by Coral Walker
Still sobbing deeply, she felt one of his arms wrapped around her shoulder, and the other wiping away her tears with deft strokes. Gently she was laid down on the hard ground. Something cold pressed against her chest as he listened attentively to her heartbeat. It was like the old days again — he was examining her.
“Brianna, Brianna. Don’t worry, I will take care of you,” he whispered softly into her ear.
Through her tears, he was all blurry, but his fair hair was shining — she hadn’t seen anyone with that kind of hair since she had come to this strange land — and his hand, resting on her forehead, was warm and reassuring.
She tried to smile but abandoned the attempt at the sight of stern-faced soldiers pressing in like looming walls, their swords clanking as they banged into each other’s armour.
To her utter bewilderment, Dr Pentland unwrapped his arm and rose to his feet. Casting her a swift and apologetic glance, he disappeared behind the wall of soldiers like a rabbit escaping back down its hole.
She struggled as a bird would, flailing its injured wings in the iron grip of an eagle. But it was hopeless; there were too many of them, and too many iron hands.
Before long, she was back on her feet, bound securely by the wrists and dragged by a long rope. Lord Shusha was waiting, standing like a dark statue with the giant man towering behind him. She was marched towards him. When the soldiers came to a halt, she was shoved forward.
He was right in front of her. With his hood back in place, he was again faceless. She saw the trembling of the hand and watched it clench into a fist. She reeled and almost fell when the fist hit her, but quickly recovered her balance. She felt the salty taste of blood as it coursed down along the line of her jaw.
“That was for the bite your friend gave me,” he said, in a quiet, soft voice.
His eyes fell upon the silver locket on her chest. Without warning, he seized it and wrenched it from her neck. She uttered a wild cry and thrust forward, her bound hands in the air. The forceful pull on the rope threw her violently to one side.
By the time she was on her feet again in the hands of the soldiers, Lord Shusha was riding down the sloping path with his giant servant following docilely behind. They shoved her roughly to get her to move and the rope was jerked again. For a brief moment she stood resisting the pull long enough to look in the direction of the cliff and to glimpse at the sky.
The overhanging rock pointing skyward like a sword and the sky was crystal clear. She seemed to see a lone flying shadow in the far distance, and her heart started to flutter wildly.
Could that be Yuna?
She wished. She wished hard as she trudged on.
15
Yellow Flower
Brianna had barely noticed the grassy hill they were approaching. She had long since lost her sense of direction and time, and her mind, bleary as it was, dwelt on thoughts of the pearl.
The dull silence of nothing-was-happening disquieted her like a buzzing fly. She yearned for a sign, some intuition. There was nothing but monotonous footfalls. She thought of Teilo, and her heart ached as she looked up at the sky, hoping in vain for a fleeting shadow or a pair of spreading wings — the sky was as dull as the pearl inside her. “Trust the pearl,” his voice echoed anew in her mind.
She trusted it now. She trusted it in all sincerity. Why was nothing happening?
The air became smoky. She had seen smouldering ruins along the way — hamlets and villages burned to rubble while the village folks, red-skinned Rioneans and blue-skinned Barans alike, watched and lamented. With her mind blurring, she traced the smoke, up the sweeping green slope to the cottage where plumes of smoke were billowing out. The two pale rocks by the doorway caught for attention, and her heart fell — Malalea’s cottage!
Hastily she searched for the woman with tree-bark skin, and her heart grew heavy with trepidation.
Her glance flitted to the side of the slope that led down to the thorny bramble-choked woods, and then she saw her. Bound to a thick post with coils of rope, she was surrounded by villagers, women and children mostly. Hawk-eyed soldiers with swords in their hands were on guard behind the crowd. Under their watchful eyes, children were piling up a pyre at Malalea’s feet, the older ones with thick twigs and branches and the younger ones with handfuls of hay and dry leaves. There were two grave-faced soldiers by Malalea’s side, one keeping a vigilant watch and the other holding a flaring torch above his shoulder, from which wisps of smoke danced and rose joining the gloomy cloud above.
A young girl in a skirt of rusty red uncurled her small hands and lingered to watch the leaves swirling down. Turning around she looked shocked to find she was the only child left in the clearing. Wasting no time, she ran to a woman, who threw her arms open to receive her. Lifting her up off her feet, she held the little girl close to her chest.
The two soldiers exchanged glances. One lowered the torch he was holding and inspected the pyre, while the other spoke to the downtrodden villagers.
Without her fully knowing what she was doing, Brianna kicked hard with her legs. The horse lurched forward throwing her violently backwards. In desperation she clung to the saddle with her bound hands.
Ahead of her, startled villagers and soldiers were scattering out of the way. The horse galloped wildly into them. Just as they were about to crash headlong into Malalea, Brianna jerked her body violently to one side and at once tumbled to the ground. The thundering hooves narrowly missed her and the horse, suddenly relieved of its load, leaped forward, brushed past Malalea and galloped through the astonished crowd.
She was dazed as she scrambled to her feet but lost no time in scrabbling her way towards Malalea. In a frenzy of despair, she hardly took any heed of the spiky twigs in the pyre that stabbed her hands and legs.
“Malalea, Malalea, Teilo ...” she sobbed, hands pulling on the thick ropes that bound Malalea’s body. “Tell me what to do, tell me what to do! I swallowed the pearl, but nothing happened.”
Malalea didn’t move, not even a glance.
She clung to Malalea’s stiff body and started wailing. “Maybe I am not the one. Teilo shouldn’t have trusted me! You shouldn’t have trusted me!”
A soft murmuring sound drifted down to her. “You are the one, Brianna. You have always been the one.”
She looked up, searching for a sign of acknowledgment. But Malalea held her head tall and straight, and not for one moment did she cast her a glance.
“It might take time, just wait and trust,” Malalea said without moving her head, and the deep lines of her face creased a little, as if concealing a smile.
“Wait ...” she exclaimed and looked around her for the first time. Stony-faced soldiers behind her were closing in like hunters. “Wait for what? For them to take me away? For them to burn you to death?”
“The darkness is coming, Brianna. It is coming fast. Be the hope, be Tyanna ...”
“Hope for what?”
“For the land of Taron.”
“How?”
Malalea’s lips pressed into a firm line. “Can you see the knife above my head?”
Bewildered she stretched her head and took a sharp breath as she caught sight of the black handle of a knife. By the way it stuck out, and the congealed blood on Malalea’s tousled silver hair, the sharp blade of the knife must be cutting through the crown of her head. No wonder she hadn’t even glanced at her — she couldn’t!
“Pull out the knife and kill me with it.” The words were spat out harshly like she had suddenly lost patience and wanted a swift end.
Brianna was shocked. For a while she stood with her back rigid and her mind blank. When her frightened eyes met Malalea’s calm gaze, she saw a dim glow in the woman’s bloodshot eyes.
“Sorry, Brianna, I didn’t trust you as much as I should have,” the woman said and her voice was no longer harsh, “You are one of us now. I am coming to an end, and you must take my power.”
Her face shuddered and now her voice was rasping with urgency. “Kil
l me. Stab the knife through my heart. Don’t let them burn me to death. When you stab the knife into my heart, you will receive my power. That’s how we Wona people pass our powers on. You should have my power and use it for the good of the land. Do it, Brianna. Do it now! Don’t hesitate!”
By now Brianna, sobbing and shaking, was in despair. Nevertheless, her bound hands inched upwards, touching the old woman’s wrinkled face as if they were under a strange spell while the old woman’s eager eyes followed their every move. At the touch of the cold hilt of the knife, her body woke all of a sudden to a raw and irrepressible sensation.
“No,” she shrieked, falling back.
The maddening silence that followed her cry almost deranged her. She looked around. Her eyes rolled frantically from one blank face to another, and her breath was broken into ragged gasps.
Were they crazy? How could they just stand there watching?
“The power will give you eyes to see things others cannot see, Brianna. It belongs to you.” Malalea’s imploring voice sounded aloof and distant.
She was on all fours when she scrambled off the pyre, and staggered into a run, passing wide-eyed women and children who hastened out of her way as if she were a dangerous beast.
Malalea’s harrowing cry sounded behind her, “Brianna, Brianna, come back!”
With the wind in her face, and the grass slippery under her feet, she kept going. The bramble-infested wood was a few yards away.
There came from behind the sound of fire crackling, the gasps of the crowd, and then cries, the hollow, heart-rending cries. How they pierced her ears and pierced her heart, crippling her with horror.
Malalea’s cries, they were Malalea’s cries — they were burning the woman alive.
The gap was just in front of her, leading into the gloomy wood where she had gone for two buckets of water. It felt like her only option and she plunged towards it.
A babel of bewildering noises held her back for only a split second — screaming, shouting and metal clanking against metal. But the cries, the ear-splitting cries that had resounded in the air a moment ago, fell silent.
Someone had killed Malalea to gather her power. Another Wona person?
Diving through the gap she ran.
Why should she care? She wanted nothing to do with it — she was an OUTSIDER!
She sped mindlessly on, oblivious to the thorny brambles and the prowling shadows of the wood. How she hated this place, the whole place, the whole doomed place! She would run and run until she died.
She halted all of a sudden.
It wasn’t the stream blocking the way. She would have continued regardless of it. If it carried her away and drowned her, then let it. It was her, standing in front of the burbling stream. Behind her, a deer-like beast was drinking the water.
“Malalea?” she gasped hoarsely.
She smiled, and her face creased more. “Malalea was my sister. I am Mala. I have just killed her,” she said in a soft, silky voice. The voice cracked a little when the word ‘killed’ tripped off her tongue, but she covered it up decently with a stoical grin. In her hand, she carried a small, delicate bow. She waved it in front of her eyes and added, “with this.”
She threw the bow to the ground. Alarmed, the deer creature lifted its long elegant neck.
“I have now gathered Malalea’s power and want you to receive it,” she said this in a neutral tone as if she were chatting calmly about giving away an unwanted jewel or a piece of old furniture.
In her confusion Brianna almost failed to understand what had been said, but then her uncertain glance alighted on the silver dagger that shimmered coldly with its slender blade and sharp point.
“There isn’t much time. Lord Shusha’s soldiers are coming now. I feel them.” The woman extended her hand forward and touched the dagger with the fingertips of her other hand, gently and tenderly like a mother stroking her baby.
“I have had it ever since I was born,” she continued with a vague smile. “Every Wona person has a dagger like this and carries it everywhere, preparing for the moment when their time arrives and they must give away their power.”
She gazed up with a strange gleam in her eyes. “It’s part of a Wona’s life, Brianna. Take it,” she said pushing the hilt of the dagger into her bound hands.
Unnerved by Mala’s words she felt her head reeling like in some mad dream, yet the cold hilt that now pressed against her palms chilled her and brought her back to reality. In a spellbound stupor, she watched the weather-worn hands as they manipulated her own and lifted them to chest level.
She breathed in short gasps, as if a horror movie were playing in front of her — whatever was happening she had no control. The dagger against her palms was cold and hard; before its sharp tip Mala’s chest rose and fell like the surface of a waving sea.
Tears trickled down her cheeks.
Mala gazed at them curiously and spared a hand momentarily to wipe them away. “Why cry, Brianna. I am to be free,” she said in a ringing tone, “Be sad for the people who live, not for the one who dies.”
“The massacre has started. We Wona people were blamed for the disappearance of Prince Marcus and Princess Zelda, and Lord Shusha wants to be rid of us all. Stay alive, Brianna, and stay strong. Gather as much power as you can and fight for the land of Taron.”
She took hold of Brianna’s hands again and moved them forward so that the knife’s tip rested on her chest. Her face glowed with an entrancing light, and for that moment the wrinkles seemed to be smoothed away and she looked young again. “You will have the seed of my power as well — to read people’s minds. It’s a hard one to learn, but a powerful one to use.”
A befuddled moment later Brianna found herself lying on top of the woman with furrowed skin. Blood was all over her. Mala was dead, sprawling with the dagger protruding starkly from her chest. Brianna screamed, but it was like in a vacuum — no matter how loud she screamed and screamed, she couldn’t hear a thing. It was so still, so bloodily still.
She scrambled on hands and feet, staggering to stand up, but slipped on the blood-spattered ground. The fast-flowing stream caught her eye. She stumbled towards it and thrust her blood-soaked arms into its cold current.
The water below her was disturbed. She saw a reflection among the ripples and was startled as the image came into focus. It was Malalea’s face gazing at her and smiling. Panting hoarsely, she stretched a hand towards it. But in a blink of an eye Malalea was gone. In her place her own blood-splotched face stared back.
The chirping of a bird caught her ear. Quivering, she looked over her shoulder. On a small twig of a large overhanging branch, a small golden bird was chirping vigorously. Responding to its impassioned call, another bird with the same golden wings joined it. They tweeted briefly together, side by side, then fluttered their wings and took to the air.
Had she imagined it? She looked around at the dead wood, wondering where they had flown to. Further down the stream, the chirping sound rose again. Then she saw them rapidly flapping their wings over the stream, twittering more before soaring up in a curved path and disappearing behind the tree tops.
+++
A tall soldier with long, brawny arms lifted her back onto the horse. The wind blew, she swayed as it buffeted her.
Her skirt was pulled. Drained and shattered she scarcely noticed. Then her bleary, downcast glance caught sight of a girl. It was the same little girl in the rusty red skirt who had scattered the last handful of leaves onto Malalea’s pyre. The girl smiled sweetly at her revealing her gapped teeth and in a surprising gesture held out in her hands a bunch of yellow flowers.
For a moment, she was baffled.
Abruptly the girl thrust the blossoms into her hands, turned and scurried back to the waiting villagers, vanishing amidst them. She felt the eyes of the villagers on her. Some looked glum, but others had subtler expressions, in which she saw an undamped spirit and good will.
Were they sad? They had built the fire with their own han
ds and witnessed Malalea’s death with their own eyes. What do they see in her? Another Malalea? The one! The one! Like they have been all talking about.
What is THE ONE?
With the dew on their petals, the yellow flowers in her hands glistened brightly. One of the dewdrops rolled down and fell onto the back of her hand. It tingled her skin before it fell. She followed it and her gaze slipped to the ground.
In front of her, all over the meadows, were the same flowers spreading to the horizon.
16
Scan
In silence, Lord Shusha watched while Dr Pentland examined her. He didn’t trust him.
Brianna was lying there as still as a statue. It reminded him of Tyanna in her last days withering away from the poisons. It was strange that both women even in their miserable decline should still arouse in him revulsion and fear. He had come to see it as part of the natural order. Just like a flower, no matter how beautiful and harmless it might look, the sharp thorns on its stem and even its petals can prick your hand and make it bleed.
For him, the prick could be deadly.
Through the screen, Dr Pentland was operating an odd looking machine he called a scanner. What a stupid name. It sounded like Skealar, a big-headed fish that lived in underground streams. Now the machine was manoeuvred to where Brianna was, lowered and stopped just above her torso. A screen appeared in the middle of the air.
Fancy that — that black box, though it looked ugly and dumb, could peek through her skin and flesh and render pictures of them onto the screen.
“It doesn’t use any magical power.” Peter Pentland exclaimed when he showed him the machine for the first time, brows lifted as if he had just asked a foolish question. It irked him to see someone raising their eyebrows in front of him — nobody did, not even the King. “It uses electricity.” Pentland was trying to baffle him with obscure terms as a way of justifying his eyebrow-lifting, or in other words, to demonstrate his stupidity.
