– you told me so yourself.”
“Ah, so I did! I meant it at the time, you know – but you were a very small girl then. For us mortals, my love, time is very short. Every second of time allotted to us, rolled all into a single entity, is in the end no very great thing.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know very well what I am saying. So much excitement in one afternoon! But you did so well, my girl. And now I can leave, with the truth in my heart – that you have done so very well! And you will do many great things, my love, before all is said and done.”
“You cannot leave,” said Lila quickly, holding tightly to her mother’s hands; as though that pathetic gesture would somehow cause the woman’s spirit to linger a little longer on earth. “You cannot leave, Mother. I need you.”
“You do not need me, Lila. Not anymore. I have taught you all that I can! You can stand on your own now.”
“Stop it! Just stop it, won’t you? You are just fine, Mother – you are going to be all right.”
“I will,” said Abella, pressing Lila’s hand. as the tears began to slip from her eyes. It was a rare occasion, when one could say that they saw tears in the eyes of the proud Queen – but Lila watched them now, and did not feel at all privileged to have seen them.
“I will be,” repeated Abella. “I have spent years in this bed! I want to be free of it. Finally I can soar above the clouds, and forget these worthless legs. I promise, darling – I shall wave to you as I pass o’er.”
“Please don’t say such things,” said Lila, laying her head down upon the blanket what covered her mother’s chilled body. The hands she held were as small blocks of ice, trembling violently as the strength went out of them.
“Oh, my girl!” exclaimed Abella. “Such years these have been, that I watched you grow into such a beautiful woman! I do not believe that thirty of them have passed by so soon. How my head spins, just to think of it!”
“Don’t think of it,” said Lila, as cold and rushing springs began to flow forth from her eyes. There was no warmth, and no salt – only ice and blood. “You needn’t think of it, for you will be here with me for thirty years more! Only think of that, and you will be fine.”
“I am afraid that my thoughts make little difference now. But they are good ones, and I shall go out from this place with a smile upon my face. I shall become what I was, and walk once again with the strength of my mothers.”
“Oh!” cried Lila, wiping desperately at her eyes. “I shall give you back what you gave to me, and you will be well again! Oh, Mother – only take it, and ease this pain in my heart!”
Abella shook her head, and answered in a firm, clear voice. “I will not take it,” she said. “It is yours now; just as it was meant to be. There are many things you still have to do. Many, many things.” She took a shallow breath; and it seemed that her strength was waning. “Yet there are things I must tell you,” she went on, smiling as well as she could, despite an expression that bespoke of great physical pain. “There are things you must know, before the end.”
Lila felt suddenly as though she were pressed in betwixt two heavy, solid objects. They continued to push at her from both sides, as her heart began to beat faster. Her mind raced, and the questions flew forth from every surface of her brain – but she could not find the courage to voice them.
“I spoke to you of a prophecy,” said Abella. “And the time is near. There is war in the air, my love; and it comes closer to you each day. It has enveloped all that you see, and is only waiting to begin. In its game, you are a pawn – as is the Sorceress, and as are your new friends.” She paused for breath. “My part in this war was not great, for my only task was to provide you with all that you needed. This I have done; and for this I am blessed.”
Lila only shook her head, and lifted her hands up to clutch either side of it. “I don’t understand,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “What is this war? Has it not already begun, today with Dain Aerca?”
“She is not your opponent.”
Lila’s frustration was so great, she felt it was inevitable that she would burst apart at the seams. “Oh, Mother,” she moaned, elbows on her knees as she applied great pressure to her temples.
“When the time has come,” said Abella, “you will know it. Your place in this fight will be made apparent. Your questions will be answered, and your mind will be more at ease. Of course, none of this may happen until after the great battle; but that is not for me to know. I should have gone from this place long ago – but I could not let you go, my own dear children.” She took a great and heaving breath, as a sob stuck in her chest. “Your brother says that I never loved him – and that I only loved you. But I have always loved you both, so very much! Perhaps he sensed the great gift that I had bestowed upon you; and perhaps for that he resented me. But oh, what could I have done? Now, my duty as your mother has been fulfilled – and I can take pride in my own beautiful children. Won’t you bring him to me, so that I might see him once more?”
Lila made to leave; but before she had risen from the bed, her mother grabbed her arm and said, “Wait a moment.”
She reached for her journal on the bedside table, and handed it to Lila. “I have written down the instructions for my burial,” she said, “on the last page. You needn’t worry over the rest of it – for it is only the ramblings and notions of a caged woman, I should say. But read my instructions carefully, won’t you? I beg you to follow them perfectly, though I know full well that you shall not understand them.”
With the sting of the scorpion present in her very eye, Lila rushed from the room to find her brother. She went to his chamber, and was fortunate enough in the fact that he was there, sitting upon his bed, and weeping as though he were little more than a small boy.
“Antony,” said she, hurrying to him and taking him by the hand, “you must come with me quickly. Come, come – we haven’t much time.”
And so she pulled him, and held him, and ran with him back to their mother’s chamber – all the while weeping just as loudly as he, and filling the corridors with her anguished cries.
When they had reached their mother’s bed, they climbed up into it like little children, laying a head upon each of her shoulders, and waiting for the last bit of wisdom that she might impart unto them.
“Oh, my dear children!” cried Abella, turning to kiss each of their heads, as she shed her tears upon their hair. “My beautiful babies, here beside me – just as they will always be. And I beside them, just as I will always be!”
The room was full to bursting with the sound of her children’s screams, begging for mercy to whoever might hear, beseeching whatever might reign above the clouds, that their beloved mother would not be taken away.
But they were quieted by the return of her voice, which had grown sweet and thoughtful as she spoke to them the last words that she ever would speak.
“I wanted not for either of you ever to be alone,” she said, “when the day finally came that your father and I left your side. And he wished for the very same thing; though I know there were times when you doubted whether he loved you so much. But oh, how he loved you both! Quite as much as I did, though he had so much more trouble proving it to you.” She smiled sadly. “But oh, yes, how we loved you since the very day you were born! We swore that we would keep you safe, and help you grow. And here you are now, just as perfect as can be! I could not ask for anything more.”
Neither of the children could find the strength of voice, to answer their mother anything.
“You both must promise me,” she said, “that you shall always support each other; that you shall always listen to each other; and that you shall always love each other. This is the most important thing.”
The children nodded fervently, and Abella smoothed back the hair from their brows. They both felt as if they were only eight years old, and in search of the assurance that was given of their mother’s protection. They drank her words with parched throats, and loo
ked into her face with great longing; and wept at the blood that flowed down from their hearts, at the knowledge that she would leave them forever.
“But you must learn to love others, as well,” said Abella. “You both are so reluctant to trust! But you must learn how to do so; and you must learn how to give as much of yourself, as you might want someone else to give to you.”
Here she leaned back against the pillows, kissed her children’s heads, and began to speak in a very low voice, that was almost a song in its perfect tenderness; and brother and sister only listened as it flowed into their ears, and closed their eyes as it washed over them.
“It happened to me, when I met your father. The world seemed all of a sudden an entirely different place. Colours were brighter, and the air was sweeter. My heart grew so light, it was as if it fluttered about in my chest. People said that they saw a lovely kind of light in my eyes. And oh, even when I looked in the mirror, I could see it there myself! It was the light of love; the light without which people grow dark, and bitter, and withered. It shines upon each of us, when the time is right, and the only difference betwixt one and the next is what we choose to do with it! To block it out, and to force it away; to put up those dark curtains round your heart, might sometimes seem easier, and indeed sometimes is, but is never the answer. Let it shine upon your hearts, my angels, and bring you peace in this world of night!”
“What is an angel, Mother?” asked Antony.
“Oh, what is an angel! You shall see, my dear boy, you shall see. Made from the very mould of them, you are – so perfect are my darlings! You shall see, oh – you shall see!”
Thinking that Abella might perhaps be growing delirious (for her poor body had indeed grown quite fevered), Lila shook her head at Antony, instructing him to ask no more.
And so they lay there very still, for a long while more, until Abella’s breathing became terribly faint, and the skin of her face became pale as the death that hovered just over her head. Her children embraced her, whilst she could still feel them; and whispered into her ears that they loved her so; and watched a smile take hold of her lips, as the last of the light went out of her eyes, and her slight chest ceased to rise.
Episode VI
XXXIII: After the Battle
For many long days after the siege, Onssgaard lay in a wreck of carnage and destruction, sweat, death and misery. If the soldiers, so busy under the direction of Thomas Henry and Harn Fala (for Henry had indeed escaped his brush with death, with little more than a few deep gashes upon his face), had known that the loss of their dear friends and brothers-in-arms had been nothing but a distraction, so that the Sorceress might attend uninterrupted to her own business inside the castle, they would have laid their weapons down upon the ground, and run screaming with insanity out the gates of the city.
While the Sorceress, assisted unwittingly of the soldiers by a foul creature called Zana, conducted herself within the walls of Eredor, a fierce battle had raged down in the city. Man and beast had fought to the death from the North Wall to the South, and from the East to the West under a downpour that mixed with the blood to make thick ankle-high rivers of gore and death that filled the streets, the likes of which had not been seen in the Broken Earth since the days of Sodow the Red.
Had the Sorceress not departed when she did, with only half of the task to which she had set herself accomplished, the Army of Eredor would have surely seen its downfall. During the relatively short space of time wherein the battle rocked the walls of the city, nearly one sixth of Onssgaard’s soldiers were killed. So great was their ferocity, however, that an even greater number of Narken were slayed.
If one were to stop and think of that, to think of it really and truly, it would honestly be quite as terrible a thing as the deaths of all those brave soldiers. For, what had those creatures been before their lives were taken away, and their bodies stolen to mingle with the blood of wolves, so that they became something which they would have once considered hideous and evil?
Only men.
~
Directly after leaving their mother’s chamber on that woeful evening, Lila and Antony went down to the place where the battle was winding down. What Narken that had been spared the cold thrust of the soldiers’ blades were already retreating through the gates; but their departure was not allowed by the remaining ranks of the Army of Eredor, so filled with fire at the sight of their comrades lying in heaps all about them. So they drove out the wolves that remained, and followed them into the barren land beyond the wall. It was there that they slayed every single beast that still breathed; and hewed their bodies with unquenchable anger, with axes and swords and whatever killing object they could lay their hands upon.
With the exception of a number very few, only those lives whose owners were equipped with the ability to travel through the very air, were spared that night. But it should be noted that Selly Finks and George Etley survived the siege, by coming back to themselves quite in the nick of time; and just before rushing out into the clash that was taking place down in the city. The eyes of Deegin Bryte, however, were still filled with flame, as he ran from the castle and into the streets. He made the fatal mistake, in the throes of the swollen pride that was an accompanying trait of the mystical fire, of charging after the mighty Harn Fala; and was felled in an instant by the soldier’s heavy blade. Etley and Finks sobbed quite pathetically when they found him, lying there amongst the numerous bodies of the dead, that were as a grisly carpet to the floor of the city.
Antony Bier, of course, had wept quite enough by the time he came upon his friends. They were huddled at the side of the Blackstone Way, which was the city’s largest thoroughfare, and down which Antony was travelling in search of Thomas Henry. Lila had already located Harn Fala, and was discussing with him plans for the removal of the carnage.
Selly saw him first, and began to shout and wave, in an attempt to get him to come over to the place where he and George were kneeling beside Deegin. Antony saw him, and offered him a grim expression, which told of the fact that he could see what had happened, and that he was no more happy about it than they were; but that he had other business to see to, and that he could not accompany them in their grief.
With that, his heart was filled to the brim already.
While Antony sought for Thomas Henry on the Blackstone Way, Lila stood with Harn Fala at the top of Hammer Street, which fed directly into the lane that led to the South Gate. The gate itself still lay in pieces upon the ground, but the scraps of iron had at least been moved aside, so that the bodies pinned beneath them (some breathing and some not) could be pulled away.
“Ditches will be dug for the bodies of the wolves,” said Lila, looking through the gate and into the bloodstained land beyond. “The bodies will be burnt, and then covered with earth.” Here she shivered, and turned away from the dead Narken; which were so numerous that their bodies straggled nearly a mile away from the gate. “Soldiers, and any men of the city, will be collected and identified, and their families will decide how they wish the death rites to be performed.”
Despite the horrid nature of the work of the days ahead, Harn Fala only nodded resolutely. “The work will be done with all due haste,” he said. “Our first priority will be to separate the bodies of our men from these vile beasts. We will worry over the rest, after that has been accomplished.”
“I know that you will do everything exactly as it should be done,” said Lila. “I would let no one but you – and Captain Henry, when we find him – manage such a thing.” She turned to look down Hammer Street; for Antony had promised that, when he found Thomas Henry, he would send him down to the gate.
Fala spoke her name again; and lowered his voice to such an extent, it seemed to signify that what he meant to say was not for all to hear.
“Are you quite sure, Princess, that the Captain is all right? Nothing was said, when he finally returned from his quarters – and if you believe that he is too ill to assist me in this task, I will perform it alone,
to the very best of my ability.”
“I believe he will be fine, Commander,” said Lila.
Fala nodded. “As always, I trust completely in your judgment.”
“And I in yours.”
They shook hands and parted, with Fala turning towards the gate, and Lila beginning to pick her way through the mess of bodies up Hammer Street. She saw Henry as she emerged onto the Orló Way, and, with only the instruction to join Harn Fala at the South Gate, exchanged with him a salute, and then turned Westward towards the castle.
She had told no one yet that Queen Abella was dead. Surely, at that moment, every member of her Army had quite enough on his mind. She resolved to visit Tobias Redda, very quietly – and to arrange with him a proper burial (for he was also a spirit-master, taught in the methods of the Wónakee) that would be announced to the city when the time was come.
She remembered, then, that she still had her mother’s journal, tucked inside the pocket of her white robe; which was worn only in times of great significance, for which the deaths of so many soldiers and citizens of the city of Onssgaard surely counted. Had she not been granted with the presence of mind to put it on, just before she went with Antony from Abella’s chamber, she would surely have been spit upon by the people who stood weeping in the streets. At the sight of the robe, though, their tears were quelled a little, and they took comfort in the fact that their Princess still walked amongst them with such strength.
Lila found perhaps the most comfort in it of all, for she wrapped it tightly around her as she walked, and knew that it had been her mother who wore it last, on the day of her father’s burial.
Fortunately, the tears which were elicited by such thoughts waited to be released till after she had gone through the East Door of the castle, and was travelling safe and solitary towards the empty staircase. All of the soldiers were out-of-doors; and every servant was busy in the kitchens, preparing an enormous feast for the conclusion of that day’s heavy labour.
Broken Earth Page 49
