by Dan O'Brien
“The Temple carries darkness, E’Malkai of the South,” spoke the white hunter. The use of his name brought a smile to the youth’s face.
He abhorred being referred to as something that he believed he was not. “It is that very darkness that I speak of, Arile of the Re’klu’hereun,” returned E’Malkai with a dismal smile.
The White One shrugged.
Arile moved closer to the entrance and extended his hand out as E’Malkai had when he attacked the Umordoc. The youth closed his eyes, recalling the power that had surged over him. He felt as if he had little control over it, that soon it would consume him as it had consumed his uncle.
The white hunter searched the wind for answers. He tilted his head as his hand swiveled. Mete and Arivene stood in silence, both staring at the ice beneath them.
“It is empty,” Arile spoke.
E’Malkai’s wraps hid the confusion and surprise on his face. “What do you mean it is empty? I thought this was the final resting place of the guides and warriors of the tundra?”
Arile continued to reach with his outstretched hands, his eyes fluttering beneath his eyelids. “Once this place was teeming with spirits and darkness, but now I cannot hear them. The Temple runs deep into the earth. That is where the darkness must have receded to as well.”
“What darkness? What voices?”
There was frustration in the youth’s voice.
The white hunter’s eyes snapped open and he pulled his arm back to his side. “There is something different here now. It has been some time since I have felt the winds of the Temple. There were voices that screamed, darkness that writhed in the very fabric of the winds.”
E’Malkai moved in front of the warrior and placed his hands on the white hunter’s shoulders. “What are you talking about? What did the winds say to you?”
There was a quiet intensity in the eyes of the White One. Red vines seeped through the whites of his eyes as he spoke. “They speak of the coming of the Ai’mun’hereun and of the Final War. They say that they are expecting you, E’Malkai of the South.”
E’Malkai let the hunter go.
His eyes were wide as he backed away. He turned to the dark mouth of the Temple’s entrance, staring. His eyes were transfixed, his mind reeling at the words. They are waiting for me. He tried to put the words out of his mind.
Culouth would soon wash over Illigard and the forces led by his friends and family. If he could not complete his journey, his pilgrimage to the Shaman, they would fade into ash.
“Arile, you must get to the Utiakth. The Fallen cannot do this alone. I have foreseen them fighting side by side in the Final War,” called the youth over his shoulder.
Arile stared at the Temple and nodded.
His haggard features were focused.
“As you wish, my Ai’mun’hereun.”
E’Malkai nodded.
He had to learn to believe that he was what they wished him to be, or soon more would die because of his inaction. His childish insecurity kept him from accepting something that each day became more apparent to those around him.
Arile turned and disappeared, blending into the ice and snow of the Barren Maiden. Mete and Arivene watched the white hunter go without another word. Their languid gaze followed the hunter as he disappeared into the wintry mist that had settled in their travels. Mete shrugged again, the turn of his mighty shoulders and back resituated the leather straps.
They waited uncomfortably as the youth watched the entrance without movement. His arms were flat at his side, head pointed forward. As he moved toward the entrance they followed, ice and snow crushing underfoot.
As E’Malkai entered, he felt the warmth of the place immediately. He scanned the chamber in which they stood. Turing back to Mete and Arivene as they entered, he lifted his hand to stop them.
It was too late.
The entrance closed.
A metallic slab sealed them in.
The control panel to the right of the door blinked to red. The siblings looked around in fear. Arivene drew a pair of blades and turned to the door with a panicked sound. Her brother pulled free a gargantuan axe from his back and slung the reins of the tow pack aside. “What is this wizardry?” called Mete as he looked all around the room.
In the four corners were gargoyles, arcane statues depicting creatures of a forgotten world. E’Malkai shook his head as he pulled the wraps from his face. The air on his pores felt nice. “Put your weapons down. There is nothing mystical about what has happened here,” spoke E’Malkai as he made a lowering gesture with his hands.
Arivene tucked the blades back within her cloaks.
“What is this place?”
“This is your Temple of the Ancients,” replied E’Malkai as he moved toward the opposite end of the mammoth hall within which they had found themselves. There was a thin hall that led deeper into the place, and another panel protruded from the right side of the wall: a green light illuminated the steel.
Mete strapped the axe back along the sling on his shoulders and crunched his knuckles against one another. “But what is this place?” he called.
E’Malkai turned and smiled broadly. “This is a space vessel, and a large one at that. From what I can tell, it has been here for some time. I cannot explain why the front bay door was open. That seems rather ominous.”
Arivene shook her head and stepped forward.
Her boots clicked on the slick surface of the docking bay.
“A space vessel, from the sky?”
E’Malkai looked around, craning his neck as he surveyed the walls. “It might be from this planet. It has been here for some time. The fact that the systems are still running is certainly anomalous. I am not sure if this old thing can be moved.”
“Moved?” called Mete. “You mean this thing can fly?”
E’Malkai sighed.
He was allowing his imagination to get away from him. “Might not have her wings anymore, having been trapped in the tundra for so long. But, we came here to search the Temple and that is what we are going to do. If this is a space vessel, as I believe it to be, then there is a control room around here somewhere. And that shall give me the answers I need.”
E’Malkai turned and moved down the narrow hallway, gray doors littered on either side. The language scrawled on the door was an archaic Culouth dialect, just like the language of the ancient texts about which Mihen was so curious.
Mete and Arivene followed closely behind him.
The darkened hallway ended with a clear tube with yet another panel at its side. This one had a keypad on its face adorned with symbols, numerical lettering that was vaguely Culouth. Ticks and marks enumerated the functions of the lift; the cylindrical tube had a pixelated floor.
E’Malkai touched the clear material and it slid aside.
The platform was lit from underneath, giving the floor the appearance of glowing. “Seems as if we are going down,” mused E’Malkai as he stepped forward. Turning to the two Fallen siblings, they were still outside the breadth of the tube. “Are you two coming?”
They looked at him as if he was asking them to walk into the very depths of the underworld. “You want us to get on that?” Arivene called weakly.
E’Malkai nodded. “We have these back in Culouth. As long as the generators are still functioning we have nothing to worry about,” he replied with a knowing tilt of his head.
Mete did not seem convinced by his words. “I do not think we should go, my Ai’mun’hereun. This is a holy place. It is not our place to walk within it walls so easily.”
Arivene nodded, craning her neck to see the depth of the blackness that lurked beneath the elevator. “I agree with Mete, we can wait here for you.”
E’Malkai did not wish to argue with them; strangely, he understood their hesitation. He would not just dive into something he did not understand, but he knew machinery. He had grown up around it. “I understand. You may stay here and wait for me. Do not touch anything or wander far from one another.”<
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Mete’s confidence seemed restored. He pushed out his chest, surveying the area with a renewed sense of purpose. “We will remain vigilant, my Ai’mun’hereun. If there is anything that would pursue you, it will have to come through me first.”
Arivene shook her head at her brother and stepped closer to E’Malkai, placing a slender hand on one of his. She looked into his eyes. “Please be careful, E’Malkai. I would not wish anything bad to happen to you.”
She wished to say more, they both felt it, but she pulled back. Her eyes glassy, she turned to her brother as E’Malkai shook his head. Fighting back the web of emotion that fluttered over him, he activated the elevator. A shuddering, violent sensation swept over him as he felt the air beneath him give out, realizing suddenly that the elevator had started to move. Arivene turned as he descended and he caught a quick glimpse of her fear. The darkness enveloped him. There was something else there: a feeling that he was not alone.
ⱷ
Arile
The Hall of Spines resembled a graveyard. It was painted with the brushstrokes of a haunted winter, but to the wasted and worn Arile it was a dream come true.
It was home.
Arile moved along the wall of the canyon with a practiced ease.
He made it to the bottom without incident, his spear never once leaving his hand. The white hunter pushed his way past the artificial wall that led into the caverns of the Utiakth, the humid fissures that he had missed when he was among the Fallen.
The youth’s words had been imprinted upon his mind. Despite the white hunter’s outward strength, he was a devout adherent of the old ways.
He believed in E’Malkai, and that gave him pause.
Elder S’rean waited for him in the first of the bulbous passageways. His ebony features were haggard. The tundra had a way of siphoning the life from a man long before his time. The White One wondered to himself how it was that he had lived so much longer than most, for he was almost twice the age of S’rean.
“You return without the Ai’mun’hereun,” called the old man.
Arile tucked his spear along his back, the first time he had done so since leaving the Hall of Spines weeks ago. “I am his messenger. He sends word to the Utiakth.”
S’rean wrinkled his nose. He stroked at the scruffs of his jagged beard. “What news does the Ai’mun’hereun send?”
“The Fallen were attacked. A goye of Umordoc destroyed the opening to the caverns and many were killed. The Ai’mun’hereun ordered them to evacuate and move south. He says there is a place for the tundra people in the Final War, Elder S’rean.”
The man looked at the white hunter without surprise.
“What of the Umordoc? What happened to them?”
Arile shuffled uncomfortably.
The visage of what E’Malkai had become chilled him to his bones. “He became consumed in a strange fire, not the shadow fire of the Gagnion’Fe’rein, but a pure power that billowed from him like a mist. He destroyed them all.”
“A pure power you say?” mused the elder. Turning, he moved back into the recesses of the caverns. Arile followed. He knew that this was not the end of their conversation.
They entered the chambers of the Elder. He sat cross-legged across from the entrance as he always did, and then motioned for Arile to close the door behind him. “Why do you believe this to be a pure power?”
Arile hesitated, his words caught in his throat. “The Umordoc are the enemy of the Light. They kill, ravage, and hurt for sport. He fought against the Umordoc without shadow fire,” replied Arile.
S’rean pondered his words. Grabbing a fistful of bones, he shook them in his hands. “I shake the bones because they clear my mind. They do not tell me anything more than I wish to tell myself, which is the way of belief.”
“Do you doubt my words?”
S’rean smiled deviously. “I planted doubt in your mind to see where it would take you. Do you believe that you have tainted what truly happened because of circumstance and perspective?”
Arile held his anger at bay.
He knew that this was the way of the Elder: finding truth through distortion of the truth, weeding out what is fallacy and what is reality. “No, he is torn. The sense of duty and love of his family divides him, as does his inexperience. When he battled the Umordoc, he did so after they hurt a young girl. It was in the defense of another that he called upon the power.”
S’rean smiled again.
“He chose to go to the Temple despite my warnings. He will not stop until he has fulfilled his destiny. He is the Ai’mun’hereun of lore. The winds are more certain than any of us could be.”
S’rean seemed satisfied by the hunter’s words. “That is what I wished to hear. Did the Fallen accept the evacuation? Do they believe as you do?”
Arile nodded. “They do.”
S’rean rolled the bones. His eyes searched their shapes, reading nothing into something, something into nothing. “He said that the tundra people have a place in the Final War?”
“He did. He said that the Final War had already begun. He says that this war is for all humans, to reclaim what had been taken from us millennia before.”
S’rean pushed out his lips and nodded.
“It seems our young messiah is wise beyond his years.”
“He is the Ai’mun’hereun, a son of the line of Armen. Would you truly expect anything less?” queried Arile as he leaned back against the wall, mindlessly inspecting the rock beneath his touch.
“Does he yet know what he sacrifices for the power? For what he has no choice in taking?” challenged S’rean.
“He has read the ancient texts. He knows of Dok’Turmel and the centuries it requires for his ascension. He may be a boy, but he has the mind of his father, and his father before him.”
S’rean groaned as he stood, his age beginning to wear upon him. “Did he tell you what to do if I did not wish to evacuate, if I did not want to listen to his words?”
They both moved as if they were going to exit back into the halls. It was Arile who smiled. “He has learned quickly to ask only those things that cannot be objected to.”
ⱷ
Eisley
Field Lieutenant Eisley had served Illigard for the better part of a decade, watching as men around him transferred to other posts. As he looked at the battlefield, he no longer saw those comrades who had fought beside him, but traitors to the cause. His wispy, sandy blonde hair was shaved along the right side of his head and grown to the shoulder on the other side. He wore a dark black optical enhancer over his right eye. Clicking noises erupted from it as he stared out upon the first wave of the Final War: a war to end all wars.
The trench was dug several feet deep. It had taken months for them to be dug. Thousands of troops worked around the clock to create shrapnel devices and pitfalls. There were nearly thirty thousand soldiers there as the first wave of the Culouth Army made their approach. Their yellow stripes distinguished them from the crimson stripes those of Illigard wore. Forty-seven scouts had been sent to the second trench about a mile to the west of the First Company of Culouth.
Eisley watched them approach. His gray fatigues were darker than the others of his squadron. The metallic reflection of his rank insignia was iced over. He drew his rifle from around his back and lay against the bulk of the trench, his head and shoulders just above it.
There was a notch where he would place the tip of his rifle and a thick strip of metal that guarded his face. The lieutenant raised his free hand up, the other held just over the trigger of the rifle. As he saw their forms clearly, no more than a couple hundred feet from the lip of the trench, he dropped his hand. The burst was like a cackled, single-tone symphony as the ground erupted. Snow and ice mixed with the brown dirt below as their riddled bodies convulsed and fell. More of them came, breaking lines and spreading out. The winter had reduced the war to nothing more than a land campaign the size the world had never seen.
Yet, the tactics remained the same.
The two edges of the trench wandered north and south about a mile from the lieutenant in each direction. A surgical strike had been long expected. They would fall back to the second trench while the Culouth regrouped: a game of cat and mouse.
Eisley rose from a crouch as the troops of First Company fired once more and another line of the Culouth soldiers fell. Already some of the men had fled as they were instructed, leaving only minimal forces. Of the nearly thirty thousand who had stood, only a thousand remained. The bursts of their weapons, blue and orange, flashed across the frozen swamp. The First Company had been created only months before the impending war, but the lieutenant felt an obligation. He had orders to evacuate with the rest of them, leaving behind only ground support to make the retreat feasible.
He pushed the order from his mind and moved down the trench to some of the remaining soldiers. Leaning against the hillside, they were a few feet from him. The men who had been instructed to flee had already done so. There was no point for him to follow. A field commander would be waiting in the second trench to command. He would stand with those who would give their lives. The yellow-striped soldiers of Culouth had broken ranks and were lowered to the ground.
Men fell on both sides. A thousand men turned into a hundred. There would be no triumph over adversity. It took exactly four and a half hours for Culouth to take the first trench. Their numbers had dwindled from one hundred thousand strong to less than sixty thousand. Slightly more than a thousand men had taken a stand against a force almost a hundred times their own.
The bait had been taken.
Culouth would not be fooled again.
ⱷ
Fe’rein
The Stone Tower was a ghost town. Its occupancy by Fe’rein had been a political move. There was no need for the walls or the towers. The war was not coming to Culouth. The corner keep that Lassen had used as an office had become Fe’rein’s sanctuary.
