by Terah Edun
Now seeing those colors displayed over her arm so reminiscent of happier times in her childhood brought a tear to Mae’s eyes.
“Enjoying yourself?” a voice said from behind her.
Mae jumped in partial shock. It took a second for her mind to catch up and remember she wasn’t alone, Rivan was here. For a moment, lost in herself and memories of the past she’d actually forgotten he was there.
“Just trying to ponder how something so beautiful could be called an aberration,” Mae said coolly as she lowered her arm and turned towards him.
Rivan winced and crossed his arms defensively.
“It isn’t an aberration with every appearance,” he said.
“Just when it appears on a tower wall?” Mae replied dryly.
Rivan sighed and carded his fingers through his hair in irritation.
“It’s more than just the location, it’s the cross-current running through it,” he said crossly.
“Cross-current?” Mae asked curious.
He flung an irritated hand up to indicate the tower wall.
“You see how the edges of the perimeter along the…let’s call it a fissure…are jagged?” Rivan asked curiously.
Mae narrowed her eyes and nodded.
She did see that.
“That fissure isn’t normal for lights to coalesce inside,” Rivan continued hesitantly. “They’re supposed to float through the sky without being drawn in. Not gather in a nexus as if commanded.”
“So it’s strange then?” Mae postulated.
“It’s more than strange,” Rivan complained. “It’s unnatural. Has to be the work of mage guided hands.”
Mae was following along with his lecture, but that still didn’t explain what had him so concerned.
Reading her face accurately, Rivan said, “The fissure signals something. Something I hope is just me being cynical rather than right.”
“Are you planning on expanding on what that signal could be?” Mae asked with intensity, not backing down.
Before he could answer a rumble went through the air and then the ground shook.
Mae stumbled around as she tried to keep her balance. It felt like the entire greater holding was coming apart beneath their feet.
“What is happening?” she cried out frantically as she cast a desperate look towards Rivan.
He in turn did not look happy. In fact, his face was pinned in a dark scowl as he bowed his legs to keep his balance which seemed to be working just as well for him as it was for her.
Meaning not at all.
Eyes wide, Mae looked around as it soon became clear that this was bigger than just a little shake. They occasionally got tremors but this far up into the mountains they rarely lasted long. Which is why although her heart was beating fast, Mae wasn’t too worried.
She just did what her great-aunt had taught her to do in times like these.
“Count thirty sheep and it’ll be over by the time you’re done,” Mae chanted to herself as she proceeded to do precisely that.
She got up to the number eleven with the rumbles all around them growing ever louder.
Ominous pops as well, like the crackle of thunder just before lightning struck, began to arise all around her and Mae stumbled on the number thirteen.
This wasn’t what she was used to by a long shot.
Before she could proceed on to fourteen, Rivan whirled around at her as she stood stock still in the middle of the courtyard.
“What are you doing?” he shouted in frustration. “Move!”
10
Until he spoke with a harsh command in his voice Mae was frozen like a rabbit.
But as a renewed shake nearly sent her tumbling to her knees, she realized counting sheep wasn’t working. Her child’s game was just going to get her killed.
Fortunately, Rivan didn’t wait to see if she was actually following his directions.
Instead he spoke and took off on hot feet, his path weaving between invisible obstacles like a child trying to avoid the thinnest parts of the river likely to fall through and collapse beneath their weight. At least that was what it looked like, although it was hard to predict a pattern of where his feet would land. So she just had to keep up. Soon enough she was staggering behind him in a half-run, half-jump and she realized there was a method to his madness. He was carefully avoiding pockets of air where the thunderous crackle would appear just as he stepped aside. Seeing that Mae stopped thinking about her movements and instead just mirrored his precisely. She didn’t wonder why he was stepping where he was, she just tried to step in the same exact spot a second later because if there was one thing worse than the thought of falling through a thin layer of river ice and freezing to death, it was the idea of falling into an open fissure of light and never stopping. The fall would be unending because beyond that light Mae had glimpsed something terrifying.
A void.
She couldn’t call it darkness because she couldn’t see anything.
Just emptiness.
Wherever these new fissures formed, a void of emptiness surely followed.
Determined not to fall into the voids heralded by thunderous crackle and opening up everywhere, Mae tried to follow the invisible path Rivan laid as he weaved his way towards the tower. But it was getting harder and harder with each step. The ground wasn’t just shaking. Neither were the walls they were heading towards. They were being torn apart. The fissures of light weren’t just some fanciful magic that were pretty to look at. They had physical ramifications too. Large cracks in the patio stones that widened with each passing breath. There were so many of them that everywhere she looked was more open voids than stone. Fear practically choked her as Mae gathered up her strength and jumped over a particularly large fissure that was wider than her legs spread apart.
Still she made it, with barely a stumble. There was no time to congratulate herself because they were off again.
“Keep going!” snapped Rivan when she would have hesitated.
“Where are we going?” asked Mae desperately as she darted to the left a mere second after him and the patio floor that had been beneath their feet crumbled away to reveal it was even worse and better than she had feared.
Worse because the void was like nothing she had ever seen.
Better because out of that darkness was starting to pour a spectrum of colors like a water geyser unleashed.
It was the most mesmerizing spectacle she ever had the privilege of seeing. While at the same time it was horrifying. Because those dark voids suddenly bubbling with the lights and colors of a kaleidoscope were all spreading and connecting to each other. Each pool slowly drifting in a thin layer of ooze that seemed at once oily and glass-like.
When the pools touched, they merged until you were staring at a thin surface that threatened to drag you under, physically and mentally, if you didn’t get away quickly enough.
Tearing her gaze away from them was one of the hardest things she’d done this morning, but Mae did it. She had to snap out of it and focus on what those beautiful voids actually meant, because it was clear as day to her that if she fell in one, she might not stop falling and she would certainly die.
Did voids have air? Mae wondered desperately as she hopped to the left as the slightest crack opened up to her right, heralding a thunderous crackle a moment later, and she nearly darted straight into Rivan’s backside as he abruptly backpedaled and turned at the same time.
Her eyes opened wide as she peered over his shoulder trying to see what had made him turn course so quickly. That was her mistake. Her angled move, leaning forward, got in his way as he turned and their feet tangled in an impressive display of clumsiness. She and he fell, but not before Mae saw what he’d been trying to escape in the first place.
A void that had opened up right in front of them. There was no way to stop their fall as a pit dropped in Mae’s stomach as they hit the stone patio inches from being subsumed into something she couldn’t categorize. A fissure that was nothing but a slit i
nto nothingness.
As she quickly tried to scramble up and stand, Mae realized she’d landed in an awkward angle on her right arm. It was painful to move but certainly not as terrifying as seeing the stone crumble away from her feet in front of her.
“Come on!” growled Rivan as he quickly stood up and yanked her up at the same time with surprising strength.
Luckily, he did so by grabbing her other arm, but Mae still felt hurt.
Emotionally so.
His tone was uncalled for and she didn’t know why he was yelling at her, it was not like she’d deliberately stopped to rest on the patio. It was a team effort that had landed them on their butts on the floor.
But she couldn’t say any of that. She couldn’t even catch her breath as he started racing forward again, this time at a cross angle to the one which he’d been on previously, and she just tried to keep up as they began running once more for their lives.
Thunder and the ominous sound of stone falling away into nothing coming again from all sides as they fled.
“Rivan, do you have a plan?” Mae called out desperately as they kept running.
She looked back over her shoulder and realized that everything was disintegrating all around them.
Fissures opening every which way she saw, forwards, backwards, left, and right.
The patio itself had completely crumbled away on the edge behind them and in front, the stone walls were pockmarked with more huge gaps ready to devour them whole.
It felt like being surrounded by an increasingly volatile set of mudholes, all turning into one chasm threatening to swallow her. As Mae saw a crack in the stone floor racing toward her and a rainbow of light flow out from it, she stumbled back trying to get away.
“No, not there!” Rivan shouted as he hurriedly caught her and yanked her forward to prevent her falling back.
She barely caught a glimpse over her shoulder of what he had been yanking her away from and it was not pretty, behind them both a set of fissures had widened into a straight-out sinkhole of human proportions.
Adrenaline racing and off-balance, Mae stumbled forward and tried to avoid any more of the chasms that seemed to be forming from widening fissures at every turn.
But there was nowhere to go, she thought in a panic as she turned around and around in desperation to find that the fissures had encircled them completely.
They were cut off from the rest of the path and she could already see a beautiful rainbow effect growing beneath the stone at her feet. It made the grey hard rock actually look as thin as a tapestry’s fibers as the light began to shine through.
But she didn’t have time to get lost in staring at light shining through a rock’s core when it meant that the very firm ground beneath her feet would soon be disappearing beneath it.
Right on cue, Rivan yelled at her, “Remember when I said the light of the stars are responsive occurrences in auras, and that they are natural and non-deadly?”
“Yes,” Mae yelled back as the sound of cracking stones grew louder.
She backed towards him unnecessarily. They were already closer than usual but he was about the only presence outside with her that wasn’t promising her death in the next few steps. In that way, feeling him back-to-back with her was almost a comfort. Even if they were about to die.
“Those lights are looking pretty deadly to me in the last few minutes,” Mae ventured when Rivan fell silent.
“I might have overplayed my hand there,” Rivan shouted over the sound that heralded the ground beneath them disappearing.
“Never mind that now,” she desperately gasped out. “We need to get out of here.”
“Right,” Rivan said grimly as he gripped her at the crux of her elbow and spread his feet wide in an angle to jump.
She looked at him askance.
“Where are you going?” she barely had the time to ask before he tilted his head up and nodded towards a third floor outcropping. What looked like a ledge of some stone gargoyles on the parapet above them that miraculously hadn’t been touched by the destruction of the fissures all around it and below it. It was a good place for them to escape to, it even had a door inside. But it was impossible to reach.
Mae’s jaw dropped.
They’d never make it. She knew that in her bones.
“We can’t jump that high!” she cried out.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rivan grunted. “We’ll make it!”
Mae didn’t believe him but she didn’t have a choice about moving forward either, his grip only became stronger as he started racing on the narrow strip of path that was left to them. Misgivings aside, Mae started running alongside him. Behind them the patio was crumbling off into the ground below and they would be going with it if they didn’t jump, and fast, to get to more stable ground.
She didn’t want to jump towards a third-floor ledge that she could never reach, but the idea of at least trying to make the attempt had some appeal. Mae didn’t doubt that she was about to die in the next few minutes but she wouldn’t see it coming if she focused on something with hope.
At least that was her justification.
She had no idea what Rivan’s was.
Focusing on herself with a leap and a yell, she jumped over the rainbow of light that was spewing from the chasm in the ground. Without hesitating, Rivan did the same. But instead of just arcing straight up as high as he could with legs spread uselessly wide and hands outstretched to grip a stone ledge too far above them both…he spread his arms wide and called in his magic.
She felt it when the winds answered his call.
Massive funnels of air tore through the sky as they blasted out from his hand. They were so humongous that even she was caught up and held aloft just by the sheer nature of being within Rivan’s vicinity. For once, Mae was great to him. They had seemingly come out of nowhere and she was in awe of the magic it took to call up something so fierce. It was mere moments before he was calling out to her, “Hang on to me!”
She looked over at him, not understanding.
He used his right arm to urge her closer and she wrapped her arms around his waist.
With one of his arms occupied by the funnels keeping them aloft in the air, and other holding tight to her, he set to work. For her part Mae blinked away the debris that was getting into her eyes, huddled close, and looked out in wonder at what she could see of the air blasting in a vortex that was saving her life. The funnels weren’t clean because he’d called them up at the last minute and wasn’t trying to show off.
She didn’t care. She’d be buffeted by harsh winds filled with clods of dirt, random feathers, and the odd occasional bit of wet mud any day if it meant she wasn’t falling to her death once again.
Mae saw the ledge now coming up towards them, or rather they were flying down to it at an impressive speed, and she felt a bit of apprehension rise in her gut.
If I’m not careful I’m going to develop a fear of heights, Mae thought to herself irrationally.
Anything to keep her mind off being squashed like a bug. But it was true, she had been nearly killed by falls to her death far too many times recently not to develop a healthy aversion to being off solid ground. She wanted to protest that they were coming down far too fast to not suffer broken bones and smashed heads, but before she could get to it Rivan shifted his left arm and moved it to the front of them.
As he did so the mighty wind funnels still emanating from the palm of his hand followed his trail like they’d been ordered to do so. The rage of the winds funneled to a specific spot did destruction to the outer walls of the greater holding, leaving behind it a line carved into the stone wall at the point it met the surface and dust everywhere else.
But it did its job.
It slowed down their fall until they were coming into a landing that Mae would more generously call a tumble than a fall.
She breathed a sigh of relief as they were still whole and not falling into a void of emptiness.
11
When
they landed Rivan dropped the grip he had on the back of her tunic and she realized that she could relax, she could breathe. They were safe on a stable island amidst an eye of madness. Just grateful to be alive and not falling into oblivion…again, Mae lay in a crumpled heap on the stone floor. Neither sobbing nor laughing, just existing, her head on the cold ground and her mind flying in a dozen different directions. Trying to process everything she’d seen and been through in the past week.
The idea of summing it all up made her sick, so instead she thought about today, and the young man who had saved her life not just once but twice.
Of course, she’d only been in danger precisely because of the people he had brought into her life.
Although that wasn’t exactly fair, she mused internally. From what Rivan had confided in me…he was as much of a victim of Donna Marie as I was. Perhaps even more so judging by how intimidated he was of Ava.
Although he didn’t seem willing to confess exactly what he’d witnessed the newest foreign mage doing, Mae knew it wasn’t good. As she caught her breath and she felt Rivan doing the same beside her, Mae had the thought that as aloof and tough as Rivan liked to appear his heart was beating as wildly and his breath was coming in as short of gasps as her own.
For a moment, they were on the same page, frightened, unprepared and on edge.
She moved a bit as she prepared to get up, and the connection was broken.
He moved the hand away that still rested lightly on her back and slightly shifted away as well.
It was as subtle a signal as ever, that whatever connection she thought they’d forged together, was as fleeting as his grip at her back.
Still they were alive and Mae couldn’t discount the feeling of sweet victory roaring through her. She never realized how much she wanted to live until the choice had been cruelly taken from her.
