The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

  The large balls of light were larger than on my planet and arranged in crystalline patterns that whirled and tumbled in the dark sky. The sky didn’t appear to be black like that of Earth but a deep dark purple like a King’s robe; like a King’s splendour, this robe had glittering diamonds and jewels of indescribable beauty and I was awed by it.

  However, they were merely the ladies in waiting compared to the moons. Like the two suns Khalashaya had mentioned before, Deloran had two moons; they were large, luminescent jewels, much closer than the singular moon on my world. Their soft colourful light washed over me and I felt blessed by the universe.

  Before I knew it, I was on my knees gazing up at them; tears flowing freely though I knew not why. I thought of my mother, I thought of my father. I thought of Oblivion and realised how big the universe was.

  Khalashaya’s arm fell across my shoulders I looked at him. His green eyes were wide, reflecting the starlight. He gave me a proper smile for the first time, the darkness that had clouded him outside Zafiya seemingly forgotten.

  “Welcome home Auriana”.

  # #

  I had never seen her so awestruck, this girl-child I had plucked out of a primitive world and taken home.

  She stood up, her black hair cascading down her back in spiral waves and reflecting the light from the stars above. She lifted her face to the sky and closed her eyes.

  Finding her in her adopted world had not been difficult. Once I had acclimatised myself to the vastly different social structure and managed to hide my Falairan features it was not hard to blend in.

  One thing that was hard to come to terms with in Zafiya was having relative power and freedom without living in a hidden city. Here I was able to walk the streets and look for my quarry in peace. Of course, living in a theocracy was nothing new to me; so I took a job in the market and rented a place owned by the church. Getting used to the dirt and death took longer. I settled into my new life and waited to find her, waited to locate the jewel hidden in the putrid sand of Zafiya.

  Performing the magic that enabled me to follow the trail of the Long Lost had been a feat my comrades and I had fought hard to be able to do. I won. At night before my exodus, in the hidden treetop city I lived in, not far from here I dreamed of her. The one we all sensed through the crack in the world, the only Long-Lost left in existence.

  Finding her had been the best thing I had ever done with my life, she was my responsibility and my priority above anything. I did not know why this occurred to me at that moment but it did and I embraced the feeling. I had been living on Earth for so long that I had missed companionship and the comradeship and camaraderie that comes from living amongst those you considered your own.

  And here she was.

  # #

  Something changed in the air; it was like a tune changing subtly, only noticeable to the discerning ear. Evil, such evil in the air; I listened carefully and heard faint night sounds suddenly cut out. I glanced at Khalashaya and he looked at me with confusion on his face, which then melted into fearful recognition.

  “We need to-”

  Something whizzed past my face and embedded itself in a tree behind me. There was no time to inspect it as another one followed it; placing itself right above it.

  My superior vision saw a pointed end to the “something” before it dug itself into the tree and I jumped back in fear; my heart pumping fast. What was attacking us?

  “Do not move”. An eerie voice stabbed into the darkness and I felt Khalashaya’s hand in mine once more.

  “Performers of the most perverted magics, you will be taken for trial immediately”.

  Gleema

  I heard silence, footfall crashing through trees and muttered orders.

  Then I saw one approach me from the right. He was my height and had long black hair like mine. He was dressed in a tight-fitting costume and carried two daggers; twirling them around his hands skilfully.

  “Put your weapons down”. I noticed that the words coming out of his mouth did not quite fit the shapes that his mouth made as he talked.

  I also realised with a jolt of fear that “he” was in fact “she”. I was in the presence of a female warrior. It was the curve of her waist that gave her away rather than her face; which was covered and only displaying the eyes. Her eyes mesmerised me, they were the most vivid shape of green I had ever seen.

  The eyes met mine and narrowed.

  “I-” began Khalashaya.

  She lifted a hand and hit him straight across the face. I went to help him and felt her hand grip my face; stopping me from going to his aid.

  “You and your friend (she said this sarcastically) will come with us”. Her eyes were large and angry, her mouth thin and tense.

  “If you do not come with us then we will execute you where you stand”.

  “What do we do?” I said in my mind, hoping Khalashaya would hear me.

  “Go with them,” his voice, now reassuring amongst all of this strangeness, resonated in my head. “I am tired and cannot get us out of here yet”.

  “We-” I said, my voice shaking, “We will come with you.”

  She grabbed me by the arm and I felt another one grab my other side.

  “We have no weapons”, I said, hoping to God this would make them less aggressive towards us.

  I heard the whoosh of something moving through the air and then a blow to the back of my head.

  # #

  I was standing next to my dream river, the murky mist encircling my ankles and legs artfully and the cold mud slowly claiming me.

  Rushes and reeds surrounded me, poking through the moonlit darkness of the water like spears. However many times I came to this place I had never failed to be frightened by their sharpness.

  Across the wide river came the voices, the voices that had both intrigued and frightened me since I could remember. Intrigued because the singing was so beautiful and otherworldly, and frightened because of the extent to which I yearned to cross the river and join them though I did not know why.

  Not for the first time, I wondered what the singers were trying to tell me. I wondered why I always wanted to join them.

  I considered this possibility now and felt my foot twitch as if to lift. With a shiver I drew back; knowing instinctively that this river was poison and to touch it with even a toe would bring me instant oblivion. I had always been taught that good menfolk went to heaven and women went to oblivion.

  My memory took me back to the night of my mother’s execution.

  I had just finished preparing the body of my mother for the pyre when my father came in, his eyes more terrible than I could ever remember them.

  I would always remember the way he slowly closed the door and came to kneel beside the corpse; resting his hand on her forehead and closing his eyes.

  After he left, I got a wooden chair, which we normally kept by the fire in the kitchen and brought it back into the room where the body had been laid out on a table.

  She was so still, her neck still purple from the violence against her but her face fading to a ghastly white. I could not believe she would never breathe again, she would never open her eyes; the eyes, which now looked as if they had been fused, closed.

  I covered her completely with the outer layer of the shroud I had wrapped her in and just sat there. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry and my entire world seemed to shrink to what was before me.

  Grief and despair stabbed me inside; memories hitting me of how she had taught me my letters when my father had slept and how she had once broken a vase and, giving me her mischievous smile, had proceeded to put the whole thing back together until it looked as though it had never been broken.

  Her life had been hard but she had fought back in her own way, the vase, teaching me my letters and her forbidden discussion of what the Old World must have been like.

  She had been killed because of a disagreement between two men. She had been blameless and now she lay dead before me.

  The door open
ed again and my father came in.

  “Is she ready?”

  “Yes father” the effort of speaking through my grief was too much and my breath caught in a sob, the horror of the last two hours washing over me once more.

  She was gone forever.

  “Father, what is oblivion and why do females go there?” I had always wanted to ask this question and had sensed that it would get me into trouble.

  I stood up and paced the room slowly, prepared for Father’s wrath to hit me. Instead, he sat down in my recently vacated chair and put his head in his hands.

  I debated with myself, do I go and put my hand on his shoulder; the shoulder of my only remaining parent? I did so gingerly, not knowing if the gesture would be reciprocated or shrugged off angrily.

  Instead, neither event occurred; he did nothing.

  “Oblivion is nothing. Your mother has gone to nothing”.

  “And…I?”

  “When your day for the pyre comes, you too will go to nothing.”

  This was delivered dispassionately, as if he was neither glad nor upset by the prospect.

  I could feel the dream fading; I could feel myself being pulled away from the voices. I fought against it but the waking world was too strong.

  Wind on my face, a shrieking that seemed to come from far below. A worm of fear turned in my stomach as the events before my forced blackout rushed back to me.

  I’m in the other world, the world I am descended from that feels so alien and yet calls to me in a strange way. We have been apprehended by the most fearsome women I have ever come across in my twenty or so years and we’re being taken somewhere only the good Lord knows.

  I open my eyes and see the same tapestry of beauty in the sky that I saw before we were captured; except that I could see we were closer to it.

  A slight lurch to the left confirmed my as yet unacknowledged fear: we were somehow in the air and my back was against something hard. The faint shrieking was birds flying to their nests far below us.

  I felt sick as panic almost made me scream.

  I went to sit up and felt sharp fingers restrain me by my arm. Clearly I was out of options. My sick feeling got stronger and I felt bile inside me rise to the surface. It poured out of me like water and I felt another blow to the back of my head that sent me senseless again.

  This time there was just darkness.

  I felt the waking world pull me back in what could have been minutes or hours later. My stomach lurched once more but there was nothing left to come up. After dry retching for a minute, I reached an equilibrium that enabled me to try and consider what our options were.

  Khalashaya had magic. He had told me that I was also capable of this. These people, these inherently magical people, were somehow against magic. Could this mean they were defenceless against what Khalashaya – and maybe I - could do?

  That spark of hope germinated inside me and kept me warm as we carried on flying. He would know what to do; failing that, I had always taken care of myself and would not let these strange women hurt us without a fight.

  A creaking sounded next to my head. I caught a scent of the forest and something else I couldn’t identify.

  “You are…unexplained”.

  I could not see the owner of the deep, angry voice, which made her statement all the more unnerving.

  I dared not speak. I did not think my head could take another beating. I just lay there with the hard floor pressing into my back and listened to the creaking of the craft we were in.

  The strange voice came at me again, emanating from space for all I knew. I dared not try and look at its owner.

  “Speak child, speak now and explain what you are”.

  I imagined the conversation: “Greetings. I am one of the so-named Long Lost that fled your land from your fearsome enemy many thousands of years ago. I have just escaped the same enemy all these years later and seek your help and assistance”.

  From the way they had treated us – especially Khalashaya, these Falaira were not to be trusted.

  I saw no alternative, I had been ordered to speak and was now compelled to do so; refusal would put me in even more danger than I was in.

  “I am Auriana and I have not used magic. I do not know how”

  Silence, I could almost hear her brain ticking.

  “And yet you appear in these woods so suddenly with the scent of magic in the air and incantations stirring in your eyes”.

  I realised that now was as good a time as any. If they didn’t believe us, we were lost anyway. It hit me that I was going to die in this strange world, die at the hands of female warriors.

  “I am from…another place. I was rescued”

  “By this…man friend of yours. In what context did he…rescue you?”

  Shouts came from the front of the craft and it lurched to the left suddenly and then to the right. I felt nauseous again and tried to contain it.

  “He saved my life – rescued me from the foul entity that (I felt the now familiar stab of pain as I said this) killed my father”.

  Silence, the sky boat creaked and lurched as I tried to contain my nausea.

  “He used magic”, this was said dispassionately but I could hear or sense the vein of anger that ran underneath her control.

  “I do not know. All I know is that we came…a very long way to find you”.

  “You are something strange” she said. “I sense reverberations of stars I have never seen, galaxies we have never charted. You look as we do and yet...”

  She broke off and I debated telling her about the Long Lost yet something stopped me. If they hated and feared magic (I could sense the fear underneath their violence) then they would surely not wish to be reminded of the past magical exodus of their people.

  I looked up at the stars again, never had I seen such an aurora of light and luminescence. In my whole life I had never been allowed to leave the front door of my home; now I was travelling amongst the stars in a different world, a different universe.

  Another voice called, seemingly from the front of the conveyance.

  “Down!”

  It hit me then that in this distant world they spoke New World English; our amalgamation of Old English and Old Dutch. How was this possible?

  Another series of horrible lurches shifted me from side to side as the craft we were on started to travel downwards. I wondered about Khalashaya, I hoped he was not being treated badly. I could but hope.

  I was pulled to my feet and supported by two of the strange warriors. I chanced a look over the edge of the craft and gasped. We were descending into a vast and brightly lit city, a city ten times the size of Zafiya. The city was surrounded by thick forest. I saw us change direction slightly and fly towards the right edge of the city.

  After five minutes travelling in that direction, we started going downwards faster and I saw that we were going to land beside a set of large white buildings in front of which lay a large garden. The garden was lit by a series of colourful gas lamps and little lights dotted the bushes and sparkled in the trees. If I hadn’t been so terribly afraid I would have been overawed by the beauty of what I saw.

  We seemed to reach the ground very quickly. I felt a now familiar wave of nausea as we hit the ground. I fell and was caught by the warrior guarding my right side.

  I found myself apologising, the woman looked at me and nodded. I noticed she also had large green eyes. The bottom half of her face was covered like the leader but she was smaller and slighter. She gave me a curt nod.

  “Get her cleaned up - the man too”.

  It was too dark to see where we were fully but I made out a series of strangely shaped white buildings and towers before me.

  Being upright made me feel sick and dizzy again and I could taste the blood dripping from the place I had been hit.

  I took one step off the craft and was overcome by blackness.

  Gleema Leeh

  The strange smell of soap eased me out of my stupor and I felt no stickiness on my face
where the blood had been.

  I felt a slight softness underneath my body that was almost comfortable.

  I opened my eyes slowly, ignoring my immense headache. I had experienced worse in Zafiya, had danced with death many times – always avoiding the jaws that tried to consume me.

  A movement beside me, a woman – seemingly not a warrior – sat on a wooden chair next to the bed. She was wearing a red dress and had a kind face.

  She had darker skin and hair than Khalashaya but the same large green eyes.

  “Please” she said, “Stay calm”. There was something lying underneath her relaxed demeanour, if only I could sense what it was before I accidentally told her more than I should.

  “Khalashaya”, I managed to say, my throat hurting. Please let him be alive.

  “Well treated, being fed now”. She smiled.

  I had been prepared to have to fight my way out and go and find Khalashaya, this kindness unnerved me. I was not used to it.

  “I understand your confusion. We thought you were criminals, part of the gangs of sorcerers that ring our forests and rivers”.

  She spoke slowly, deliberately and her voice was soothing.

  “Now…you believe that we are not”.

  “Correct”.

  I ignored my confusion and concentrated on my immediate situation. I was in a small white room with a large window opposite me where I could see a garden. Looking down at my body confirmed what I had feared. I had been undressed and washed in my sleep. I felt sick with shame.

  I put my hands up to my hair, it was felt clean and dry; my wound had also been dressed.

  “I thank you for taking care of me”.

  “You are very welcome Auriana” she said. “I am Gleema Leeh, formerly part of the Falairan fighting forces, now an attendant of the leader”.

  She smiled.

  “Gleema is my rank, Leeh is my family name”.

  “Auriana Raincatcher” I croaked, “Raincatcher is my family name. My mother named me after the dawn, after the Aurora splendour”. I did not know why I mentioned this, I just – as with Khalashaya – had a sense that she could be trusted.