Thrice Advent by Adam Parry Chapters 27 and 28

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Chapter 27

The Search

In the rain she lost sight of Shriven.  She had panicked for a moment. Shaneal flying on remembered that moment in Demorel when she had sacrificed the Crow and knew for the first time of flying, her wings that had taught her to fly.  She wondered how long it was that the kingfisher had last flown.

Schriven waited for her upon the honey coloured wall above the gates of Paternor.  The sun shone down, high and huge, at the midday moment.

‘I left Dalrosse on the edge of the moor, sleeping.’  She led Schriven to the place where she was certain Dalrosse lay. ‘Here,’ she insisted, ‘this is where I left him,’ yet there was no sight of the Shouel. Together they searched along the verge of the marsh, but before Schriven said anything she set off back along the verge, distress growing as she scanned the emptiness. The Kingfisher alighted beside Shaneal at the spot where she was convinced Dalrosse had been.

‘I left him.  Crow told me never to leave and I couldn’t even do that right.’

Schriven didn’t know what to say to her, to reassure her.

‘What are we going to do?’  Her eyes looked at him for the first time with suspicion.

‘Obviously, Lady, if he is not here than he must be somewhere else.  What we must do is search for him.  I have never seen a Shouel, but as soon as I spot him I’m sure I’ll know Dalrosse.’

He flew beside her as they turned back to Paternor. There the Kingfisher lifted high over the buildings of the city.  While he searched the warren of roads as far as the Fordeni Sea.  Shaneal looked into every window and open doorways of the buildings.  Night began to fall and in distress she realised there were so many other places to look; despite that she would not give up until she had searched them all. At last the Kingfisher returned.

‘Have you found him?

‘Yes. I’m sure I have, unless one of the children of Paternor has grown a beard and shrunk to half his size,’

‘Where is he?’

‘In the woodcarver’s boat.’

‘A boat.  Did he look alright?’

‘I think he was asleep, unless Shouels dream with eyes open and see the world with them closed.’

‘Who is the woodcarver? Where is he taking Dalrosse?’

‘He carves wood and plays with the children.  I never did know his name, but if there was ever the sound of children laughing anyone who wanted a piece of wood carved knew where to find him.’  Schriven laughed. ‘He’s taking Dalrosse to exactly the same place I was going to take him.’

‘So, that’s good?

‘Yes. Oh yes. Right then,’ he said. ‘Off we go. I hope we get there before it’s too late.’

‘Too late for what?’

‘Probably a good thing.  I’ve always been too late for good things. Sometime I turn up just in time for not so good things to happen, but I’m usually too late for them too.’

So the kingfisher led her to the Fordeni Sea and they flew low over the still water.  In the bright moonlight Shaneal saw ahead the outline of an island. She sped as swift as a Shouels arrow and left the kingfisher behind.  Long before he reached it Shaneal was perched on the jetty of the Isle of Surcease, where Dalrosse stood with the man she presumed was the woodcarver.  Glad with glee she lifted to the shoulder of her brother who was startled by her informality, though despite that, the singing blackbird on his shoulder seemed to have been the thing that he had lost and her slight weight upon him made him complete.

‘Who are you?’ The Shouel asked.

She twittered and sang with excitement. ‘I? Shaneal, silly.’ Dalrosse laughed and needed a lot of persuasion to believe who she was.

The kingfisher landed on the jetty.

Dalrosse wondered how many more surprises in the world waiting for him.

‘So this must be Aflarien. Are the mushrooms in this part of the world any good?’

Shriven looked at the Shouel completely confused. He had no idea what the little figure was talking about. Yet, Schriven couldn’t keep his eyes off Dalrosse’s own.  They’re purple, Schriven thought, his eyes are actually purple. I will follow anyone with purple eyes to the ends of the world, but somehow he knew by the mere fact that Dalrosse’s eyes were purple the world would never end.

Dalrosse was a bit disappointed that the kingfisher wasn’t Aflarien. ‘So, he asked the bird. ‘Can you talk too?’

Usually, Schriven was going to say.  Most of the time, he almost whispered. But not right now, he thought as he stared intently at Dalrosse just in case he would vanish if he took his eyes from him.

Dalrosse introduced Merve to his sister and told her how Merve had saved him twice and told her a little of what Verlover had said to him. At last he said:

‘Let’s get on the boat and head off.’

‘Where are we going? Shaneal asked

‘To the Waste of Strainval.  On the far shore of the Fordeni Sea.  The Orange Rose is there.’

‘The Wastes of Strainval? Sounds like a terrible place.’

‘We’ll soon find out.’ He stepped lightly into Merve’s boat, followed by the woodcarver who untied the boat from the Isle of Surcease.  The kingfisher perched on the prow of the boat and Shaneal fell asleep on Dalrosse’s shoulder.  It didn’t surprise him that birds could snore as well as speak.

A new day began as they sailed over the Fordeni Sea. A new day that would take them to the Waste of Strainval and the penultimate rose.  Dalrosse’s first sight of Strainval didn’t look dead or devastated, no; the new land was carpeted with flowers all the way to the edge of the horizon. And all the flowers were orange.

Chapter 28

The Endlessness of the War.

The Shouels, the sublimated Psybots and the men of The Legein made camp beside a fast flowing stream in the heart of the Meringal. Nen-Resul judged that they would reach Delgdreth and the shores of Lake Leme in less than two days.  The swift victory on the plains about Tasen had surprised him as much as it had done Aflarien. Nen-Resul came to the conclusion that The Legein must capture Aflarien before he came to the sanctuary of R’thera. Kren did not agree and said the wings and chariots should set forth at once and told his commander that they should have captured Aflarien before he fled the battle. Now it is too late, Kren said, the wings and the chariots could not reach the vicinity of R’thera in time. He insisted, we cannot let him re-gather his forces, he said almost with a shout.  Nen-Resul retorted. If we go now and push the wings and the chariots to their limits, the Legein would have no choice but to advance on foot.  Kren’s face grimaced ugily what he has done in Ket makes me ashamed to be human.  If we let him go I cannot imagine what he will do next.

Marriamme appeared at the doorway of The Legein House. ‘It is too late, Chamberlain, Aflarien sent a raven to me – it told me that before the year is out every Shouel in Soen every Shouel this side of the Sunbourne Sea will be butchered as soon as he reaches R’thera.  He has sent immense rats to feed on Shouel flesh to Ashenmoire. It is not called Ashenmoire anymore it is called The Lonely Island now.

Nen-Resul exclaimed.’ Don’t you want to stop him, you’re their Princess.’

‘Why? Nothing can stop him, the raven has shown me, and I have seen our forest burnt to the roots of the earth. I went to Thet- it was silent, empty.’

‘How have you seen it? Aflarien is barely day’s away from Tasen, if that.  So now Shouel witch you see the future.’ He laughed but it was devoid of mirth. ‘What are you going to do? Kill yourself so Aflarien doesn’t have to come all the way back to Tasen as you wait for him to kill you.’

‘We are dead now, my arrowmen have broken their bows, snapped their arrows.  All that has happened in Ket has happened in all the worlds of the tidalverse.  Men will kill everything that is different, that are not them, they deem it fit to exterminate, all that Men are not are filled with weakness, cowards, cowards before they were born. Those that do not lift their hand in defense of themselves deserve extinction.  Men know in their hearts that they are cleansing the tidalverse; purifying it- Men do it adoration of the Creator who made men in his image.’

‘Not all men are like that.’ Nen-Resul said.

‘Then those men are not men and they are dead already. Real men have exterminated most of them, a few like you perhaps are scattered here and there like pointless parasites diluting the purity that the tidalverse craves.’

‘So, Lady what do you think is the solution?’ She laughed at him, had he not heard what she’d said.

‘Solution? There is only one solution. The Last Solution and such things are men’s. It is over, done, it is over. And yes I will kill myself and so should you. Why wait any longer.  You are not men- you deserve to die.’

Marriamme took a knife from her belt. She had used the knife to peel potatoes and other vegetables, whittle wood, cut cloth, now she sliced open her wrist, deeply, cutting a gash up to her forearm almost to the cleft of her elbow.

They- Nen-Resul and Kren watched her purple blood spurt from the cut the blood raining on their aghast faces.

Let them have their last solution, she seemed to whisper. Real men deserve what they desire the most. Follow me, come with me, they seemed to hear her last thoughts, but by then the princess of Thet was dead.

The two men saw before them the tidalverse opening to claim her. Her purple blood wept down their faces and they knew they were dead, dead when their birth wails issued them into the world. Finally, futilely and accepting before the tidalverse closed they followed Marriamme as she had silently pleaded and behind them the tidalverse closed.

Nen-Resul drank from the stream.  He had a moment of déjà-vu.  He looked over at the Shouels, encircled by the Psybots, in the centre Marriamme spoke in the way of the Shouels as she told with no words a story Jon Esierk had told her before they were married.

Once I had three brothers, now there are only two- Araden and Rabranath.  I have not seen them for so long, my third brother who died before he had a name. He left his mother’s womb twisted and deformed. I watched the nurse take a pillow and she smothered him. That was the time the three of us decided together that we would create a story. Though young we were blessed with wisdom and imagination. We guided the Gods of our Universe. These Gods would ask us to solve problems that they had pondered and could conceive no answers on their own. With little thought we would easily give answers to the quandaries.

Our story branches and twists about a new thing that we called the tidalverse. The tidalverse connected the themes of the story, the many characters and lasted through many ages of the story without end. We did all this for our smothered brother and he was the inspiration of the story and the first character we incorporated into our tale and was the skin of the tidalverse.  All the other characters of the story we created for him. We did not know how the story would end, whether indeed it would come to a conclusion. Yet something was created not by us, but by the interaction of the characters.  We did not know what to call this thing, this side effect of the tale. Our own Universe had nothing like it, but the eldest brother Araden gave it a name – Love. Such a thing was so alien to us because it could not be measured, or even truly defined, it was something subtle and could not be controlled. Araden though realised there was one simple truth of Love. It could not be demanded, it had to be given.

Our brother lived thousands of different lives in the end with each of these lives we found the Love grow, in strength and with the power of the word. We realised even the thought of it let alone the  entire thing that we had accidently fabricated in the tidalverse there was no greater gift anyone could give.

Then one day a God started to read the story and when he asked what this new thing was we were unable to answer. Araden tried his best and said that you had to feel it to know what it was. This confused the God even more.

‘I want to feel it.’ he demanded. Sighing Araden said it doesn’t exist anywhere else but in the story.

‘I am a God,’ he raged. ‘There is nothing I am incapable of, for me nothing is impossible. I will go into the Story and find out what this love feels like.’  We brothers could not forbid it, we had no words to stop him, for he was a God and why would we.

So this God, who had set the stars in the night, stepped into our little story. As is the way of gods they are everywhere at once, and he searched and looked and could feel no love. He saw how Love affected people, saw how it transformed them and he asked them what it felt like, but all he met were incapable  of expressing it in words, for all creatures love can be many things..

‘Then love me,’ the God demanded, ‘I want to know what it feels like.’ They smiled at him and walked away from him and the God screamed at them. ‘Give me your love. Now. Come back here and love me.’ The God raged out to us beyond the story; write down that someone will love me. We tried to explain that this Love was beyond our control.

‘Love is mine. If they do not give it to me I will take it from them. They will never feel Love again. I will keep all of it and they will love none but me’

The God, she said aloud as she neared the finish of the tale, has been known by many names.   His first name was hate and when it seems there is no love in the hearts of the Peoples it is so because Hate is in a different guise, or a different form. Now we call him Aflarien.  Hate has tried to destroy love from the first moment that he demanded it and felt nothing He will try to destroy The Author’s story, rip apart the tidalverse thinking once the story is ripped apart the tidalverse will cease to exist. But, he is wrong. The Author’s gift to our deformed brother, the brother so soon dead was the life that created the tidalverse, this gift, unasked, is set free to wander the plethora of time, and will be finally reaching beyond the tidalverse at last be set free out into the unnumbered Universes and all there that dwell beyond. Araden’s Story will give the gift of love and all will feel the love it created in an act of freewill. Love seeps always from the tidalverse and all the Universes will feel the love that Araden had found in The Story.