by J D Abbas
By the time Braqor had finished, Kyana had curled into him, sobbing. Braiden could feel her anguish tightening his own chest. Why did men do such things? Didn’t they realize the devastation they created, all for their own selfish pleasure? He stared at the bed, trying to calm his own frustration; it wouldn’t help Kyana.
“I-I’m confused; when Mikaelin h-healed you earlier, he would have t-taken on those injuries as well.” Kyana stiffened and lifted her head to gape at him. “S-so I am wondering why I’m still b-being led to your womb.” He paused. “Kyana, y-your body is directing m-me, and it has the answer. W-will you allow me to t-touch your womb?” Kyana tensed and grabbed hold of Braqor’s shirt. “J-just on the outside, on your abdomen,” Braiden assured her. “Though… I-I do need to touch y-your skin.”
Kyana nodded without looking at him. “It’s fine,” Braqor said as he put his hand on Kyana’s forehead and whispered in her ear.
Braiden unbuttoned her dress and laid his hand on her slightly rounded belly. He felt the Jhadhela move through him like a burning fire.
Kyana jumped, and her fear twisted Braiden’s belly. “What was that?”
“The healing p-power of the Jhadhela. D-don’t worry.” Braiden grinned and removed his hand. “It wasn’t y-you that needed the h-healing. I-it was your ch-child.”
Braqor’s mouth fell open. “Kyana’s pregnant?”
“Y-you didn’t know?”
“No, we were afraid that she might not be able to have more children after the—after she was attacked.”
“Apparently, the b-baby was injured when the creature j-jumped on you, but she is f-fine now,” Braiden said, delighted to be delivering such good news.
“She?” they asked in unison.
“Y-yes, you’ll have a d-daughter by year’s end.”
“Thank you.” Braqor reached out and clasped his wrist. Braiden felt the wave of relief that washed through him. He turned to his wife and pulled her into his arms, laughing. “A girl, Kyana; we’re finally going to have a girl!”
As Kyana wept, the anxiety visibly left her body. She reached out a hand and held Braiden’s. “Thank you. You have given us a great gift.”
“Y-you are most w-welcome.” Unable to stop smiling, he moved to the door and called into the other room, “W-we are finished, H-Haldor.” When he turned back to the couple, Braqor had just released his wife. “Umm, y-you might… want to b-button your dress before I-I let the others in.” His cheeks went hot.
Kyana glanced down at the gaping neckline and blushed. “Thank you, yet again, Braiden.” A smile warmed her weary face.
Braiden stood in front of the door until she was done then allowed the others to enter.
“I am sorry to trouble you further, Kyana,” Haldor said. “I know this day has been difficult for you, but I need to ask a few questions.”
Kyana nodded and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Can you tell us anything about the creatures that attacked you?”
“They were part man and part beast,” she replied. “I think they were once men, though, from some of the things they said.”
“They spoke?”
“Yes, in Lanar at first. One sounded just like Braqor, but after they were in the house they used the trade tongue.”
“What did they say that made you think they had once been human?”
Kyana blushed and looked down. “They said that it had been a long time since… since they had lain with a woman.”
Braqor scowled and his face went red.
“How did they get into the house?” Haldor asked.
“I let them in. I thought it was Braqor. One of them said my name.”
Haldor gave Tobil a puzzled glance. “Did they say anything else?”
“They asked where my husband was. They said they had seen him come into the village over an hour before. They didn’t believe me when I said he wasn’t there.”
“They saw us arrive,” Haldor said to Tobil. “They were watching us.”
“Then they were already inside the perimeter,” Tobil said.
“These must be the ones that have been following the brothers for some time. They knew names and could imitate speech. These creatures are cunning,” Silvandir said.
“They mentioned another name,” Kyana said, her brow wrinkled. “Kazan or Kazag, something like that. They said he was waiting. They also thought our children might be useful. That is when I attacked the one. I couldn’t let them take the children.” She started shaking again as her gaze went distant. Braqor put his arm around her and pulled her close.
“Perhaps Kazag is their leader,” Haldor said.
Silvandir suddenly stiffened and cocked his head, as if listening. “Riders!” He dashed out of the room and through the front door, sword in hand, followed quickly by the others.
Chapter 23
“Elena, wake up!” Celdorn called.
Elbrion opened his eyes and stopped singing when Sasha suddenly jumped off the bed and started barking at the girl. Celdorn bent over her, his face riddled with concern.
Elena squirmed in her bed as if fighting something in her dreams. Celdorn gave her shoulders a hard shake and called her name again, but she did not respond. Elbrion tried to enter her mind, but a wall locked him out. He chanted a different tune, one that surrounded her with light.
Moments later, Elena sprang to a sitting position, gasping for breath, and glanced behind her, eyes wide and frightened. Screams followed her, echoes from her mind.
Sasha yipped then sat down, watching Elena, her head cocked, ears up.
“Are you all right?” Celdorn laid his hand on Elena’s head.
Her eyes darted to Celdorn, and her panic gave him a hard shove backward and off the bed. Then in a blink, her gaze dropped, and shame enveloped her.
Celdorn picked himself up off the floor and returned to her side, Sasha right behind him. “What’s wrong, little one?” He tried to lift her chin, but she pulled away. Sasha plopped her head in Elena’s lap, gazing up at her.
Elbrion studied Elena. “Something happened in your dreams…” He squatted by the bed and laid his hand on her arm. “It is all right, Elena. You may tell us anything. Trust our love.”
Hesitantly, she raised her eyes to his and took a deep, shaky breath. “I wasn’t asleep. I-I got trapped inside.” She blurted the words out as if afraid something might stop her before she could finish.
Another intense wave of her fear shot through Elbrion. This was not good. He worked to keep his voice steady and not increase her anxiety. “Trapped?”
Elena’s eyes began to flit. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I was lying in my bed listening to you sing, thinking about the things we had discussed, and the next thing I knew I was in the vestibule in my mind. Only the doors to get back out were gone.” She held his gaze. “I don’t know how I ended up there. I didn’t do it intentionally. Believe me. I had no desire to return to that place, especially alone. I was terrified. That’s why I ran away.”
Celdorn and Elbrion exchanged glances.
“Please don’t be ashamed of me,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around Sasha’s neck and buried her face in the dog’s fur.
“Ashamed of you for becoming trapped?”
“No, ashamed that I escaped.”
“I do not understand, Sheyshon. Why would that shame you?”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you.” She sat back and flipped Sasha’s ears as she struggled for words. “When I found myself in my internal world with no way out, I went to the first corridor, where you and I have been, which seemed the safest choice. I was hoping to find another exit.” She paused and Elbrion gave her an encouraging nod. “Instead, I found myself pulled into several nightmarish situations with children needing to be rescued. They must have been children I trained with, other ones being held captive. There were dozens more in the corridor begging for my help, and in the end, I left them. I escaped, but they couldn’t. I heard the monster attacking them
as I ran out the door.” She hung her head.
Confused by her confession, Elbrion put his hand on the side of her face and closed his eyes. Chaos broke out around him. Many of the images that whirled past, he had seen before. His heart ached as he opened his eyes and gazed at her. “Sheya, the children you saw suffering are all representations of you. Those are the memories of the torment you suffered.”
“No, Elbrion, you don’t understand. I know there are memories of my life in that corridor, but these were other children. And… and I left them there.”
Elbrion knew this was going to be difficult, if not impossible, for her to accept. “Elena, they are your memories.”
“They aren’t mine. Those things didn’t happen to me.” Her jaw tightened, and her eyes flicked from corner to corner, floor to ceiling, unable to settle.
“But they are, Sheya. I have seen them.” Elbrion felt panic seize her, and he sang to quell her rising agitation. It might be dangerous if she shifted now.
She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned back against the wall. “No, you’re wrong. If they were mine, I would know. I would feel it. Wouldn’t I?” Her eyes begged him to find a different answer. “How do I help them? What can I do?”
“You embrace them.” He knew he was asking the impossible, but he had no other wisdom.
“I… I don’t know what you mean. Embrace them how?”
Elbrion was quiet for a time, waiting for her to grasp his meaning, to see that it was the only answer. In the end, he realized she could not. “Embrace them as your own truth, Sheya.” He paused again, realizing that explaining this required the delicacy and finesse of walking on the surface of a quickly thawing pond. “By continuing to believe these children are other people, strangers, you push away their pain and, in essence, reject them, increasing their suffering—your suffering.”
Elena’s brow pulled down. “But… but they didn’t look like me. Some were dark. Some were fair. There were even boys. How could they be me?”
“The mind does strange things to protect itself, Sheyshon. A child might envision a horrible event happening to her friend instead of herself, or picture herself as a boy because she believes boys are stronger and will endure better, or perhaps see her attacker as a monster instead of her beloved father. It creates distance and a buffer from the truth.”
Elena’s eyes began moving again as if reviewing the distant scenes. “Is that why I found myself buried in the box with the first little girl and being held underwater in the place of the second?” Her chin quivered, and Celdorn paled at her words. “Because… they were my memories? Those things happened to me?”
Elbrion nodded. Elena fell into a lengthy silence. Celdorn gripped her hands, tears glistening in his eyes. Sasha burrowed closer into Elena’s chest and whimpered, as if she shared her distress.
“Why?”
The pain uttered in that one little word broke Elbrion’s heart. He watched as Elena shifted back and forth between parts of herself: her eyes green then black then palest blue; her skin light then dark then tawny then fair again; she was big, small, muscular, frail; she was seventeen, three, and many places in between. She did not seem to know who she was at that moment. Celdorn glanced at Elbrion with an arched brow as if to make certain they were seeing the same thing.
“Why would someone do that to me? I worked so hard to be a good girl, to obey and cause no trouble.” Her eyes settled on mahogany, and they were filled with grief. Elbrion had seen this despondent part of Elena before and he hoped, for her sake, she would pass through this quickly. “I-I smiled at the men who took from me. I never complained when my body hurt so badly. I never said no to any of their vile requests…” Her melancholic voice faded. “What was wrong with me that they hated me so?”
Tears blurred Elbrion’s vision while his father-heart twisted with pain. “There is nothing wrong with you, Sheyshon,” he assured her. “It was not about you. It was about the evil in those around you.” He enfolded her in his arms. “As I said before, you should have been loved and nurtured. I am so sorry.”
Her body shuddered. “All of those children? They’re all me?” She glanced up at him as if waiting for him to deny it. When he did not, her gaze dropped and she pressed into his embrace. “There were so many. How is that possible, Ada?” He hugged her more tightly, having no adequate answer.
When she suddenly pulled back and lifted her head, her eyes were green again. “The day Mikaelin healed me, he told me about the things he felt move into his body, from events I didn’t remember. Too many. I didn’t want to believe him, thought he was confusing my pain with others.” She suppressed a sob.
Elbrion longed to ease this agony she did not deserve. Though she did not shift again, Elena pushed aside Sasha, climbed into his lap, and curled into a ball, grasping his tunic in her fists as if afraid she might be pulled away again.
There were no words Elbrion could say to comfort her pain, so he just held and rocked her, singing softly as she sobbed. Sasha nuzzled under his arm and licked Elena’s shoulder. When the girl grew quiet, he said, “There is something else you discovered inside. Tell me about it.”
“You mean the mirror?” She looked up at him. “I… I saw an Elrodanar elder named Khanab in it.”
“Khanab?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I do.” Elbrion was amazed by this revelation.
“I was able to talk to him through the mirror. He said I made it work, that I found a way to communicate with him, not the other way around. Khanab warned me that it was a gateway for more than just things of the light though, and Anakh did speak to me through it.”
Celdorn grasped Elena’s forearm and shot Elbrion a worried look.
“What did she say?” Elbrion asked, equally concerned.
“I saw the image of an eidolon in my reflection, and Anakh said that was my destiny and no one could stop it or help me. I called her a liar and was going to smash the mirror when Khanab appeared.”
Elbrion pulled back from Elena and smiled. “You recognized the lie.”
She gave him a teary one in return. “Because I kept repeating what you told me.” She curled into his chest again. “I had you with me—in my thoughts at least.”
“You have made great progress, Sheya. You should be proud of yourself.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “So how did you find your way back?”
“Khanab told me that I had to conquer my fear in order to get out of there, so I faced the children and waded my way back through them to the double doors, which by then had reappeared.”
“So you did conquer your fear—in more ways than one. You fought with your tormentors and overcame them, and you faced the pain of the children. I am so very proud of you.” Elbrion kissed the top of her head.
“As am I,” Celdorn said, patting her arm.
Sasha licked her shoulder again as if in agreement.
“Don’t be.” Elena’s head drooped. “I was a coward. I ran away from that hideous creature and left it there to attack the children.”
“That creature was there to prevent you from escaping. It came from outside you, Elena. It would have been disastrous had you responded to the ploy. You did the right thing.”
“It came from outside me? How can that be?”
“That, I cannot explain.” Elbrion shook his head in frustration. “The Alraphim apparently can enter into and manipulate another’s internal world and memories, but I do not know how. I do believe the Jhadhela was leading you, and somehow you knew that to flee the creature was your best chance of helping the children.” Elbrion cupped her cheeks. “Your internal world is complex and wrought with pain, but great wonders also exist there; things of which we have only seen the smallest portion. You are amazing, a continual wonder to me, Sheya.”
Elena scoffed. “I’m just a marvelous universe all to myself. How does my skin contain it?”
Elbrion pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “There is more truth in your mockery than you
realize.”
Chapter 24
Rapid hoofbeats approached from the south. Silvandir tensed as he stood in Lavan’s yard listening. The road ran east to west in Rhamal, and on this dark, nebulous night, it was foolhardy to ride through the fields at a gallop. Silvandir ordered the men to hide in the shadows around the house and waited.
As the riders drew near, Silvandir discerned there were only two: heavily-laden Ilqazar. He grabbed a lantern and stepped out of the shadows. When he saw the body draped over the stallion in front of the rider, his heart sank. “Tragod, what happened?”
“Two of the perimeter guards are dead, sir, and their Ilqazar are missing.” Tragod dismounted, his face grim. “When we rode the circuit as you directed, we discovered Jaybul and Bandur missing. We found their bodies in the open field, throats slit. Two creatures lay near them, stomped to death by Ilqazar. I’ve sent men to warn those standing guard to be wary of these wolf-like beings and to ascertain if we’ve had any other breaches. They will report to us here.”
Guardians came forward and helped to lower their friends’ bodies. They laid them on the ground, placing their swords and shields upon their chests. The men dropped to one knee surrounding them and held the blades of their own swords against their foreheads in tribute to their fallen comrades.
Silvandir rose, alert. More hoofbeats approached, this time on the road from the west. The light footfalls were unmistakably Ilqazar. As they drew near, he saw they were riderless.
“Qaman, Fasha. There you are.” Silvandir stepped toward the stallions when they stopped. “Yes, we found your riders,” he replied to the question no one else heard.
Each Ilqazar leaned his forehead into Silvandir’s, the sign of respect and deference used by the Ilqazar in greeting. He knew he was valued among the stallions, being the only human outside of Queyon who could hear their hearts. Silvandir stroked their necks as they poured out their disturbing tale.
