The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

  “You are…very guarded Auriana Raincatcher. You keep yourself hidden behind high castle walls”.

  I did not know how to reply to that.

  She was one to talk. I tried again to sense what the sparkle in her eye meant and whether she would be friend or foe.

  I debated voicing this thought but the nature of my predicament made this an illogical step at the very least. I sensed she would not hurt me but I could not be sure. The others would, and had, hurt me; her cohorts and comrades had treated Khalashaya and myself as little better than vermin.

  “What is this place?” I said instead, my throat hurt and I was thirsty.

  She looked at me for a second before answering. It was as if she were trying to discover if I was genuine, or trying to look deeper.

  “This house or this city?” she said.

  The world, I wanted to say.

  “The city”, I said, careful to keep my tone of voice polite. Again, I sensed the woman was friendly but had an undercurrent of something that ran underneath her smile like a river. I reminded myself to tread carefully considering I was at her mercy.

  “That is not what you wanted to say” she said, smiling slightly but with the same guardedness.

  “No, it is not”.

  “This world is a non-magic world, the Gleema are its custodians and helpers; we learn from her and pass on that sacred knowledge to our people, to the many peoples living on her.”

  “When you say “non-magic world”, do you mean there are other worlds other than this one that practice magic?”

  She looked me, surprise on her face.

  “There are indeed other magic-using worlds. We do not know much about them but we do sense the use of magic in the air and in the stars. We despise this...blasphemy but we are powerless to do anything about it”.

  “Why is magic banned on Deloran? Why are women fighters?”

  The surprise on Gleema Leah’s face had unlocked me somehow, I found myself full of questions that I could not keep inside.

  “Magic is a sickness”, Gleema Leah said soothingly, her harsh words belying her benevolent tone. “Those unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a sickness must be healed, must they not?”

  She looked at me as if expecting an answer to her seemingly rhetorical question.

  I countered with another question.

  “Who is the King? Who rules the Gleema?”

  She actually laughed.

  “We have no…King. We have a leader, Gleema Dan, who acts as Head of the Senate but she resides in a city far away from this one”.

  My surprise must have shown on my face because her expression changed and something akin to realisation entered her eyes.

  “You really are from another world aren’t you?”

  A knock at the door, two of the warriors entered. I recognised the one with the mesmerising green eyes and felt myself shrink back inwardly. Outwardly I kept my strength. She would not see me weak again.

  “I trust you are rested” she said in her low voice.

  “I…yes” I replied. “Gleema Leeh has been very kind”.

  "It is not a kindness usually reserved for criminals. You should count yourself lucky."

  I nodded at Gleema Leeh who gave me a small nod back.

  “You will dress and come with us”.

  Gleema Leeh opened her mouth, seemingly in protest.

  “It is necessary” said the warrior. “We will wait outside”.

  Gleema Leeh left with them and returned quickly with a dress and some outer and inner garments over one arm and a bowl in the other.

  She handed me the clothes and set the bowl down beside the bed.

  “Tell them the truth, if they sense lies and deceit then they will execute you”.

  I nodded, wondering how I was going to keep that promise.

  She looked me in the eye and we were connected in that instant.

  “I do not wish for that to happen”.

  She smiled reassuringly and left the room, closing the door quietly.

  I was on my own at last. The window was big enough for me to get through if I could just open it or smash through it.

  I could run for Khalashaya and we could get off this world.

  However, where would we go? To Zafiya where death awaited me? We had come here, risking our lives to get help. How would I even find him? This seemed like a huge house on the corner of a massive city that dwarfed Zafiya.

  I closed the window shutters and then undressed. I had little choice. The water in the bowl felt warm to the touch and smelt of soap, there was a soft sponge-like thing floating in it, which I used to wash myself all over.

  Drying myself with the dress I had been wearing I dressed in the new clothes and then knocked on the door.

  The warriors came in and without a word I followed them out of the room and into a large, well lit hallway.

  We must have walked for around five minutes; turning right and left occasionally before we stopped outside a large wooden set of double doors.

  One of the warriors knocked and the door opened. I walked into the room, flanked by my escorts and saw that I was at the very bottom of a large coliseum. It reminded me of the criminal coliseum of Zafiya. Khalashaya was there, sitting in a chair. His hands were chained together but he did not look like he had been ill-treated.

  He turned and nodded to me, trying to reassure me with his eyes. I felt an unfamiliar lurch in my stomach and was surprised by how glad I was so see him. I felt relief emanating from him when he saw me.

  A chair was brought and I sat down next to Khalashaya. High above us were rows and rows of seats gradually being occupied as we sat and waited.

  “Were you well treated?” His voice resounded in my aching head and I gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “As was I”

  “I am glad. What is this?”

  As far as I could see it, we were out of options whichever way the discussion went. I was in enemy country, in danger at every turn and at the seemingly very changeable whims of these strange people.

  Even looking at them made me feel a different kind of fear to the constant drip drip of apprehension and caution I had been used to feeling in my old life; women fought as warriors, there were no men to be seen. I scanned the gathering court for a male face and saw not one, just similar looking female faces.

  “We are on trial for using magic to appear outside the city. They have ways of sensing it even though they do not use magic themselves”.

  I looked forward, not wanting to betray to the Gleema that we were communicating inside our heads.

  “Gleema Leeh, I’ll tell you about her later, told me that they do not believe we are criminals. If so, why the trial”.

  “If they really believed we were criminals then we would already be dead”.

  I looked at Khalashaya, he nodded, his expression telling me to stay calm and not panic at this turn of events. We were prisoners, we were vulnerable, and we could be taken out and killed at any moment. I had experienced this throughout my whole life, this feeling of complete and utter vulnerability and I had coped with this immense powerlessness by making myself as outwardly strong as possible.

  Now I felt stripped, naked and at their mercy and I could not be sure how much longer I was going to be able to control the panic that rose inside me like a fiery wave fighting to break free.

  “Stay calm” Khalashaya’s now reassuring voice forced its way into my thoughts once again. “Remember that we need to warn them about the creature. We both felt something after we landed here, it followed us through. It’s here”.

  The creature; I had blocked out all memories of what the thing had done to my father, of the stench that emanated from it, of the almost primal fear even the thought of it aroused in me.

  I forced myself to stay in the present. I was going to have to be strong whether I felt I was capable of it or not. Our lives depended on it.

  I looked up again, the rough treatment of the day before making my head hurt
with the effort. The galley was now full; with stern female faces looking down at me. I wasn’t sure how I knew because they all carried the same suppressed and closed expression upon their faces but some faces felt curious, others felt suspicious; others seemed undecided.

  A low whistle from the back of the long room and the general hubbub subsided quickly.

  A woman sitting at the centre of the galley stood up and looked at Khalashaya and then me. Her expression like that of the others was impossible to read but I felt sharp suspicion radiating from every line on her face. She wore purple robes and stood very erect.

  “I am Gleema Nikka”, she said. “I lead all of the Gleema in the city”.

  The head of the city; we really were in serious trouble if this had gone straight to the top.

  Her green eyes caught mine and I sensed a mixture of emotions there. She was apprehensive.

  “We assemble” she said; like the others, her voice has accented in a way I had never heard and her mouth didn’t quite move at the same time as I heard the words.

  “We assemble to investigate the use of magic by this woman and this male”.

  She looked at me, not at Khalashaya.

  “As the person most responsible it falls upon you to explain why you do not seem to have undergone the Dream”.

  Images of the recurring river dream came to mean, she couldn’t mean that, so—

  She answered my question.

  “The Dream being the process whereby we renounce our natural base instinctual magics and service our cities the way Falaira are all duty bound to do”.

  “May I speak?” said Khalashaya. A warrior guarding the door twitched menacingly at the sound of his voice.

  “You may not”, said the Gleema Nikka acidly.

  She looked back at me and I felt the eyes of everyone burning on my face and body.

  “I know not of the Dream”, I said. My voice was hoarse; fear had dried out my throat.

  I heard rather than saw sharp intakes of breath echo around the court.

  “Now,” the woman said slowly – patronisingly, “That cannot be true; you must know of this and somehow avoided the process as you used magic to appear in the forest outside our city. It was lucky we were patrolling the area and saw you”.

  I looked at Khalashaya, he gave me a faint smile. I felt a drop of sweat work its way down my face like a salty little river and wondered what I was going to do.

  “They need to know the truth” said Khalashaya in my head.

  So be it.

  “I am not from…here” I said, “We came here to warn you”. Apprehension made me stutter over my words.

  Silence - the court continued to stare at me. The woman fidgeted sharply, her expression growing even more severe. I felt my heart rate rising, the tension was going to send me to Oblivion long before the Falaira did at this rate.

  “Warn us child?” The woman’s sharp voice cut into my mind. “Warn us of what?”

  “A creature” I spluttered. Why would they not let Khalashaya speak? He was one of them, one of us; he could explain the situation far better than I could.

  I still had their attention.

  “My…father…I worked and came home to find him…” I took a deep breath.

  “Yes?” said the woman.

  “He died, because of the black creature that came out of the wall”. I had to stop talking, frightened even by the memory of the shrieking thing that had stalked me and taken my father away.

  Silence fell in the courtroom.

  I saw Khalashaya twitch in the corner of my eye; he looked agitated as if he wanted to say something.

  The woman gave him an angry glance.

  “Speak boy”.

  He looked at me, animation dancing in his large green eyes and scarred face.

  “She is a long-lost. She is from the blue planet”.

  I looked at him, not knowing…not knowing what to do.

  Silence fell again and then uproar ensued. The women were talking to each other in loud angry whispers, each flurry of conversation a mini whirlwind I tried to decipher. I needed to know what they were going to do to us.

  Everyone carried on discussing Khalashaya’s revelation except the woman, the head of the court. She stared at me curiously, her face showing no emotion and betraying no clue as to what she thought of what had just been said.

  She held a hand up and the noise stopped abruptly.

  “Remove the girl to her quarters and await my further instructions”.

  I was going to die; all those years spent helping the wretched women of Zafiya and avoiding the noose or the blade had ended like this – death on a foreign world. I was utterly, unavoidably alone. I held my head up; looking at the woman who had the power over everything I had been, was and could be and looked her straight in the eye. I was going down; I would be brave at the end.

  I felt her eyes bore into mine as I was led out of the room and sensed their penetrating gaze on the back of my head as the door closed behind me.

  Back in my room with the door locked behind me I was suddenly struck with that God-awful sense of weakness that had last plagued me when we first set foot on this world. Oh God, it was crushing me…I tried to get to the bed and found myself caught in a quagmire of my own physical weakness that ensnared me before I got there.

  With my face pressed against the floor I wondered what I was going to do. I was in no condition to fight should my door be unlocked at this moment; all I could do was lie there and wait for the sensation to pass as it always did.

  I thought about my father, about how frightened he must have been to see that thing come through his wall. I thought of Khalashaya, the man who had travelled through entire universes and faced the wrath of his whole unbelieving society just to save me. I thought about his scars and wondered (not for the first time) how he had acquired them.

  Then I thought no more.

  Scars

  I came to and realised I was lying on my back on a comfortable surface; my bed presumably. I opened my eyes and saw Gleema Leeh sitting opposite my bed as she had been before.

  “You have been asleep for a day…we were quite worried about you”. Her voice was soothing and kind.

  “Khalashaya”, I managed to croak, “Where is he”.

  She smiled.

  “Your friend is, I believe, enjoying a hearty breakfast as we speak. We will join him presently”.

  Her expression became slightly more serious.

  “First though, I’d like to learn more about you Auriana”.

  I looked at her; unsure as to how much I could trust her. She certainly seemed more amenable than the others; however she could be their spy, their way of bringing us down.

  Her face creased into another reassuring smile.

  “You have nothing to fear by telling us the truth Auriana. We need to know where you came from. We need to know why you used magic and how you escaped the process of The Dream. Tell me everything honestly and I can try to help you, lie to me and I am powerless to stop the Gleema council from deciding you are too much of a risk and executing you”.

  “I thought you were starting to believe me when I told you I was from another world”. It hurt that I had started to feel something positive back from the woman, which had now been denied.

  Khalashaya had already told the council I was from “the blue planet”, clearly this was the way he wanted to go.

  “I am from a planet called New Earth”. I said; seeing the woman’s face close up as I spoke. “You do not have to believe me; merely note that I am but a humble maid who has lost everything she ever held dear to her”.

  “What have you lost?”

  “Some years ago I lost my mother…not long ago…my father”.

  “How did you lose them?”

  “My mother was executed in front of me by the authorities and my father was murdered by the black creature that came out of the wall and also tried to kill me”.

  “This happened on the blue planet, this…New
Earth”.

  “It did”.

  “Why was your mother executed?”

  “She was a woman, and married to a man who had humiliated the authorities. They took away something of his to punish him. They did not even compensate him for the removal of her body the next day or pay the bride price he would need to marry again”.

  Silence, the woman kept her face neutral and did not take her eyes of my face. It was like she was searching me for untruths and becoming confused that she could find no sign of any.

  “They arbitrarily execute women where you are from?”

  “We are created to be servants and helpmates to the males who protect us; any woman who questions the Defenders of the New World Faith is executed as an example. It is divine law and must be kept”.

  “What was the black creature?”

  “Khalashaya says it is an old enemy of the Falaira; the Eurikaya. That’s what killed my father when it could not locate me”.

  The woman betrayed herself seemingly involuntarily and gave a sharp intake of breath on my utterance of the word “Eurikaya”.

  “And why did it seek to kill you?”

  “Because I am the last of the Long-Lost; I am the last descendant of the people that left your world before the defeat of the Eurikaya and travelled to New Earth – to the blue planet”.

  The woman stood up and left the room abruptly, her face betraying nothing.

  The next few hours passed slowly, I spent most of the time lying on the bed; using the time to let everything that had happened sink in. I also conducted a further exploration of my cell. It was clearly not supposed to be a place to house prisoners, being painted in a soothing neutral cream colour and possessing the large window that covered almost the entire side of one wall.

  I shook myself from my reverie and walked over to the window, hoping to somehow learn more about the jailers that were also my people. There was no doubt about that fact now; the fact that Khalashaya and I could speak to each other without even moving our lips was testament to the fact that we were the same, that and the strikingly similar looks that I shared with him and the Falaira.

  There were differences between them of course, just as there were differences between Khalashaya and I, but they shared my large and slightly slanted eyes, very dark hair (albeit in varying shades of the dark black colour I possessed) and tall slender build.