The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  She resisted a rush of irritation. “Is that supposed to make sense to me? Why can’t you just tell me what you want me to know? Why do you waste my energy with these childish riddles?”

  “I’ve asked the same thing of myself.”

  “And what answer did you get?”

  He sighed.

  “Is that so weighty a question?”

  He looked over at the skeleton again. An answer to her question was clearly not forthcoming. It was becoming most irksome. “Beam, I—”

  “Look around this place and tell me what you see.”

  “What?”

  “Could I say it any simpler?” he said, scowling at her, “Why don’t you listen to me?”

  “I am listening.”

  “Then do as I asked. Look around and tell me what you see.”

  She studied him for a moment, watching for more signs that he was gaming her. When it became clear he was serious, she did as he asked.

  “I see what you see,” she said, looking up at the women, “I see a crystalline cave that’s been transformed into a fortress. Maybe it was once a palace or royal house, I don’t know.”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “Then, clearly I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  He tossed the apple to her. “What’s that?”

  She caught the fruit. She considered it for a moment, wondering again if he were mocking her. The questions made no sense, and her head felt full of cotton. But in the end, she realized she simply didn’t have the strength to fight him on it. “It’s an apple,” she said, finally.

  “Eat it.”

  “What?”

  “Eat it. Take a bite.”

  “Why?”

  “Damn me, just do it. Stop fighting me. Gods almighty, you’re stubborn.”

  His eyes were now cold and steely, like the dark, cold clouds of an impending storm. Was he reverting back to his old miserable ways? Had her weakness tricked her into believing he’d changed? Maybe her first assessment had been correct. Maybe she was still sick and delirious, still dying all alone back in the tunnels.

  Yet, as hard as she examined him, she couldn’t find any hint of true malice in his gaze, only grief and truth and fear. She wasn’t naive; she sensed the rogue was still in there somewhere, hidden away in some forbidden cell within him. But the rogue was tempered now, tamed by something new, something benevolent and balancing. It was as if his better side wrestled him for control. She wondered if his anger was just a manifestation of this resistance to his new self.

  She bit deeply into the fruit. The apple was crisp and surprisingly sweet. She swiped away the juice dripping from her chin. As she chewed, she said, “It’s good.”

  “How old do you think it is?”

  “How old?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s not a complicated question, Koonta’ar of the House of Vaenfyl.”

  “Vaenfyl? No, I’m of the House of Vaelyth.”

  “Are you?” he asked, grinning.

  She didn’t understand his amusement.

  “How old is that apple?”

  “I don’t know. What the hell difference is it? Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

  “Good. Tell me.”

  “That apple has been in this cave for centuries.”

  She stopped chewing. She looked down at the fruit. The wet flesh was as white as snow. She looked back at him. “Is that meant to be a riddle? Is there some kind of metaphor I’m missing in this piece of fruit?”

  “Metaphor?”

  “Ay’a. It means referring to one thing to represent anoth—”

  “I know what a metaphor is! I had a good education. Hell, I can even recite the poetry of Santus Alluvion on a good day!”

  He watched her with the storm clouds in his eyes again. But even as she watched him watching her, the storms seemed to blow away. His eyes quickly melted back into a blue so intense, they seemed to glow from within.

  “You’re not being honest,” he said, finally, “You don’t believe my request a riddle or symbol or whatever you implied it to be.”

  “A metaphor.”

  “A metaphor,” he said back with a slight grin.

  “How do you know what I believe?”

  “I just do.”

  “Are you ever going to get to the point?”

  “Why don’t you just be a good little student and obey me? I’m the teacher now, you’re the pupil. You need to attend to what I’m saying.”

  “I don’t like your tone, you—“

  “Look around this room and tell me what you see.”

  “I see crystals,” she said, more pissed at her compliance than his insults, “Everything here is formed from them.”

  “No!” Beam said, slapping his leg.

  “I told you I didn’t understand. Just tell me whatever the hell it is you want me to know.”

  “You say that, but you don’t believe it. I thought the same thing the first time I visited this cave. Of course, I was as stupid about it then as you are now.”

  Stupid. An overwhelming urge to slap that grin off his face suddenly gripped her. Instead she steeled herself against her darker impulses. “The first time?” she asked carefully, “You’ve been here before.”

  His eyes stabbed her so deeply she experienced a chill for it. “Yes. I’ve been here before. This is where I left the Caeyllth Blade.”

  “Left it?”

  “Found it,” he said, shaking his head, “I meant found it! I mean… it doesn’t matter.”

  The spectral voices began whispering to her again. As she listened to them, she felt the sprouts of understanding. The dead women whispered the truth to her, instructed her, told her not to fear him. In that moment, she realized they weren’t a threat to her. They were her allies.

  “The armor,” she said, “This Vaemyn destroyed that wyrlaerd out there, didn’t he? It’s how he died.”

  “He didn’t destroy it. The demon released itself back to its pits before he could, but… yes, you’re on the right track. What else do you see?”

  She slid her hand across the slick floor. The surface felt like a mountain lake’s first winter ice, clear and black and flawless. Yet, in contrast to its appearance, it was warm as sunshine. A small current of light followed her hand beneath the surface.

  “This cave. It isn’t made of crystal at all,” she said carefully.

  “Good. Continue.”

  “It’s…” She looked up at him.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s made from caeyl stone, isn’t it?” Her hand still caressed the floor, but he owned her eyes. “A white caeyl. The same as in the Caeyllth Blade.”

  “The God Caeyl. Yes.”

  “And the objects in this cave,” she said, looking up at the domed ceiling, “They’re all built or carved from chunks of caeyl stone.”

  “No.”

  Her eyes dropped back to him. “No? What do you mean, no?”

  “There’s only one caeyl. The cave and all its contents are grown from it. This cave is the God Caeyl.”

  She could find no reply for that. The cave was mammoth. How could it possibly be composed of a single crystal?

  “You know, this’d be a hell of a lot easier if you’d just let me in.”

  “No!” she said, throwing up a hand, “No, I can’t! It’s unbearable. You have something to say, say it out loud.”

  “Fine. The hell with it. It threw me off at first, too. But if the centuries I was stuck in the caeylsphere with Prave taught me anything, it’s that talking is so much more work than just thinking.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where were we?” He was scowling now.

  She was once again amazed by the speed with which this rogue flew through his emotions. It was dizzying.

  “Who built this place?” she asked.

  A shadow of confusion passed over him. Then he looked dow
n at the apple, looked at it as intently as if it offered him a route of escape. After a moment, he whispered, “I reckon I did.”

  “What?”

  “At least, I remember doing it,” he said, still watching the apple in her hand, “I think so, anyway. It’s… I don’t know. It’s hazy.”

  “How did you do it? Grow the caeyl into objects, I mean?”

  “How did I do it? How do you walk?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You walk because you choose to. You will yourself to stand, then you will your legs to march. You don’t think about it much, you just choose it and it happens, yeah?”

  She didn’t understand, and his answers weren’t helping. Worse, she suspected he was doing it just to be contrary, maybe to piss her off. If so, it was working.

  “Why does everything coming from your mouth end up so muddled?” she said.

  “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it’s you? Maybe you’re simple and just don’t know it.”

  The words felt like a slap. Yet, as she looked at him, she suddenly understood. Then she laughed. “Ay’a. There are times I think I may indeed be a bit simple. The results of too many years sniffing trails in the sun, I suspect.”

  At first, he just stared at her. For an instant, she thought she’d finally really pissed him off. Then, much to her surprise, he laughed as well. “Well, that’s damned hard to argue,” he said, “I think I may suffer from the same ailment, though from the other end of the trail.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you people gave me my fair share of damage back there in the scrubs. That desert sun’ll boil the civilization right out of a man. Damn me if I still haven’t recovered from those miserable years.”

  “You bloody well deserved it, jh’ven?”

  “Jh’ven, my ass,” he said back, faking indignation, poorly, “Never been so persecuted in my life. And you wonder why they call you people savages.”

  “You know, maybe you should take a peek in a mirror before you throw you people around so willfully.”

  Beam bristled. He began to retort, but then stopped. After a moment, his hand rose to carefully stroke a newly re-grown oteuryn. “Fine,” he said, laughing, “You win this one. But I suspect we’ll have ourselves a rematch before long.”

  “Ay’a, I think it may be the story of our lives. One rematch after another until we both die of exhaustion.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes after that. She felt a bit embarrassed at the levity that’d swung down so quickly on them. Their playful banter only seemed to shine a brighter light on the fact that they were more comfortable fighting each other than sitting in peaceful silence, though it was obvious they both wanted the latter. The sorry truth was that they were far more alike than different.

  Then Beam looked up at her. She sensed the words behind the dark face, words he wanted to say but couldn’t seem to muster the strength for. The angst and regret imparted on him by his history felt as thick as oil.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Let it go. None of us understood the truth back then. But I can tell you this: had we understood, we’d have helped you search instead of trying to kill you. And know this, those who died at your hand are serving at the feet of Calina now; they’re martyrs. There’s no guilt on your head. Not anymore. Not in light of what we’ve learned. You’re forgiven, do you understand?”

  Beam looked at the hand gripping his arm. After a moment, he whispered, “It’s so much bigger than us. We’re all hostages. I was with Prave forever during that last caeyl trance. In mortal terms, it was a span of days. In truth, I was gone for years, centuries as he dragged me across the history of Calevia. I absorbed his life force and his memories. I remember it all now, and it’s left me feeling more stupid than ever. I still don’t know a blasted thing. It’s all so—”

  She thought about her own dream, about seeing him in the olden days, him being led by another, though she’d never been able to get close enough to speak to him.

  He dragged an arm over his eyes. “I sound like a raver.”

  “It’s all over now. You’re back in the world. You have friends now, allies. We’ll finish this together.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “You have to believe it.”

  “Do I? How the hell can we finish a fight that’s been going on for ten thousand years? Tell me that! Damn me, he overestimates my strength!”

  She placed her hand back on his. He may not like it, but he needed it. He needed to feel the heat of another body, to be grounded, to be reminded why they’d all suffered so.

  Eventually they each pulled back, moving at the same instant as if they’d planned it, as if it were a dance they’d shared a thousand times before.

  Then he reached forward and took the apple from her. Turning it in his hand, he said, “The apple has been here a long time. It stays fresh like this because time stops in here.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We’re inside a God Caeyl. Time has no power here. The apple stays fresh because it can’t decay. Nothing ages in here. The God Caeyl’s matrix places us outside the construct of space-time.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Beam snorted at that. “You think I do? Some of the memories Prave gave me are just that, memories. I can recite the knowledge, but don’t necessarily understand what I’m spewing. Sadly, for all the years that bastard tormented me, he didn’t make me a damned bit smarter. He was so tired. I think at the end, he just couldn’t bear it anymore. I believe he used the caeyl’s force to will himself outside its influence.”

  She watched him gently rolling the apple between his hands. The pale spot where she’d bit into it rocked back and forth like a comical eye. Something in what he’d said didn’t fit. Then she realized what it was.

  “The warrior,” she said, “It’s Prave’s corpse? I mean, the real Prave? The first one? The true Father?”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t speak. He only looked back at her, and that was all she needed to know she was right. This was the tomb of the Father. She felt suddenly unworthy, like a heathen sweating in a holy site.

  “You’re beginning to understand,” he said, softly, “You’re beginning to remember.”

  She looked over at the corpse. “You say time stops here, but—”

  Her words caught in her throat. The skeleton was gone. Where it’d lain just moments ago was a brilliant new sarcophagus.

  She stood up. She walked tentatively toward it.

  It covered the bier where the skeleton had lain. It was carved in the crystal image of a man, a Vaemyn, a warrior. His long hair was unbound and swept down over his shoulders. He was dressed in ancient ornamental scale mail, and his jeweled hands clasped the hilt of a longsword whose blade ran down the length of his legs. She recognized the rings on his fingers, the same rings Beam had returned to the corpse. She stepped alongside the figure and leaned closer to the sword. The hilt bore the image of a gem carved into a sensuously lidded eye. It was identical to Beam’s sword.

  She looked back at Beam. “What is this? Where did this come from? How did—”

  She didn’t finish. He’d grown this elaborate coffin from the caeyl itself. The memory of his effort floated up from the hidden shadows of her mind as surely as if she’d watched him do it. Her consciousness overlapped into his like two dandelion puffs interlocking. She felt the edges of his thoughts without actually wading into them, like the cool air brushing up over her bare feet from the edge of the surf. He’d created the sarcophagus during their silence, within the moments of their touch.

  Beam pushed himself to his feet with the effort of a man at the brink of exhaustion. He walked slowly over to her. “You were wondering why Prave’s body decomposed when the apple remains fresh?”

  She nodded.

  “He was some kind of anomaly, that one. He was at once both united with the God Caeyl and perfectly separate from it. The God Caeyl w
as in him, but it wasn’t part of him. When he died, his flesh slipped outside the control of the caeyl’s influence. It was his will. It’s… it’s difficult to explain in physical words.”

  She looked up at the women. “How do they fit in?”

  “The answer is all around you. Their memories are recorded in the caeyl. You’ve taken some of their stories, but you need to free the rest. Their stories belong to you, not me. These women will answer all your questions.”

  She suddenly felt mortally tired, felt like she could lay right there on the floor between the corpses and sleep forever. Her vision lost its focus. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t find the energy. She only wanted to lie down, lie down anywhere.

  “Stop fighting it,” Beam said. His voice was muffled. He sounded a hundred miles off.

  Fighting what? Her words were no longer physical; she realized she was sending her thoughts to him.

  You’re fighting the Truesight.

  I don’t have Truesight.

  “No?” he said out loud.

  “No,” she replied in kind, “I don’t have the Truesight, or the Birthsight, or the Lesser Birthsight. I don’t even have good intuition.”

  “In here, you do. Here in this temple, you have it in its purest form, through the essence of your life force. You have the Truesight.”

  “No, I’m just confused.”

  “You’ve never felt less confused in your life, Koonta’ar.”

  She felt the tendrils of his mind stroking at her anxieties and fears, though this time she welcomed them. She looked directly at him. With his long, roguish black hair and oteuryns as pale as ice, he looked the perfect image of the intersection between good and evil. And with that observation, the truth landed like an ethereal hammer: he was the point of marriage between Prave and Goelvar’s bloodlines. He was descended from both of them. He was the Demonslayer.

  And she was here to save him.

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

  “Damn me if this isn’t one miserable fable,” Beam said suddenly. He was laughing again.

  Koonta turned around to face the coffin of the woman who’d lain in this horrid, wondrous cave for so many scores of centuries. She stroked the strong face of that Vaemyd who, even in death, gazed up at her with the love of Calina in her glassy eyes. This was her ancestor, the first of her line. This was Braen’ar. As she looked into that glassy face, she realized that with the death of Maeryc, she was the last pure progeny from the line of Braen’ar and Praven Vaenfyl.