
sp; She realized that it had been the sound, the legion of flapping wings stopping suddenly. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered, shaking the bed near the sleeping cat. “The crows are gone. Something’s happening!”

  "It's alright, just go b—” His ear twitched suddenly, and his glowing eyes shot open, wide with surreal red light. He scrambled off the bed, and prowled forward, carefully.

  Amelie paced towards the south side of the tower, then to the north, swinging her lantern and checking behind every few steps.

  "Nothing's here, but I feel something, a presence." He declared. "Do you see something?"

  Indeed she did. "There's a big...white dog or something." She declared, looking down, trying to understand what she was looking at exactly. "It's funny, it's sort of glowing, but grayish. The crows, they're all looking at it, they're circled around it." The legion of blackened winged things stood glaring at the beast, their numbers stretched out in a plane beyond the light it was shedding.

  Kokopelli reached her and slipped along the floor on his belly, like some silly sea otter attempting to creep up on another to pounce. The second his shagged face reached the window, the dog's face shot up, glaring at them.

  "That's a wolf. Not a normal wolf either." His voice was filled with an oppressive dread.

  "Oh really, the glowing would have tipped me off." She declared sarcastically. "Is he an Aspect, then?" She asked.

  "No, no." He said, the fact that he ignored her sarcasm worried her a little. "Not an Usher, either. Not entirely." His fur shuddered. "Wolf represents something uglier, something primal even in Enut's time. I've met him before, and he is a mercilessly brutal creature."

  "The crows seem to agree with you." She said. The wolf snapped with irritation at the crows, gnashing and dancing wildly. The circle seemed to wobble with his movements, keeping just far enough away from the beast.

  "Why are they so interested in him?" She asked, not taking her eyes off of the somewhat silly scene below.

  "He is old, powerful. His flesh and blood would convey a sacrifice greater than yours I would think," the creature beside her crackled.

  "Then why aren't they flying, swarming him?" She asked, confused.

  "Give them some time. At the moment they are simply fascinated by him, they are trying to discern weather he is something they want or not." He purred.

  "Oop, looks like he got some." Amelie applauded, the wolf snapped up three of them in his great jaws. Silvered blood splattered upon the earth. This act seemed to make the swarm's decision for it, and they reared up in flight, coiling upwards like a great snake. The head of the serpent curled downwards, towards the white morsel.

  "Oh, he's not going to like that. Neither are they." Kokopelli let out a crackled chuckle. "Ooh." She could almost hear him wince as they descended onto the great beast.

  A raged snarl erupted from the bestial wolf. It was so intense, so loud and booming that the mosaic panes of the tower around her rumbled. The black legion enveloped him for a moment. Amelie watched with paused breath. A white figure tore through them, a geyser of silver erupting in all directions. The ribbon tore, peeling outwards in a chaotic motion, the movement of the lower body of the snake retained its inertia.

  The wolf darted about with astounding agility. It tore at the fleeing ribbons, ripping into the body of the great snaking form and emerging through the other side.

  The assault seemed to simply reinforce their numbers, and the snaking legion grew in width, and ferocity. Their intent was met tenfold with ripping tearing of claws and fangs.

  Through the carnage, a simple realization crossed her mind. “Wolf”, it was the creature’s name, just as she had known the Terror of Night. The silvered explosions continued as she pondered it a moment, exploring the feeling, the fog apparently absent in this lingering and precious moment.

  Finally, the crows made an uncharacteristic explosion outwards, their enraged cawing cursed Wolf as they disappeared into the night. Wolf alone, remained there, standing in a lake of silver reflecting the stars above.

  Not ‘a crow’ but ‘Crow’. A title, a name with meaning beyond the mere syllables. She attempted to push into that feeling of depth of meaning, but finally that prohibiting fog caught up with her, the ringing echoing in her skull.

  "Did he kill it?" Amelie asked hopeful. She abandoned her musings, but reveled in the realization.

  "No." Kokopelli replied. "They realized they couldn't win an—"

  "PLAY." The great wolf roared.

  Kokopelli stuttered back, stunned. Amelie's eyes shot from her small guardian, who seemed laughably unassuming compared to the might of the beast below.

  "PLAY!" The command repeated, shaking the panes of glass once again. Kokopelli withdrew further. "PLAY, OR I WILL FIND A WAY TO YOU, LITTLE NEWT." The beast finished.

  “Close your light, and promise not to look.” The shagged cat trotted back.

  “I, okay.” The shimmering blue faded.

  “Promise.”

  “I won’t look. I’ll try. I promise.” She nodded, focusing on the scene below.

  Kokopelli’s form shuddered on the wind, forming into that chaotic cloud a moment, and then into a more assured shape. She shut her eyes tight and felt the blood rushing in her ears as she pushed her sight of the wind inward.

  The music cut through the rushing of blood, and it weakened her resolve enough that she began breathing again, and relaxed her eyes. The far-off flute once again sang its song, just as it had a lifetime ago in the house of the Gardeners. This time however, she knew it, she understood its form and purpose. It sang and tasted like those beams of gold striking against the sky, a piece of the world becoming whole once more, though the song was tinny, the melody faded and old.

  Amelie’s eyes relaxed and the music soothed the moment’s fear. Without any melody or notes she could recognize or process it sang to her with the feeling of colours and emotion linked.

  The music conveyed images, of grassy fields, of forests. They grew, languishing, growing fat and content in heat. They browned, yellowed, slowed. They slept, covered in blankets of white, listening to the silence of the world. Finally they budded, they sprouted, they began anew, they lived once more.

  She opened her eyes again, the music now complete. She looked to the ground below, the silvered lake having been fully absorbed into the soil. Shockingly though, there was a second figure below. It was a figure of a young man, his features were indistinguishable, but he gave relative size to the wolf; it must have been as large as a horse, or perhaps her mind simply played tricks on her.

  "That boy, he wasn't there before." She said, stating the obvious to the little creature, hoping for some more profound answer.

  "No, he wasn't."

  Her gaze snapped back to the boy, and somewhere in the depths of her core, something sang to her. A far-off rhythm flowed in him, a lingering aura of a song that whispered faintly of kinship.

  "Is he...like me? Are they like us?" She asked. "The wolf seems to be his companion, at least as much as you are to me." She said, bitingly. The boy looked up at her, and gave a brisk wave.

  "He is like you, but very different," Kokopelli answered. “I’m sure if cut he will heal, and he feels things that others do not, but your journeys are worlds apart.”

  "Maybe I could get down, talk to him!" She declared, returning the boy's wave. "The crows are gone, right?" She said excitedly at the cat, not waiting for a reply she started towards the stairs. The boy had begun to leave, into the night, the wolf following with wide and slow steps.

  "Wait!" She screamed, knowing it was impossible that he would hear her. "Wait..." She trailed off, then surrendered to the fact that he was gone. She wasn't sure why she was so excited by the thought of talking to him, wasn't entirely sure what she would have said. She felt somewhat foolish for her lack of planning.

  "Why did he leave, doesn't he know he's like me?" She asked, sitting down beside the cat, looking out into the lonely night.

  "He walks his o
wn path." Kokopelli purred. "It's best you two don't meet."

  "Why?" She scowled, turning to her guardian.

  "I...can't explain." He answered.

  "What, I need to make a fourth sacrifice then?" She demanded, scratching at the soft ache in her arm.

  "No fourth sacrifice, no. There are simply some lines I cannot cross. I promised your father such." He said, regret in his voice. "You may heal, you may return to life while the season reigns, but to one such as him, you are as mortal as any other day. And he to you."

  "So he can kill me. So what?" She declared angrily. "I lived a long time in a world where people could kill me, and they didn't, did they?" Could they have, Amelie wondered. She couldn't remember any cut that had scarred, any wound that hadn't healed to a flawless degree. Were Kokopelli's words simply meant to frighten her?

  "It is my duty to protect you as best I can." Kokopelli declared, snapping her out of her pensive search of her past. "You do, however, have free reign. If you wish to leave into the night after him, I will follow you."

  "Just because he can kill me, doesn't mean he will." She replied. Even if it was true, she couldn't imagine someone being so brutal.

  "Isn't it enough, to avoid that circumstance?"

  "No. Not for normal, sane people." She realized the foolishness of the statement. She was conversing with the faded remnant of some nigh forgot trickster god, or Usher, and was scolding him on what sanity was.

  "Trust is secondary to safety. It is a lesson I have learned over time." He said, the slightest moroseness betrayed in his purred voice.

  She felt bad, and stroked his head gently, scratching his silly lop ears. Did he feel safe now? The thought of whatever price he paid for all of this had never once crossed her mind.

  "Well I for one am going back to bed, and I'm going to enjoy another fantastic crow-free night." She declared, taking her lamp and returning to the comfort of her bed.

  She sunk into her bed and continued sinking into the darkness, not a single wing haunting her as she fell.

  15

  Another Day