Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  Here and there walked or scurried a displaced man, woman or child. They moved as broken souls through the rubble, which was all that remained of what had been their own homes. They looked sometimes to Lila – but as she could do for no one else, neither could she do for them.

  The grey sky opened up, then, and loosed a torrent of rain down into the ruined city. Lila stood long, watching Heidi; but the woman did not move. She only wept, adding her tears to the falling rain, and clutched with inexpressible wretchedness the dead body of Jade Misaria.

  Lila sank down in her own place, and sat herself upon the ground, what was all covered now with mud and blood. She sat alone and silent under the falling rain, and looked ever upon Heidi Bastian; waiting, perhaps, for the storm to cleanse the bloodstains away from her own heart.

  ~

  Heidi sat all that day and night with Jade, rocking her to and fro with a look of nothingness upon her face. Yet finally she did, with a surprising display of strength, lift Jade up off the ground; and carried her in her arms, all the way to the castle, where she laid her down upon a table in her own chamber.

  Her friends flocked to that place, and looked upon Jade with no small amount of tears in their eyes.

  “My father asked me only one thing,” said David, whose voice seemed broken beyond repair. “He asked me – to bring her home. But how . . . how can I . . .?”

  Helena looked on solemnly. Dera covered her face.

  Heidi stood for a little before the table, and looked upon the body with eyes that could weep no more. But then she lowered her head, so that her cheek came close to Jade’s, and blew gently upon the ashen skin. There came from her lips a gust as of cold wind, that covered Jade’s body in a hard, white frost.

  Her three companions looked on in wonder.

  “Now she can return home,” said Heidi. “But she must be wrapped properly for the journey. David, you will see to that, won’t you?”

  He nodded quickly.

  Heidi leaned down once more, and pressed her lips to Jade’s forehead. Then she rose without expression, and departed from the chamber.

  ~

  It was when she had issued out into the corridor, and was walking along towards the staircase, that she realised: she had nowhere at all to go. She had, of course, just abandoned her own chamber, and was doubtful as to whether or not the remainder of its occupants should have been presently cleared out of the place. So she did, in all due course of necessity, discard any thoughts of returning there; and decided, instead, to go to Eriah.

  Her vision, upon leaving the castle behind, was something of a tunnel, capable of ignoring all unsightly things to either side, and insistent upon looking towards only its destination. And so she strode across the grounds, full of the strong emotion which is sometimes mistaken for purpose; and for this reason, was called to or halted by none who took part in any manner of what seemed the futile restoration of the city.

  Only these structures to the West of the castle, which had been approached by none of the participants of the battle, seemed free of damage. The stables, as well as the soldiers’ barracks, were in perfect repair; and Heidi felt as if she walked towards a sort of a haven from the destruction, as she drew nigh to the low barns of the horses.

  Quite as usual, she greeted all of those horses who had at any time been a companion of hers; but took an especial amount of time with Buck, and lowered her face for a while to rest against his muzzle. He remained perfectly still, as if truly having been in need of her comfort. After a time, though, his nearness began to sadden Heidi, and so she left him to go to Eriah, who welcomed her quite as heartily as was his general custom.

  Having, of course, slept nothing at all for a number of hours which she had lost track of, she lay down in the hay of Eriah’s stall, and drifted quickly to a thick sort of rest, what was filled with all sorts of dreams and memories; the latter of which transformed themselves quickly into nightmares, and awaked her quite as effectively as a cold cup of water atop the head.

  And yet she was wholly surprised, as she looked all about, and saw that the twilight had come to creep into the stable. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, and patted Buck as he leaned his great head down to her face.

  She sat as such, for some amount of hours which she of course could not have counted, but which finally conceded to a total sort of darkness, through which very little moonlight offered assistance. As was the habit of that time of year, the night had brought with it a deep chill that had not been present in the day, and which served to rightly throw a cold freeze down upon the skin and bone of that lonely woman, who had indeed come to think in that space of time she had spent with him, that her horse and herself were indeed the only two living creatures upon the face of the earth.

  Rather than the relief which one would think to have arrived, upon the learning that this notion was one of untruth, Heidi was somewhat more disappointed than anything else, as the voice of another human being entered upon the air of the stable. In a way perhaps even more adverse to her wishes, it seemed, also, that the voice was calling to her in particular.

  She thought, quite naturally, of demonstrating ignorance in the face of the summons; and was fully prepared to do just such a thing, and had indeed already begun the process of such ignorance, when there came a poking head over the top of the door to the stall.

  “All of your friends are in quite a fuss,” spoke the mouth of the head. “All wishing to know where you ran off to, it seems. I find it very hard to believe – but I assure you it is true nonetheless – that I was the only individual with the sense to check for your horse in the stable, which would of course inform me straightaway as to the degree of your absence.”

  Heidi looked for a while upon the head, more in a sort of curious discontent than anything else. One might take a moment to wonder, exactly how these two terms should be paired together; for indeed, the pairing seems rather nonsensical. And yet, the discontent is surely understandable, for its presence there in the thoughts of that lonely woman in the stable has already been noted. The curiosity refers to the questions which arose, a few moments after giving ear to the voice which broke the perfection of the silence: namely, why needed such a perfect thing be broken? What could possibly be so very important?

  And so that lonely woman (whose loneliness was less of a wishing for the presence of others, but more of a longing for such things that she could not have; and in another sense, merely a comment upon her state of desirable solitariness, there in the presence of perhaps her favourite creature, whose intelligence could not be spoiled by speech) thought to herself, as the head appeared at the top of the door.

  “Will you speak nothing?” asked Lila Bier.

  “I would much rather not,” answered Heidi Bastian.

  Rather than requesting that the latter take herself out of the stall, the former simply opened the door (and was much careful to re-fasten it again, as per the wishes of the stall’s first occupant) and sat herself down upon the hay. It was very difficult for the two sitters to make out one another’s faces, in the falling darkness; but this was not at first even necessary, as it took some time for any more sort of speech to develop betwixt them.

  “And for how long, exactly, do you plan to hide yourself this way?” asked Lila Bier, after an unkept number of minutes.

  “I am not hiding,” replied Heidi.

  “Then what are you doing, pray?”

  “Only thinking.”

  “Of what?”

  “Need you ask?”

  Lila sighed, and pressed her back to the wall of the stall; a position of comfort-seeking, which made it appear that she would not be leaving so soon. “Very well, then,” she said. “Perhaps we should talk of something else.”

  “I would rather not.”

  “It seems, Heidi, that you would rather not do anything – but one must always, you see, do something. Otherwise, one simply ceases to be.”

  “Perhaps that is just what I wish to do.”

  “Perhaps
it is,” agreed Lila. “Perhaps it is – in this particular hour, of this particular night. But on one of these nights hereafter – well, perhaps you shall not wish such a thing, so very much as you do right now.”

  “I did not ask for your opinions,” said Heidi, “or for your attempts to cheer me. I wish only to be alone. Is that so very much to ask, Lila Bier?”

  “I suppose not,” said Lila. “And I suppose I need respect your wish.”

  She made to rise to her feet; but of much surprise to herself, Heidi reached out with one hand, to keep her from departing.

  “Perhaps I did tell just a small lie,” said Heidi.

  “Ah, well,” said Lila. “I’ll not hold it against you.”

  And so they lapsed, for a little, into another silence. Yet finally Heidi broke it, with the first of a string of a questions which she put to Lila.

  “What do you think shall become of Dain Aerca?” she asked.

  “I know not at all,” said Lila. “I only hope that I shall never know – and that she shall never give me any reason to know.”

  “Do you think she will seek for – for Férglag?”

  Lila shook her head. “I think not. But then – I certainly could be mistaken. Who is to say what others shall do? I know not even what I shall do, in any moment after this one.”

  “I still don’t understand who he was,” said Heidi. “I had never even heard his name spoken! Surely, something so evil – should I not have heard of him?”

  “Perhaps it is the mark of true evil,” answered Lila. “That he did none of it for himself; but ordered others to accomplish it, so that he might remain hidden, and so not run the risk of being overtaken.” She paused; and sighed heavily, as she recollected the first time she saw him, in that dream of hers. But also in that dream was Heidi Bastian, shining and sure – and quite everything the opposite of what she was now, sitting dark and lost in the shadows beside Lila. “But what do I know?” she added. “It is only my own opinion.”

  “What do you think will come of the Lumaria?”

  “Ah, them! I have not the slightest idea. I daresay they shall cause much more trouble and mischief, before their race is ever ended.”

  “And do you think it shall end?”

  “So said one of the – angels,” replied Lila. “If I should put the same faith in them as did my mother, I should have to say that I think them to speak true.”

  “And what is an angel?” asked Heidi.

  Lila rose to her feet, and reached down for Heidi’s hand; who gave it her, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Together they went out of the stall, and to the doorway of the stable, where there shone a little silver light down upon the ground. Lila reached into the pocket of her cloak, and withdrew her mother’s journal. She opened it to a particular page, and handed it to Heidi.

  Heidi was some time in silence and observation. She read much, and Lila watched her face as she did so, which furrowed into perhaps the greatest amount of confusion, as she came to that page on which Abella had once drawn, in her very presence, that symbol which she had afterwards painted upon the door to her own chamber.

  She held it up to the light, so that Lila might see. “And what do you think this means?” she asked.

  “I have thought much about that,” said Lila. “I have made some conjectures, and come to some conclusions; but it is my belief that we shall come to find out on our own, rather sooner than we should think.”

  “And will it be a good thing, or an ill?”

  “I think, perhaps, a bit of both. Yet I should say more for the good, in the greater scheme of things,” said Lila, taking the book back into her hands. “But what do I know?” she added. “It is only my own opinion.”

  ~

  When finally, in a late hour of the night, Heidi returned to her chamber, she found the table empty upon which Jade’s body had lain. She breathed a shallow sigh of relief, struck inexplicably grateful for David’s accomplishment of his promise.

  She dragged a chair towards the middle member of the three windows in the South wall, and settled herself down into it, so that she might look out upon the shadows of the night. Something of a light drowsiness came down upon her, after some minutes, and she found that her sight was caught somewhere in betwixt past and present; and that she could now see all recent tragedies in their entirety, each ill event stacking atop the previous till there was such a pile before her that she could scarcely see.

  What she could see, now, was that her fate had been painted three different colours; one for each influence that was present, each time she lost something that she held so dear. There was that pitch-black shadow, which carried all evil upon its wings, and flew so frequently down into her atmosphere. There was a pure, perfect whiteness that hovered just behind it, whose efforts were always directed towards repairing what it could of the horror that had been wrought by the blackness. Both colours raced against each other; and though one occasionally gained a little distance betwixt itself and the other, neither ever seemed to find itself in a winning position.

  The only thing that did any amount of good at all, soothing the wounds and ameliorating the hurts which had been inflicted by the blackness, was the thick, steady curtain of blue that hung always about, encircling her like a protective shroud. It was bright and dense, and filled the world with light even as the blackness crept nearer, shielding her all the while from the terrible sights which were ever approaching.

  Though it helped rather than hindered, serving always as an anodyne in the wake of ruin, it was not a part of the light which sought forever to eradicate the darkness. It could not heal, and it could not dispel; it only ever lingered to comfort, whispering softly into her ear as a distraction from the dark. It was the same colour, the same shade, as that light which she had always summoned up, when she was in need of an ally against the darkness. It was full of memories; and even as it brought warm and stinging tears to her eyes, it also brought a faint smile to her cold lips.

  Even in the throes of grief and regret, she could finally see all of these colours that stood apart from one another – sometimes pressing together, but remaining ever distinct from their neighbours. She could see them all quite clearly, and understood in that moment that nothing what had come to pass had been caused by any singular act of any of the three. They all mingled together to create fate; and anything, either good or ill, was a product of their coexistence.

  At that moment, of course, she found that she could focus her mind on naught but recent grievances. Contentment and joy hid somewhere far away – and though she wondered, indeed, if they would ever return, she realised that it was not a question for the time. It would have been impossible, and inappropriate, to dwell upon anything but the persisting, sharp sort of ache that was lodged there inside her chest, and whose echo resounded all the way up into her throat, to make her choke.

  She felt the pain, and she embraced it. She held so tightly to it, she would not have been surprised if her own diligent desire for misery were to result in her subsequent death. And yet, whatever it incurred – it was all that she wanted. Only to sit there alone, sinking deep down into the cushions of her chair before the window, watching as her misfortunes flew by and by.

  ~

  With the assistance of Captain Henry and Commander Fala, Lila completed the organisation of plans for the reparation of the city the very day after the destruction did take place. Many, many months it would take; but with the reunion of the full force of the soldiers, along with a great number of folk from the city who desired to help with the building, it was by no means a discouraging feat.

  Unable to fend off any longer the insistence of her high officers that the coronation should take place immediately, there was a ceremony held in the Golden Hall, only hours after Lila and Heidi parted at the stables. Lila received the crown of diamonds, and the salutes of her men; but found her eye drawn ever to the corner of the hall, where Heidi stood with her companions. The woman’s face was wrought with sadness, and waxen with grie
f; but she smiled towards Lila as the crown was placed atop her head, and held up her hand in congratulations. Only a moment later, however, she turned on her heel and departed from the hall, with her befuddled companions close behind.

  Lila traversed just as quickly as she could manage, the obligations and necessities which followed the coronation; but moved with great grace and generosity through the waiting crowd, so that her hurry to be free might not be so much noticed. Yet she could find no opportunity for breaking away; and so stood long where she did not wish to stand, and sat long where she did not wish to sit, as she presided over the feast which was held after the coronation.

  By the time she had borne witness to the painfully slow clearing of the castle, and was able finally to steal for a moment to the fourth storey, she found all four of her guests’ chambers empty, with not a trace of their stay remained behind; and so she rushed immediately back downstairs, and out into the grounds.

  Presently, the greater part of the crowd had gone from the place, and was disappeared already through the castle gates. There were a number of soldiers upon the grounds, cheerful with the drink of the feast; but Lila navigated through them rapidly.

  When she arrived at the stables, she found Heidi Bastian and her companions mounted upon their horses, with a wagon drawn behind the two largest, which held the casket of Jade Misaria. Her eyes lingered for a moment upon it; but then she looked questioningly to Heidi.

  “Hello, Lila,” she said.

  “Hello, Heidi.”

  “I do apologise for stealing away, without offering you farewell. I only thought that you were rather occupied with your guests, and the great events of the day.”

  “And you are – you are leaving, then?”

  Lila cursed the breaking of her voice, and squeezed her fingernails into the palms of her hands; for all thoughts which she did think to say, seemed not to be properly placed – or in any manner comprehensible, even to begin with.

  “We must,” said Heidi. “Jade needs be brought home for her burial.”

  “Of course,” said Lila, nodding perhaps a little too quickly and excessively, for the want of hiding the tears that had crept into her eyes. “Of course. But I make only request: that you remain here just long enough for me to furnish you with the proper necessaries, to make your journey no less comfortable than it need be.”