Aisling

by Nicole Delacour

  Chapter Ten

  He held her close, and though both were gasping for breath in this new world, there was no sound. Her head rested against his chest. Jess desperately listened for a sound, but even her blood seemed silent within her veins. The flesh that had formed his wings scattered leaving him in his previous wingless form. Pulling slightly away, Kilpeni took her uninjured hand in his. He ran his fingers across her palm for a moment before he began to write.

  “We should be safe here,” he began to spell the message a second time, but she wove their fingers together and leaned back against his chest. The motion of their shared breathes was soothing even without the comfort of another being’s heartbeat.

  The Castes’ claws had dug deep into her flesh despite the graces lent to her by the core world. The further they pressed into the outer dimensions, the greater the danger would become for Jess. Kilpeni removed his shirt and tore strips to wrap her arm and stop the bleeding. Her fingers twitched, but the wound was not deep enough to cause any true impediment to her dexterity. The bleeding would continue for a time, and there would be several scars; however, there had been a high risk of far worse. The three stones were a heavy weight around her neck. A desert stretched vast and endless to the horizon in all directions though trees rose at odd angles in the distance. Large stones stood in the distance like statues. Standing, Kilpeni helped Jess to her feet. There was little time to spare.

  “The stone is ahead,” he wrote upon her hand. “There is little to fear here.”

  She raised an eyebrow in doubt but did not waste time responding. Her clothing was once again dry save for her own blood, and she thanked whatever insanity formed the laws governing core world people in the other dimensions. With all that was happening, sand sticking to her feet and legs was the least of her worries; however, it would have been an annoyance nonetheless. The silence was eerie. Though she had believed she would be able to hear the pumping of her blood through her veins like one of those soundproof rooms back in the core world, she couldn’t even hear that. The only sounds were in her head. Songs played around in fractured rounds while her thoughts flitted from one topic to the next without traceable reasoning. Winds sent sand falling and trickling down the dunes, and when they drew nearer to the stone statues, Jess watched in fascination until one turned slowly and looked back.

  Reaching out to grab Kilpeni’s hand, she spelled, “They’re alive.”

  Kilpeni smiled. “Only fauna here.”

  She was not surprised entirely that the giants were alone. The silence would lead most creatures to insanity, but at the same time, she wondered why there weren’t just deaf creatures. The soundlessness was extreme, yet it made little sense that creatures could adapt to a landless world but not a soundless one. Kilpeni laughed without sound when she wrote on the back of the hand she held with her thumb: “Why?”

  “It is not the lack of sound.” He gave her a look as if to remind her of what he had said earlier. The thickness was not what made the world silent. There was more to what was going on than she had the time to consider.

  The world trembled beneath them. Shadows stretched and pulled outwards to the distance – no wards or guardians in this dimension only formidable shapes that swallowed the light. Kilpeni trudged forward in front of her towards the soliform that illuminated the parched desert through the thick vapors which hung in the air drowning out all sound. Large humanoids stared up at the sky into the patches where particles bent the light creating tiny holes of darkness like dead pixels. The lumbering forms stood with their hands touching the ground with arms longer than their legs. They stretched on the tips of their toes towards the death that blinked down at them from those abysses that formed in the air. Their long faces bore up with chins and foreheads stretched enough to nearly equal their torsos. Still, their small eyes squinted up at the darkness as they shook with the force of their silent voices.

  Jess tried not to stare at the monolithic figures, but the quiet set her nerves on edge. She could not tell when something moved; the forms seeming to push against the air like it was molasses. The waves between the movements and her body were too slow. Swirling movements of the air reached her long after the figures had ceased. Humid air caressed her face causing Jess to jump back releasing Kilpeni’s hand and stumbled over the foot of one giant. Like waking from a dream, the large carven face fell forward with that large chin crashing into its chest as the creature stared down at her. The two observed each other; Jess’s face upturned to stare into the small widening gray eyes that blinked with eyelids from the top and sides.

  Make it stop.

  The words echoed in her mind. Her brows knit in confusion while Kilpeni forged onward in their quest. She opened her mouth to ask what the giant had meant, but she stopped herself realizing she had no way of saying anything at all or even being certain she was correct in assuming this had been the one that had spoken, yet she heard that soft voice whisper through her mind as those gray eyes maintained contact with her own.

  Make it stop. The light is too bright. The keys make the sun explode. Make it stop.

  Jess desperately wanted to look away. Something held her rooted to the stop where she shivered unable to stop the trembling that flowed from the earth to her body. The giant face drew closer to her. It was the size of her body from the tip of its head to its chin. If Jess had the capacity, she would have screamed. Kilpeni looked back at Jess when she let go of his hand. Stepping quickly to her side, he averted her eyes from the stone figure. Kilpeni wrapped an arm around Jess’s waist and brought her further away where a bright star flickered in the distance, but he did not miss the black slug that inched its way around the giant’s neck.

  “Stay close.” He wrote again and again on her hand until she nodded and glanced up at him. Jess continued to shake, unable to physically stop her body’s visceral reaction to the dimension’s trembling.

  Her eyes flickered around the desert avoiding the sky only to fall on her hand in Kilpeni’s. His hand was calloused and tanned with long fingers that curled around hers. In the few romances which she barely considered relationships in her life, holding hands had never seemed important, yet his hold calmed her nerves with each passing breath. Her eyes traveled up his arm to his broad muscular shoulders and the curls that rustled soundlessly in the desert wind. Whoever Kilpeni had been before, she would admit if only to herself, he had been handsome. She pushed the thought away, but it nagged in the back of her mind the further they trudged in the fourth dimension. There was a growing list of memories that she attempted to file away regarding the moment in the shower until now.

  If this were a story, she thought, we’d end up together in the end. Now, wasn’t that a dangerous thought? Her mind trickled to Echo and Narcissus. Whatever legends were truth didn’t matter. Aislings and humans weren’t meant to be together any more than vampires and humans. Predators were not meant to love their prey; however, Aislings weren’t prey or predators. They were protectors. Jess could not push her emotions away through logic. He was an Aisling. She was a human. There was no comparison in literature that she could summon up through the ages to sum up why a relationship couldn’t work beyond Narcissus and wasn’t that telling. The separation between their worlds was greater than nobility – whether by money or family name, greater than country or city block borders separating gangs, greater than any half-breed alien hybrid ever imagined because, ultimately, at least predator and prey lived in the same dimension.

  As if Kilpeni could hear the gears turning around in her head, he glanced back at Jess with a slight frown. Jess could not bring herself to smile and only frowned in return. Though they did not have the connection preferred between wards and their Aislings, Kilpeni could still read her uncertainty. He watched her with the same concern he always gave her even when they were separated by a mirror. There was always an edge to Jess that left Kilpeni continuously concerned. She stared up at him before glowering back at the horizon where the stone twinkled like a star; however, where a s
tar illuminated, the stone blinded and gnashed at the sky deadening the firmament. Kilpeni followed her sight line knowing all too well that this was neither the time nor place to discuss whatever was jumping around in her head at the moment.

  Shrinking in all around, the world pressed in upon them. The stone figures stared in disbelief at the sky desperate and without understanding how to protect themselves from the invader. A small trio stood cowering together with their large hands clawing at their faces in slow motion. They had mouths though Jess could not fathom why as she could not guess what they could possibly eat. As far the stone giants could fathom, this was the apocalypse. There was no time to comfort them. Jess could not withstand the thrumming of their mind-speak. Only time would show them that the world was not ending if it would hold and if the damage was healed once the stone was retrieved. Fear mingled in the air alongside the heaviness.

  Pressed against the sky, the stone burrowed deeper and deeper into the layers that entombed the near barren world below. The crackled stone gnawed from the worried finger tips of the giants rustled and then jumped with the vibrations as the stone cracked another segment to inch further into the heavens. While the others had glittered like far away stars or even burned almost too brightly to look upon with a white light, this one shimmered a dull orange that burst in flares outwards to shatter tiny squares of the sky to reveal the emptiness that waited beyond. The wind below whipped around in small cyclones before scattering dust and ash as they parted. Staring up at the cracks that radiated from the stone, Kilpeni threw aside all other thoughts but his mission. He could not afford to continue with such distractions.

  “Wait here.” He wrote the words three times until Jess gave him an impatient glare. Nodding, he let go of her hand and expanded his essence to stretch upwards. His torso elongated as his arm grew extended until another flare struck a patch of sky sending cyclones downwards and corkscrewing his body back to its previous form.

  The smirk on Jess’s face was the smuggest bit of cheek he had seen from her in a long time. Her quiet sarcasm had been the only remaining fragment of the boundless confidence of her youth, and Kilpeni was overjoyed to see something so old return. The strange bit was that he wasn’t reflecting this tiny twitch at the corner of his lips that was accentuated by a single curved upwards eyebrow. It was his to witness and behold without needing to reflect. This time – he could react, and that was a gift he wouldn’t give up for all the peace in all the worlds in any dimension.

  There – where all sense spoke of silence – a sound rang out from the heavens. The sharp shriek of breaking crystal vibrated out into the darkness in melting waves. Stone giants shuddered as the stones stilled upon the ground. Chills ran down Jess’s spine before the pain set in, and she reached out to grab hold of anything to keep the black spots in her vision from taking over. Kilpeni leapt forward to catch her, but Jess fell through him as though he were insubstantial as the shadow he had once been. Jess covered her ears though silence had returned. Upon her knees, she screamed without voice while Kilpeni panicked with unheard pleas as his hand continued to slip through his ward. Desperately, Kilpeni attempted to embrace Jess only for him to slip through her like a phantom.

  The shattered shards of the sky glistened falling in a tempest of glass to the earth. There was no white light on the other side. Blackness lurked where the sky fell. Smog rolled through the cracks spreading the damage before cascading downwards while a single spot of brightness flashed like a siren above them. A figure formed: a silhouette refracted upon the churning miasma. An old man with a burning face that ran along the scruff of facial hair that gathered around his gaunt jaw. Two blazing lightning blue eyes were framed by silver wisps of hair and dark brows. The flames that threatened to consume him branched out into the darkness. The stone sat within the man’s left eyes staring calmly down upon Kilpeni with cool interest.

  A pity, my brother, that you’ve become so weak.

  Kilpeni looked to the sky, and without willing, his form shifted to a stalwart man broad in his body and thick in the leg. A brown beard grew forth as his hair fell to his shoulders and knotted brows beetled over gray eyes upon Kilpeni’s new face. The flecks of blood flickered over him like a cloak. The years had never felt so few between the ward’s face who he now wore and Jess. Laid to rest in a burning tomb, there were few brave enough to accept death. Njál had struggled as his ward from which he received his name laid beneath the blankets in the house that fire shattered around him. The sacrifice he took in turn to become a stone reflected better upon that single act of courage than any sainthood might have.

  Smoke without fire – now blood without flesh. How many of us have been lost?

  “You must stop!” Kilpeni begged with his thoughts. “She’s in pain. Please, Njál.”

  Confusion rippled across the other’s face before fading. Aislings did not ordinarily receive names prior to death, so Njál had never known his.

  Well met – pity. I am tired, but I cannot sleep. There is too much to fix.

  “This is the fourth dimension. This isn’t our home. This isn’t the core. There is nothing to fix. The sky will seal if you leave it,” Kilpeni explained.

  This world is broken. It must be fixed. This world is broken.

  The stone giants shook fervidly bending beneath the will of the dead. Their arms swung while their eyes rolled. Fire scorched the earth raining down from the heavens leaving runs of glass mixed with the black smoke that curled ever lower pouring out in a slow moving flood. Stretching upwards, Kilpeni was snapped back to the ground harder with each attempt. Jess no longer screamed, but as her eyes rolled to Njál, blood trailed from her ears to beneath her collar. Njál’s icy gaze traced the edges of the dimension before he stretched out as if to cover the whole fourth dimension with his body.

  “Stop.”

  Njál paused at the word reaching upwards. Seconds ticked forwards as he waited for another sound from below where silence should have been. Jess pushed herself to her feet. Her heart whispered in her chest a thousand reasons why none of what was happening matter, but a single voice called out into the darkness against all sanity.

  “Stop.” Her mind trailed over all the explanations she had been told. The lack of them lined up further. “God said, ‘And let there be light’ – and there was light. Right? So here I am talking in a world that should be silent because you think you’re some sort of divine being? Well, screw you.”

  Njál pulled his form back and floated towards Jess. Fire flickered across his skin.

  I am not God. This world is broken.

  “I’m a writer. I am the deity of three worlds where I decide who lives and dies. The longer I live, the more godlike I become. Bow to me!” her voice roared through the world upon the rush of Njál’s false wings, and the giants who had stood fell once more to their knees.

  This world is broken. It must be fixed. I am not God. Stand aside.

  “No. In a world of blind men, the one-eyed man is king. In a world of silence, she who can shout is God,” Jess screamed. “This world is mine if I say it is. Stand aside or there will be no more stone for you. Aisling can die if I say it is so.”

  His mouth quivered before his thin lips parted. “This…” the word hissed from him like air leaking from a tire. “World is broken.”

  “This is the fourth dimension. Let there be silence.”

  Like a rope pulled tight, the world snapped back. Twilight filled the sky, and the smog reversed pulling backwards into the heavens. Tiny pieces of firmament filled in the air and sealed the cracks. The glass formed by Njál’s flames dissolved into sand leaving no sign of what had been done by the stone. Njál opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His mind reeled, but his thoughts became as silent as the dimension. The stone within his breast rocked from one side to the next, and then the stone was gone. Njál turned to face Kilpeni who held the stone within his ghostly hands. The fire faded first, followed by all save Njál’s weary eyes. The stone thrummed. Bowin
g his head, Kilpeni trudged to Jess and held the stone to her. She plucked the stone from his fingers letting the tips of hers touch his to reassure him that he was solid once more. Once the stone was in the pouch about her neck, he took her in his arms and held her tightly. Her hair smelled of sand and smoke, but the feel of her skin against his and the brush of her hair against his face warmed him.

  “How?” He traced the word onto her back twice before she nodded into his shoulder.

  She wrote the words between his shoulder blades. “Last resort.”

  Guiding her away from the stone giants who lumbered along as though nothing had ever threatened their world, he kept one arm about her waist while he lifted his shirt and carved into his flesh: To the Fifth. The words bled for a moment before swirling black then fading from his skin. A moment passed before a spark flickered before them and a stone door rose up. The flattened stone that leaned against the frame blocking the way rolled to the side showing a waterfall running between the head and the foot of the door. Before they passed through, Kilpeni’s side burned once more. He ushered Jess through before glancing down: Things Getting Dangerous Stop. Girl Could Be A Problem Stop. Kilpeni turned to survey the fourth dimension one last time before shaking his head and passing through without responding.

  Chapter Eleven

  The air was thinner in the fifth, and her pulse once more echoed in her ear. Relief flowed over her finally calming the shivers that had wracked her body though, aside from sound and the thinness of the air, the fifth dimension looked much the same as the fourth though brighter. The sky was clear blue – more vibrant than she had ever seen in her life. The sky was blinding in its glory with a sun burning in the sky for the first time in three worlds. For a moment, Jess could imagine she was on Earth. Then her mind moved outwards. In the core world, the universe was immeasurable. If the skies told the truth, this dimension had other celestial bodies. Perhaps, she thought, this dimension housed other worlds too. They stood on an outcropping of rocks at the beginning of a slope downwards into a valley where something silver traced its way like a river.