The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

  I threw a thin cloak over my nightdress, put some slippers on and exited my room; walking down the stairs quietly, I decided to go and find Khalashaya.

  I had never wandered out onto the main bridges this late at night and so was unprepared for the view that met me. I had started to lose my immense fear of the height we lived at and leaned on the edge of the bridge looking out at the huge stars.

  The kaleidoscope of colours and lights, like souls pinned to the purple velvety background, took me right back to my first arrival on Deloran. I had bathed in the starlight and suddenly found my belief in Oblivion weakening for the first time. How could women have no souls and no place in heaven when there was such splendour in this universe and the one I was from?

  Khalashaya and Woodarch had a small hut on the level below. I had been there for dinner a few times but always in the company of Prenaslavka or Larcen. I still felt uncomfortable being in the dwelling of a male without another female with me. I trusted Khalashaya and Woodarch with my life but I could not shake a lifetime of conditioning. Part of me still expected to see a Defender materialise out of the shadows at any moment. I forced myself upright and told myself to be calm.

  I reached the outside of the dwelling and raised my fist to knock. My hand was raised still when I heard Khalashaya shouting from the inside.

  “You can’t!” He sounded angry, very angry.

  I was in a terrible position; did I sneak back to my room and get out of sight, listen to what was being said or reveal myself?

  I did the right thing; I knocked.

  The door was opened quickly and two pairs of strong arms dragged me in. I found a spear to my throat before Khalashaya shouted again.

  “It’s Auriana!”

  The spear was removed. I was in the sitting area so familiar by day and now so alien and frightening by night. What in the name of the good Lord was happening?

  Khalashaya uttered some unpronounceable words and the room was lit suddenly. I saw shadowy figures carrying long sticks. On top of each stick glowed a small yellow orb; these orbs cast light several inches in each direction, lighting the room up.

  “What-” I began, before I caught Khalashaya’s expression. He was warning me to be quiet. I lowered my voice and whispered.

  “What is happening? Why are you all so frightened?”

  Prenaslavka pushed herself to the front of the group so that she was in front of me.

  “Your dream” she said. “You did not tell us that you were dreaming about the Eurikaya”.

  I looked at Khalashaya.

  Prenaslavka looked away and then at her son; they looked very alike in that moment.

  “There’s no need to ask how you can see what I dream”, I said, starting to get angry. When would they stop treating me like a liability, like someone who couldn’t be trusted?

  “It is not how it seems” said Woodarch, materialising next to Prenaslavka, his face looking eerie in the unnatural light. “Khalashaya had the same dream. He saw you in it but you did not see him”.

  “Why did you not tell me you were having the same experience?”

  He rounded on me.

  “That is not important at the moment. What is important is that we have some knowledge of the Eurikaya”.

  I was confused.

  “But they are Falaira! They’re living, breathing, magical Falaira”.

  There was silence. Khalashaya put his arm on my shoulder and drew me into him. I could feel his heart beating fast through his cloak and he breathed quickly and shallow as if he were about to run.

  “We have suspected that the Eurikaya started off as Falaira originally” he said quickly. “We just did not know how”.

  “We did a lot of snooping when we were at the Gleema city because we suspected then” said Woodarch. “I’m regretful that we couldn’t tell you at the time”.

  “You thought I was a Molecha,” the word made me nauseous.

  “I only saw tonight’s dream” said Khalashaya. “I know you have been keeping me informed, but is there anything in the other dreams that might help us understand?”

  I had told him everything I could remember but I still combed my memory for something I had missed.

  “The girl who died…that was Aran?” he said.

  I nodded, the scene engraved on my brain.

  “Can you remember what the Eurikaya were doing to get arrested?” he said.

  “Tell us anything you can remember”.

  I told them everything I could remember.

  “As I told you last week, months and years have been passing between each vision and I never saw anything shocking until tonight.” I broke off.

  “That poor girl” I said, feeling almost as if I had known her.

  Prenaslavka stepped forward again.

  “It’s almost like the visions are preparing you, settling you in before the big reveal”.

  I turned to Khalashaya and looked up at him, liking the feel of his arm around me.

  “How did you access my dream? I thought you had to touch me to do that”.

  He looked confused.

  “I do not understand it myself. One minute I was asleep and next, I was in your river dream with you. You were holding yourself up with that stick and…”

  He looked uncomfortable and his sentence trailed off.

  “What we need to do” cut in Prenaslavka “Is find out the rest of the story. Who are these people? How do they become the monsters they are today? This is a chance we may never get again! Who knows if these memories will ever come back once they have been experienced?”

  I stepped forward, shrugging off Khalashaya’s arm. I was prepared to be brave and do whatever it took.

  “Put me to sleep if you can” I turned to Khalashaya with a sudden flash of inspiration. “Like when my father-”

  “That was dangerous magic, I had no other choice. You were lucky you woke up!” He was starting to raise his voice. A sharp look from his mother made him turn away sharply and say no more.

  “How long are you prepared to wait for answers?” I said. “Gleema Leeh probably had no idea what she really was, but she died to get to me and give me what was inside her”.

  “Like inherited memories, buried deep inside her” murmured Khalashaya.

  “I want to do it” I said. “I want to help”.

  They all looked at each other quickly, seemingly weighing up the risk.

  Prenaslavka spoke first, her voice a rasping whisper that contrasted with the emotions fighting for occupation across her face.

  “Tomorrow night. It’s too late now; it’ll be light very soon. I will put you to sleep and I will watch over you”.

  “So will I”, said Khalashaya. I suddenly felt happier knowing he would be there.

  I caught a very quick look between Khalashaya and his mother. She was unhappy about something. Well, this was happening; it had to happen for the good of the Falaira. As far as I knew, that Eurikaya was out there somewhere and we had a much better chance of defeating it if we knew more about it.

  “Tomorrow night” I agreed. “I will do my best”.

  The next day was spent doing magic lessons and helping Prenaslavka clean the school due to the fact that the students had the next few days off due to a citywide holiday.

  She wasn’t her usual friendly but reserved self; instead she seemed to want to say something to me but would stop short of letting it out. I felt the thick tension in the air as it throbbed incessantly.

  At the end of the day, I was hot, tired and ready for a cool wash, some fresh clothes and something to eat.

  Having made sure the rooms were clean enough to last the next few days, I wished her a good evening and turned to leave the room.

  “Wait.” Her voice sounded slightly raspier than usual, mainly because she had been brooding all day and not talking or teaching like she usually was.

  I turned, knowing that she was about to divulge the reason she had been so preoccupied.

  The shutters around the r
oom were open and rays of the setting suns played with the blackness of her hair and her olive skin. She appeared to notice nothing of the beautiful scene before her.

  “He has put himself in mortal danger”.

  I knew who she meant, and yes he had. Khalashaya had travelled across the stars to find me, gone on a journey to a world vastly different from him, which was eons away, possibly not even in the same universe according to the star charts Gleema Leeh had kept in her quarters.

  Khalashaya had indeed been the first Falaira to make that journey in thousands of years.

  I nodded, not knowing what she expected me to say.

  “He does so again, tapping into the visions left by the…woman”. Her beautiful mouth seemed to struggle to say the word “woman” as the woman in question was a Molecha. This made me sad, she had been far more than that.

  “I did not ask him to do that”. I stood my ground; yes I was hugely fortunate to have someone as brave as Khalashaya to look out for me but was I not making myself equally powerful? Was I not doing the best I could to help my people?

  Prenaslavka suddenly seemed to thaw; drawing me over to a chair, she sat me down and pulled up another wooden chair for herself. It creaked as she sat on it.

  “Khalashaya has suffered unimaginably in his life Auriana” she said slowly, looking out into the sun. This made her eyes not just green but a fiery savage colour that made me quail slightly.

  Khalashaya had never told me about his scars or the reason the Gleema had known he was “Khalashaya Lee of the forest” at the time of our trial for using magic. He did have a very strong bond with his mother. It could be seen when they were together in the way that they interacted with each other and touched each other gently.

  Prenaslavka’s watchful nature and reserved personality had often made me think she had been through similar trials to her son and it had struck me many a time they could have been imprisoned or tortured together. How they had escaped I could not speculate upon.

  She was still watching me, now with a knowing expression on her face.

  “You are right in what you believe. We were imprisoned by the Gleema when he was just a child. For years we languished in separate cells; far enough away so that we could not speak verbally to each other but close enough so that we could hear each other’s screams”.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I asked. I was shocked at her candour and at what they had been through. I touched her cool hand and hoped I could convey that in my words and actions.

  She looked at me then, her eyes meeting mine. She then looked over my shoulder as if lost in the past, tangled in the lost years.

  “So that you know what our people have been through to be free and what we risk to bring freedom to others even if they do not at first realise they need it”.

  My next sentence was something else I had often wondered.

  “Khalashaya’s father he went through the Dream didn’t he”.

  She nodded.

  “I got to know undercover members of the Free Falaira who were placed in the Gleema cities on the lookout for people like themselves who hid or young people they could protect. Khalashaya and his twin were five”. Her voice seemed to do something strange when she said this.

  A twin, this explained a lot about Khalashaya’s reserved nature and inner demons; he had had a twin, someone he had presumably lost as well as being tortured and imprisoned away from his mother just for wanting to stay as nature intended.

  “You escaped didn’t you” I said softly.

  She nodded.

  “We were able to sometimes talk in our minds. Khalashaya’s abilities were not as developed as they are now which did make this a rare treat. I had been placed in a cell made of stone, not stones. It was one big smooth stone wall joined to another. I think this was in case we could turn ourselves into smaller creatures and escape. I had no window, but I waited in the darkness”.

  She touched my hand and the room melted away from me.

  I was in a small room, a tiny cell. No light streamed in through the window. The only light was a yellow misty glow coming from the hands of the woman sitting in the corner of the room. I recognised Prenaslavka straight away. She was sitting with her legs crossed and her palms to the ceiling. Fire danced upon them in yellow spirals and her eyes were closed in concentration. She was emaciated and her beautiful face was covered in sores and dirt. My heart broke for her, even though I knew she was safe with her son now.

  Then she was gone, just her clothes left behind and falling to the floor slowly and stupidly. Where was she? The light remained, coming from nowhere now.

  A few seconds later, I saw movement near one of her sleeves and a tiny spider exited the sleeve quickly. I watched in both horror and anticipation as the spider seemed to feel its way along the stone wall until it found a tiny hole, it then vanished through it.

  I was back in the classroom facing a restored Prenaslavka. She smiled and touched my hand again.

  I was in a forest, one on the edge of a Gleema city I had never seen. Tall spires pointed at the sky miles away and the battlements of a castle could be seen behind the old and crumbling city wall.

  Two rats suddenly popped out of the ground, clearly they had dug their way into the ground on the other side of the city wall and kept going until they felt it was safe to come back up.

  One rat was slightly bigger than the other and both were black; the bigger rat shook itself free of dirt while the other smaller one nuzzled into her, shaking.

  That pathetic scene was even more upsetting now that I had realised who the rats really were.

  The yellow light emanated from the bigger rat and it was suddenly Prenaslavka, her hair long and stringy but covering her nakedness in part.

  She touched the smaller rat and he was Khalashaya, but much younger than I had ever seen him. He was no older than his mid-teens but his face bore the familiar scars I had come to know over the last couple of months. He was terrified, clearly unused to the outside and to the air. His eyes were wide in his thin, scarred and dirty face and he was quickly cuddled by his mother who had that familiar glow of determination in her eyes.

  I was back in the classroom again, Prenaslavka sat watching me.

  I was too upset to speak, grief for the pair of them coursing in my breast.

  “I had to show you” she said. “He risks it all again for you. I know he has to but it is more than a mother can bear”. Tears shone in her eyes as she spoke but they did not fall.

  “I will not allow him to endanger himself for me” I said, determination hot and sticky inside of me.

  “He will, regardless. He will endanger himself for the Falaira. He puts himself and you in grave peril by going into these visions left by the woman. How do you know they have not been sent to trap you, to turn you into the thing she was?”

  I looked her in the eye.

  “Because I know; I knew Leeh. She had no idea what she was, but gave me her memories for a reason because she wanted to help me”.

  “Why are we seeing human Eurikaya if these are her memories?”

  I had believed for the last few weeks that Gleema Leeh had inherited shared memories from the Eurikaya when she had been born a Molecha and that her exposure to our magic had ignited her Eurikaya side. I told Prenaslavka this but sensed that my words did not reassure her in the way I wished them to.

  “Well” she said, getting up. “After tonight, you and Khalashaya will know more hopefully, and that will allow us to remove these creatures from our world”.

  I was dressed and ready that night when Khalashaya came to get me.

  Terror in the Forest

  We were back in Khalashaya’s dwelling and he had placed me on a comfortable rug. I lay down and waited for further instructions. I was nervous knowing what I was going to. When I had experienced the visions before, I had not been expecting them and had just been falling asleep naturally. The thought that he was putting me into an unconscious state to see the vision was slightly c
hilling. I held my fear tightly inside me however and kept myself under control. It would not do now to show any weakness.

  Khalashaya leant over me with his staff, his face showing slight concern. It seemed that he shared my fears.

  The second the wood touched my face I was gone.

  I was in Ericl’s house but thick dust lay over everything. I looked around, feeling a chill on my skin that was nothing to with the weather. This was the sitting room I had first seen the young Eurikaya practicing their magic in on my second vision. Clearly, much time had passed since that day and even since my last vision, as the furniture was covered in dust and the bits and pieces piled up against the wall looked older and broken.

  The shutters were closed but a small shard of moonlight came through and hit the floor in front of me I saw dust floating like moonbeams in that light, no one was there.

  I wondered if I could access the rest of the house and possibly look around for clues as to what had happened after the Eurikaya had all been arrested and Aran had been killed. However, I could not leave the room as a force blocked me from the door; clearly I was supposed to see this room, but why?

  I had my answer a second later because Ericl appeared in front of my soundlessly. His long hair was matted and streaked with grey and he was very thin. Sharp lines had embedded themselves around his eyes, forehead and mouth during the time since I had last seen him and his eyes were black instead of green.

  This terrified me more than anything else and I fought to keep under control. I had a sudden fear that he would see me and I would be done for. There was no way my limited magical training could match his experience.

  The Falaira had promised to bring me out of the sleep if it looked like I was in trouble, but I could not guarantee I would even show signs of that in the waking world should Ericl or his group see me and decide to harm me.