Chapter Twenty-three
The Isle of Surcease
Caked in mud and
weary Dalrosse lay by the gate of Paternor and rested his head on the cool
sandstone wall. He watched the people passing.
All the men were tall and black skinned the women in their finest
clothes and with flowers in their hair, while mingling and playing among them
the children singing nursery rhymes and the more precocious children recited
the epic poem of the founding of Paternor. Carts trundled in and out of the
gates. His eyes ate in the vibrancy of the people, even he sang along to some
of the nursery rhymes. Yet, whether they sauntered by or rushed away to the
burning- no-one noticed Dalrosse.
He felt as if he
were under a weightless cape of invisibility. He rested back on the cool stone,
feeling so comfortable and watched the people going by hour after hour. He
watched as the stream of people slowly became a trickle of latecomers, then the
street about him was silent and empty and slowly the darkening of the day began.
Softly, at first, blessedly the rain began to fall, and then there was nothing
but a flood from cracked sea of the sky. The rain washed off the dirt from the
Marshes, then traced back into slow heavy pelts of water, then finally the
remnants of a fine drizzle. He was cleaned and aware of himself as if the
haunted memories of the White Cottage were washed away and resolved into
forgetfulness. Those memories of when he had devoured the last of Xhanu, The
High Wasp; the memory of the Janitor who had brought a final plate, he ordered Marayela
to lay the plate before the Shouel, Xhanu’s little, dead, curled yellow and
black daughter, yet as large as Dalrosse, but looking so fragile. The High Queen of the parasites precious
daughter dead upon the Janitor’s table. First he began to eat her eyes… but
that memory was gone. Gone now as the rain.
A voice spoke from
the starless dark of the city.
‘Is it you?’ The
voice asks. ‘Is it really you?’ The
figure stepped into a faltering torchlight. ‘It is. How could I forget you,
Dalrosse, you gave me my voice after thirty years. You sent me into the rain, away from the coldness
and cowardice of my silent days. Yes it is you, who offered me freedom and I
ran laughing into the rain all those years ago.’
Dalrosse felt
bewildered, he had no recollection of the man.
‘Do you not know
me?’ Oh so much time has passed and I see weariness has taken the place of your
urge to live your quest. Age has shown me
how timeless the word is, but you brave Dalrosse youth has lingered upon you as
if all the days and nights since last we met for you have run backward, or that
merely a single day has gone since then.’
Tears came to Dalrosse’s
eyes, for still he did not know who this man was.
‘Do you not know
me.?’ He asked again. ‘I see your broken heart and death’s dart in your breast.
Was she lovely?’
Dalrosse saw Marayela’s
face in his head and dawn like light shone bright in his purple eyes and a
smile came to his face.
‘I had never seen
beauty, not even the sight of Ashenmoire on Summers Day was ever as beautiful
she.’ He spoke the words so slowly, each tentatively passing his lips and with
the words the blindness fell from eyes.
‘Yes, yes’
Dalrosse said. ‘You helped me escape from Eaun.
Your name...I know it…but, no. Tell me.’
‘I was Merve then,
since then I have many names, but yes to you I am Merve. The people here in Paternor call me the
lonely wanderer and laugh at my pink skin, but some would pay with their lives
for my carvings should I ask it of them. Though the children know me as the
hairy clown and their laughter makes everyday a blessing. You can call me
Merve.’ He stood beside the Shouel and
lifted him up. With Dalrosse on his back Merve walked to a cove at an edge of
The Fordeni Sea where his boat was berthed.
He cast off the
line, then said, before Dalrosse slept under the unfurled sails. ‘I have my
home at times on the Isle of Surcease, where the Ailves, healing women,
live. They heal hearts.’
Dalrosse slept and
there were no dreams and there were no nightmares.
Chapter 24
The Marriage of Shaneal
and Aflarien
‘They despise me
and call me death. Yet I am life immortal. They are but fools and do not tax
themselves.’ Aflarien stormed at Liala his wife who seemed to shrink at the
scorn in his voice. Inside she wept at that test the witches of Opaydaemia had
set her. I love him now, Aflarien, the anti-Author. I love him so, but his
death will be on his own hand. Not as the Witches had said because of his
actions and not because of the sloth and slowness that they said he had brought
to the lands. For more the Witches spoke:
‘He has despoiled
thought – treats thought as if it were a game or an empty play.’ However Liala
knew the Witches were stuck in their Ivory dreams – the gateway they barred
themselves behind, while with the remnants of Aflarien broken heart he sees
that only he can change the Menerth and offers truths from the gates of Horn. He
offers a new truth, a new turn for all and a time for new stars. I have seen
them wheeling across the sky, she recalled.
Liala was locked
in the pact she had made with the Witches and still locked within the gates of
Ivory with them as if she were a specter in the real world. Behind the Gates there
were no courts and kingships-there was only room to dance, a longing to play
and vibrant tousled dreams.
‘They say I am the
despiser of the dawn.’ Aflarien’s voice seemed to smash her backways to
childhood innocence with the force of his words. ‘Yet, I am the fresh dawn, the
light dispersing the dark, the heat that folds and clothes the Menerth,
touching beauty with these dew diamante fingers that glorify all.’
They said, those
Opaydeamian Witches on the edge of morning that Aflarien deconstructed the
day. Yet, Liala knew he was the lonely star.
‘Lord of Ashenmoire-my lonely star’ she whispered to herself, while they
whispered he had infected the Menerth with a new poison, cureless. That he was
the storm, the sudden death, the empty beat of the weeping heart. The Witches
though had brought Liala to Aflarien and together they had a single heart and she
knew she would never be alone in her mortal life, now. And only he had taught
her how to love the Menerth.
The pact though
remained. Not today, but when the moon was banished from the sky she would kill
him. The Menerth then would lose the anti-author. His heart would cease, but
her pact would be fulfilled. The thought of it had already cracked her heart
and ripped the need to exist from her. Lost and simple Liala. A smashed ruby on
the gates of Ivory.
‘Shh my darling,’
she says and kisses his ear. ‘My darlings do not fret. Those Witches conjure
with words and even they do not know if their words are truth or lies.’
Aflarien’s lips
lifted into a smile and he guided her to sit upon his knee and sang to her a
song he had learnt long ago in Delgdreth and as he sang those songs endless
memories of youth no longer his own flitted
through his mind as if, in the song was a sudden memory of a dream. A surprise
broadening his smile, his beautiful smile.
Liala lay beneath
his long, long smile and his song lulled her into a tenderness of sleep. Aflarien rose with his wife cradled in his
arms. He looked at the two silver cups upon the table beside them. Hers was
empty. His untouched. He knew that by the time he took her through to their
silk draped bedroom she would no longer be alive. He lay her down on the bed. No more breath,
no more thought, but lighter as if the tautness of gravity had slackened. At
last death, he saw the thought in her eyes that had not closed. Before he left
the bedroom he bestowed the gratitude of his smile upon her until there was
nothing but a smile scarred upon his face.
When he turned
away the smile melted away like a cauldron of bubbling wax. He strode to the
wide staircase. Heavy boots echoing as he walked to the lowest level of
Helvearn and out into the dawn of Ashenmoire. Before the anti-Author knew it he
was walking down into the Hollow of Armoroth. He sat upon his rock and remained
sitting until midday looking at the dying Black Rose, and to an observer it
would seem they were in silent communication. With the sun in the zenith he
climbed up from The Hollow and looked out onto Lake Leme.
Fine Misgivings
had almost reached the island’s harbor.
King Loor would attend to him shortly. Aflarien stood and watched until
the ship was secured and the masts furled. He saw King Loor take his first
steps upon Ashenmoire.
Aflarien had
attained the top most level of Helvearn long before Loor and his entourage was
permitted into his presence. He knew, of course, that the King would not bow,
but the Lady of Demorol curtsied and never once looked at him. Aflarien tried to be attentive as the King
spoke of his long journey, but also there was a recounting of his last
conversation with the unAuthor.
‘Of course I
didn’t understand hardly a word of what he was saying, he scribes stood staring
at him in confusion as if they’d run out of ink.’
‘And the Author?’
Aflarien wondered.
‘Gone. Lost. The
Never Ghosts searched the whole of Esplomeoir and none found him.’
Aflarien laughed.
‘Not gone. Not lost. I guess where he has gone. Enough now. Bring forward the Lady of Demorol.’
Shaneal rose from
the sparkling floor of Helvearn and approached Aflarien. Oh, she was sweet, she
smelt of sweetness, of nectar. The air about him was abundant with her
fragrance. Finally their eyes touched Aflarien showed no recollection of
Shaneal, or Shaneal any for Aflarien. She was such a glorious stranger. He beckoned
to her and offered her the seat beside him. Once more King Loor spoke.
‘Shall I join you
together now, Lord?’
‘What does the Lady
say?’
Shaneal smiled and
Aflarien laughed. And so at the pinnacle of Helvearn as the gloaming was
ushered onto Ashenmoire Shaneal and Aflarien, brother to sister were wed by
Loor of Tasen. He put her left hand into his right and bestowed the greatest of
blessings.
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