by Kim Fedyk
Arleth kept walking until a few minutes later, she reached the huge mahogany doors that led to the courtyard. She paused in front of the doors breathing excitedly; just as she had expected she hadn’t come across anyone and she didn’t see or hear anyone nearby. She smiled, she had made it! She just had to push open the door and step inside and she would be safe and sound in the courtyard once again. Slowly Arleth pushed one of the huge doors open. It was heavy and it took both of her hands and her full strength to open it just wide enough to squeeze through. With effort, she managed to press her way through the opening she had created, and with a last burst of energy, tumbled onto the soft grass on the other side.
Picking herself up, and straightening her dress, Arleth glanced around at her surroundings. Leading from the door was a stone path that branched into three separate trails a little ahead of where Arleth was standing. She had taken the middle path with the girl the first time, and that one had led almost directly to the waterfall in the centre. She didn’t really care that much about seeing the waterfall again, so she decided to take one of the other two paths. She looked to the right and the left, contemplating. To the right, the path led through what seemed to be a garden of flowers. But Arleth could tell instantly that this wasn’t like any sort of garden she would have found on Tocarra. Here, the flowers were all different, none were the same as their neighbours, and none appeared to be anything similar to any flower that Arleth had ever seen before. Each was a different shape or size or colour than the plant standing beside it.
Looking to the left, the scene was drastically different. Where the right path had been visible far into the distance, winding through the flowers, the path to the left disappeared into darkness a few metres ahead. It led into a dense cluster of trees that formed a tunnel around the path blocking out any light - the path literally disappeared from sight. Feeling rather adventurous at the moment, Arleth wanted to find out where the tunnel of trees led. The right path seemed boring now by comparison; the left was much more mysterious. Her mind made up, she started walking down the left path.
She had only gone a few feet down the path when she reached the cluster of trees. Arleth paused for a moment at the entrance, taking in the tunnel of trees spreading out before her. At first glance, the trees themselves were pretty ordinary – just like the ones she had seen every day on Tocarra. But when she looked closer, she noticed something strange. The roots of each tree were not underground, but instead hung suspended a few inches off the ground. Even more fascinating, the roots grew outwards to the right and left, connecting each tree to the one beside it. To Arleth, it seemed almost like the roots were the trees’ arms and they were reaching out to hold hands with their neighbours. The top of each tree was bent to extend over the path, its branches touching those of the tree on the opposite side. The resulting canopy blocked any light from reaching the ground and created the dark tunnel that had so attracted her. With a smile, Arleth took a step forward.
She was surprised at how soon the darkness engulfed her. In only a few feet, it had already become so dark that she could no longer see the path ahead of her clearly. And in a couple more steps she was in total darkness; she couldn’t even see her own hand outstretched in front of her. Arleth didn’t really think this made logical sense; shouldn’t she still be close enough to the entrance for at least a little light to filter through? She hadn’t made any turns either; the entrance should be right behind her. Sure enough, when she turned around to check behind her, the entrance was there a few feet away, its brightness mocking her. But what she noticed was that although the entrance was fully illuminated, none of the rays of light shone through. It was as if there was an invisible wall where the first set of trees stood, which prevented any light from penetrating further. The light literally stopped at the tree-line. This was no natural way for light to behave and Arleth felt certain that magic was involved. For about the twentieth time since she had crossed over into Oherra, she realized just how different life was here. It wasn’t just that Oherra had sorcerers and sorceresses or magical creatures, but that the world itself was infused with magic. Even the laws of nature that she knew did not seem to apply here.
Arleth felt certain that she would be continuing to discover new things in Oherra for years to come. It was hard to believe, after seven years of tedious drudgery, how much her life had changed in a few short days. Others might have been terrified by this realization or at least felt a bit out of place, but not Arleth.
Being in the orphanage and then a servant to Bella, Arleth had never really had anything to call her own; and with the death of Flora and Neve, nothing to hold on to. She had never felt like she belonged on Bella’s estate, and any remembrance of the feeling of belonging had died with everyone she had ever known that terrible day at the orphanage. Thus, although she was on a completely new world and everything here was different than what she was used to, she didn’t feel any more alienated than usual. What was left was just her burning excitement.
She turned back away from the entrance and started walking slowly down the path, deeper into the tunnel of trees. Although it was pitch black, Arleth felt perfectly safe. She had long since outgrown her childish fear of the dark, and besides, she didn’t presume that there would be anything dangerous in the courtyard of Iridian Castle. That being said, she still had to walk carefully so she wouldn’t poke an eye out on a tree branch or fall into the trees on either side of the path. She walked slowly, holding out her arms. She couldn’t see the path to know if it turned, but with her arms outstretched, she would feel if she came close to the trees on either side and she would be able to stay reasonably in the middle of the path.
She continued like this for a while, aware that she probably looked ridiculous. She knew it was foolish to be thinking this though, as there was no one around to see her. Even if there were, they couldn’t possibly see her in the darkness. Besides, they would probably look just as ridiculous navigating in the dark as she did. She smiled embarrassedly at her vanity and when she did, her mind turned involuntarily to thoughts of Bella. It was impossible for Arleth to think of vanity and not conjure of an image of that woman. She smiled again, this time remembering the look on Bella’s face when King Absalom had put her in her place in Sonohan’s town square. She pictured the woman’s fish-like gaping and incredulous stare and sighed contentedly. It was perfect justice for such a narcissistic and proud woman.
Arleth, lost in such pleasant thoughts, didn’t notice right away when a greenish light appeared on the path ahead of her. It wasn’t until the light was bright enough that she could see the trees on either side of the path that she noticed that something had changed.
The tunnel had opened up into a small clearing. It was a square grassy enclosure, surrounded on all sides by a thick row of trees. The trees were a bit shorter here and their branches didn’t quite meet each other. This meant that a bit of light came through from the top, and when reflected on the trees, cast a faintly greenish light over the clearing.
In the middle there was a life-size statue of King Absalom carved from a dark gray stone. One arm was holding a sword drawn and raised, pointing directly ahead and in the other hand the statue was holding ... Arleth gasped in shock. No, she shook her head, she must be wrong. What kind of a man would have a statue made of himself holding that? She took a few steps closer and found to her horror, that she had been right.
The statue’s left hand had been carved holding a severed male head by the hair.
This statue was clearly meant to depict some great victory that Absalom had won. The king’s face had been carved looking regal and confident, as the hero. But Arleth couldn’t tear her eyes away from the face carved on the severed head; a look of unmistakable agony. Even carved into stone, the emotion on that face touched Arleth’s heart.
Why would Absalom have a statue like this? What kind of a person would want future generations to remember him as the man holding the severed head? Arleth couldn’t help feeling a bit repulsed. But alm
ost immediately, her repulsion faded; King Absalom was the king of Oherra, the peacekeeper of the Universe. He wouldn’t have a statue like this of himself just for fun. The man with the severed head must have been horrendous, a brutal monster; and King Absalom would have surely been a hero for defeating him. Arleth still thought it was a bit gross, but she supposed that such a terrible man could almost deserve to have had his head cut off.
A rustling to Arleth’s right caught her attention. She immediately froze; she shouldn’t be here and if she was caught... well she didn’t really know... but she could imagine it wouldn’t be pleasant. The noise grew louder, whatever or whoever it was, was coming closer. Arleth started breathing faster, she had to move! She couldn’t be found here. Her best bet was to try and run back into the tunnel of trees and hope that she wouldn’t be seen. But she didn’t know if she had enough time for that; the noise had sounded pretty close. She had to try though – she didn’t want to get in trouble in her very first week here. For all she knew, if she was too much of a hassle, Absalom might send her back to Tocarra once she gave him the information he needed about the assassin. And the last thing Arleth ever wanted to do was to go back to Bella and Kiran.
That terrifying thought gave Arleth the added adrenaline she needed. With a burst of speed, she turned around and rushed into the tunnel of trees. Breathing heavily, she looked at the clearing but it was still empty. Arleth edged backwards a few feet, deeper into the darkness and crouched down to make herself less visible. As soon as she had done so, a bush to the right of the clearing gave a violent shake and a dark form sped out.
It was a small ginger-coloured cat.
Arleth took one look at it and burst out laughing. How ridiculous, she thought; almost having a heart-attack over a cat. Feeling rather foolish, Arleth stood up and walked back into the clearing. The cat, now aware that it was not alone, perked up its ears and looked at the stranger curiously. Arleth smiled reassuringly and held out her hand.
“Come here,” she cooed. “I won’t hurt you.”
The cat stared at her for a while as if hesitating and then slowly it padded its way over to Arleth. It stopped just out of arm’s reach, staring shyly up at her. Carefully, so as not to alarm it, Arleth lowered herself to her knees, her hand still outstretched, beckoning the animal to come closer. But the cat didn’t move - it stayed just where it was staring at Arleth. On her knees, Arleth edged herself slowly forward. The cat still stayed where it was. If she could move just a little bit closer she would be able to pick it up. She shuffled forward until she was in reach and to her delight the cat still hadn’t moved.
“I’m just going to pick you up now ok?” She cooed to it gently, reaching out her arms.
The cat looked at the hands coming closer to it and scampered away into the bushes on the far side of the clearing.
“No!” Arleth gasped. “Come back!” She hurried after the cat, crawling into the bush where it had disappeared. There it was, with its back to her, licking its paw. It hadn’t noticed her yet. Perfect! Arleth reached out again to pick it up. But she had moved her hand no more than a few inches toward the animal when she froze dead in her tracks.
A human hand had appeared. It reached for the cat and effortlessly picked it up, pulling it up and out of Arleth’s sight. Arleth held her breath and waited where she was a few seconds to see if the hand would come back. But it didn’t and Arleth exhaled quietly. Who was there? The quick glimpse that Arleth had gotten of the hand had told her that it belonged to a female. It was too slender not to. This relaxed Arleth a little bit; it meant it wasn’t Absalom.
As carefully as she could, she parted the branches in front of her to see if the owner of the hand was still nearby. Sure enough, on the other side of the bush in which Arleth now sat was another clearing and in it sat a woman. The cat was curled peacefully in her lap and she was stroking it gently. But that wasn’t what Arleth had noticed first. The first thing that Arleth had noticed was that the woman was completely naked. She had long blonde hair that was pulled forward over each shoulder. Arleth was glad, for the sake of her modesty, that the woman’s hair was long enough that it covered her breasts.
What was this woman doing here Arleth thought? She didn’t appear to be a servant. Then she remembered her tour and the naked women who had been swimming in the pond at the base of waterfall. This woman was probably one of them. The bushes directly behind the blonde woman parted and another woman came into view. She was also completely naked and Arleth felt embarrassed to be watching them. She was about to turn around to leave, when the newcomer looked down at the blonde woman and said something that Arleth found quite strange.
“You are splitting, have you not been swimming in the pool lately?”
“No I suppose I haven’t been, maybe not for a couple of days.”
“Why not?” The second woman said a bit harshly, disturbing the cat so that it ran away.
“I’m not really sure,” the blonde woman said sounding a bit confused. “I know that yesterday I was going to go swim like we normally do, but I saw this cat and I got distracted and so I followed it. I guess I never went back to swim again...” she trailed off. She seemed to not know how to finish her sentence. Suddenly her head jerked up staring in fear at the second woman. “You won’t tell Rogan will you?”
“I don’t know. I think I should, he always tells us to let him know if something out of the ordinary happens. And you splitting is certainly something quite strange.”
“Oh please don’t,” the blonde woman begged. “I don’t think I could bear another one of his remedies.” Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. “Please don’t, last time it hurt so much.”
The other woman looked down at her and Arleth saw something change in the woman’s blank expression. A hint of compassion maybe? “Ok...” the woman said slowly. “But please go in the pool now.”
“Thank you!” The blonde woman wept, a smile starting to form on her face. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I will definitely go to the pool right now.”
The second woman reached down and held out her hand to the blonde woman. She still seemed to be unsure about the decision she had made. The blonde woman seemed not to notice and grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled herself to her feet.
It was at this moment, when the blonde woman turned to walk back out of the clearing that Arleth saw what splitting was. She put her hand up to her mouth to stop herself from gagging. What was going on? All down the back of the blonde woman, right next to her spine was a thick red incision. It ran all the way from the base of her neck to her tailbone and had to be at least one inch wide. It looked like the woman’s skin was literally peeling away from her body all along this line. The tatters of it hung unevenly on either side of the split. Strangely enough though, Arleth didn’t see any blood; inside the cut was an angry red colour, but it didn’t appear to be bleeding at all.
Arleth’s head started spinning and she felt like throwing up. She was glad she was sitting down otherwise she probably would have fainted.
How could the woman have not been in terrible pain? How could someone have an injury that size and not at least know it was there? Who were these woman that needed to swim in a pool so as to not have their bodies fall apart? How did they get to be like that? And who was Rogan? The woman had been clearly terrified of him. Even the second, stony-faced woman had changed her mind when his name had been mentioned.
Involuntarily, Arleth shivered; suddenly she didn’t feel so safe anymore. For the first time in a long while, she felt acutely aware of how alone she really was. She wanted to talk to someone about what she had just seen, she wanted to ask questions, find out about what was going on. But she had no one.
She didn’t feel like exploring anymore today, all her enthusiasm had left her body just as that woman’s skin was somehow leaving hers. All Arleth wanted to do now was go back to the glass tunnel and continue cleaning like she was supposed to have been doing. She wanted to find out what was going on, but
right now she just felt drained.
She crawled out of the bushes and back into the clearing. She ran through it, passing the statue which didn’t seem nearly as heroic anymore, and into the tunnel of trees. She continued running down the path until she saw the reassuring light from the courtyard up ahead of her. Hurriedly she ran across the courtyard back to the huge doors that would lead her out into the hall. With all her effort she pulled one of the doors open slightly and squeezed her way through. Back out in the hall, the door swung silently shut behind her. Suddenly exhausted, she slumped down on the floor with her back leaning against the closed door. She steadied her breathing as much as she could and with a determined effort tried not to think about what she had just seen. After a few seconds, Arleth knew this would be almost impossible and so she stood back up on shaking legs and started walking back to her cleaning duties.
She had only taken a couple of steps when a strong, muscular hand clasped onto her arm and spun her roughly around.
Chapter 13
As she was spun around, Arleth looked up into the face of her assailant. With a growing feeling of dread, her eyes travelled along the handsome contours of his face, taking in the dark curly hair, stunning green eyes and tanned skin.
She was looking into the face of King Absalom.
His expression was unreadable, yet Arleth was sure that he had seen her leave the courtyard. The room she was in was completely open and either of the two halls that led to it had a perfect, unobstructed view of the courtyard door. For him to have reached her so quickly after she left the courtyard, he must have been coming down one of the halls when she had run out. Her thoughts had been so preoccupied with what she had seen that she hadn’t even bothered to check if there was anyone else around her. She silently cursed her lack of observation and thought frantically for some reason she could have for being in the courtyard. But Absalom seemed oblivious to Arleth’s distress and when he spoke, it was in a neutral voice, without any trace of anger.
