Chapter 33
THE LAST SOLUTION.
Aflarien released
Rabranath and the UnAuthor raged faster than the fire burning all through the
Forests of Soen. The UnAuthor came to the gated entrance of Thet, the deep cave
city of the Shouels and with a gale of demented rage blasted open the sturdy gateway.
He entered in. His master had ordered
that he should spare none and he obliged with a murderous gusto. The rage and
fire within him was boundless and he felt himself become huge with death.
Pitilessly he ripped heads and limbs from the defenseless young, he searched out
those in the deepest tunnels none were able to withstand his onslaught, none
escaped. Those that stood against him he
pulverized into the cave floor, or thrust them mindlessly into the cave walls
like so much rotted fruit. He bit into the flesh of the Shouels, drank their
green blood that gushed from them like an over flowing spring. In mere moments
he killed more than the deadly flames In the forest. When he was done the caves and ways of Thet
ran free with blood, their flesh and viscera smeared by a perverse gravity upon
the red stone walls.
The Shouels that
escaped out onto the Hill of Soen looked about them and to them it seemed the
world had died. The forest that had clad
the land for countless centuries was gone. The colour, the bright verdancy of a
land beloved had been stripped of anything lovely and lay in a smoke filled
monochrome. Tree’s remnants burned like
corpses on a stake, for them Shouels sent out a keening, a weeping that the grey wind
carried away as if grief itself had been stolen from them. Those that remained, stock still awaited Rabranath
rather that they be slain than endure to live another day and carry with them
the sudden death of the final day of Thet.
When they were dead, half devoured, like a beaten whelp to his Master,
the Unauthor returned to Aflarien.
‘It is
accomplished, my Lord.’
‘No.’ Aflarien
said. ‘More still remain scattered about these lands and you will hunt them
down until no Shouels remains to haunt the Land of Man.’ he sneered at the
repulsive face of the UnAuthor. Only I say when it is accomplished. Once you bring me the heart of Dalrosse will
I be, perhaps, satisfied. My plans are
great, and I will always have a need for you. Now go and wash the filth of
Shouels from yourself in the Lake. Then
come to Helvearn and join us for dinner, my Lady and King Loor. My wife is keen to meet with you.’
The UnAuthor had
heard of the beauty of Shaneal and was likewise keen to meet with her. On the
voyage from Esplomeoir he had been kept in the hold, but for some sailors that
fed him he had been alone on Fine Misgivings , only the churning of the waves
and the laughter and chatter of the fair folk his only companion. He scrubbed
himself clean in the Lake, fouling the water.
He swam, floated on his back, his vile face staring upward, unblinking
at the sun. About him the water itself
was revolted by his presence, yet could do nothing but bear him. He laughed at the sun as if with a threat that
he could devour its brightness and feel no remorse, with his mighty fist he
could tear down the vaulting sky, he fist could strike out to smash star
cradles, obliterating the phantasmagoria of cluttered nebula. He would feast
upon the light and leave Menerth in darkness and ruin. And not care.
The sun slowly fell,
the long shadows of Ashenmoire blackening the Lake. Rabranath swam to Fine Misgivings and dressed
in tight, ill fitting garments King Loor had brought from Demorol. On his way to
Helvearn a weakness fell over him, torpor and slow-wittedness accompanied the
feebleness in his body. He felt he was
trudging through a merciless desert, mirages too far away to be hoped for, as
he climbed the step stair of Helvearn he thought his legs would buckle under
him, but from somewhere he found the strength to force himself upward. The
black rose oil’s potency was wearing away in his blood. None of the power he experienced while
exterminating the Shouels lingered within him as if his powerful spirit had
taken from him and replaced by a feeble, crippled soul, his thoughts demented
by his powerlessness. His rage now a hollow shade of the megalomania imprisoned
in his mind. Some invisible chain of steel led him to Aflarien’s side and an
unbreakable collar of hard dark metal that had fallen from the sun tightened
about his neck. At last he reached the final step; he walked tentatively over
the glittering stone of Aflarien’s apartment to his lord’s side.
Rabranath’s eyes
tired from holding back his tears of pain hardly flickered from Aflarien’s
boots. Yet they yearned for a moment to stare upon his wife, but he felt the
dark metal of Aflarien’s grip bite into his neck and he did not dare.
‘Did you have a
good swim, Rabranath?’ Aflarien asked, his voice underlain with a mocking
laughter.
‘Yes,’ he
stuttered. ‘I hope I am clean enough for such a grand audience.’
Aflarien sniffed,
his lips scowling with distaste. ‘You smell still of Shouel muck, but let that
be, yes, you reek still with their polluted blood. And that is good for it is the smell of
sudden death and I relish it for the stench of dead Shouel is far more
satisfying than the smell of those that live. Don’t you think Loor? Do you like
his cologne?’
‘Alas, Aflarien,’ the King said, his eyes barely looking
up from a book. ‘Age has diminished my
senses and I
barely notice that which you find so piquant.’
Aflarien laughed and sat beside Shaneal.
‘Come, Rabranath sit with us. I’m sure King Loor will join us once he’s
finished his chapter.’ For
a moment the king eyes rose from page his
anger undisguised, he felt a curse at the back of his
throat. Yet he
smiled and said.
‘I will join you
now.’
He closed the
book and sat at the long, low table, sinking into large embroidered cushion
beside
the UnAuthor. He
smiled at the simulacrum of Shaneal. He
recalled the night that she had
disappeared from
Demorol, that is the real Shaneal. He
had lost his capital, his Tasen; he was
the King of
nowhere, and that night he had lost his only hope of regaining Tasen. Then his
trusted Phytomonger,
Graheal, voiced an idea that was to
prove to be Graheal’s masterpiece.
From some wisps of
the girl’s fallen hair, left upon her pillow he grew a psybot. A psybot so
perfect that
though barely a month old, had a lifetime of memories. A lifetime waiting in the
high tower room
of Demorol until she was given by the King into marriage. That he was the
fabled Anti-Author
she had read of in her Father’s books thrilled her. She was to marry a prophesy made real.
Servants came
and went with many courses of food.
Aflarien talked of his plans, talked of the
death of Gods,
those careless unthinking Gods whom decreed Man live with beasts such as the
Shouels.
‘I hear the
whimpering noise of those that remain, their profane tongue bickering in my
thoughts. I will have done with them and make all
things new. They prick at my mind,’ He
laughed again.
‘Soon too to die.’
With a thought King
Loor could make Shaneal stab her new groom with the nearest knife. But
he knew that
Rabranath would protect his lord so he stayed the thought. For now. Aflarien
ruled
Menerth from Lake
Leme to the walls of Tasen, all that the king coveted. Aflarien had told him
earlier that
Marriamme had taken Nen-Resul and Kren into the labyrinth of the
tidalverse.
Tasen was
leaderless. He had said they had become lost in the probabilities. That he had
found
them camped not
far from the Island, had almost tricked him, but it was just echo of a choice
Nen-Resul might
have made. Soon Tasen would fall to Aflarien. Then he would reach out over
the sea to the
islands and southern lands. He would
have Esplomeoir and the Author’s seat.
With a simple
thought Aflarien would be gone. But later, later he whispered to himself,
when I can have
it all.
Chapter 34
The silence of Thet
Shrouded
in silence and the long shadows of Thet Marriamme with Nen-Resul and Kren
emerged
from the tidalverse. Here, there were no children singing, no brightly dressed
female
Shouels
calling out their wares to the workers on their way to burrow new routes
through the
caves. No there were no children singing, or tired
arrow folk back from the forest telling tales of
their
days away from home. Nor now as they walked the empty pathways of Thet, a lurid
gleam
of
blood green thickening on the mourning stone, corpse lined, no more than fodder
for the creeping carrion, the air thick with the shadows of flies and the
ghosts of sudden death, they did not hear the music of the Shouel’s hearts. The
caves did not ring as once it did nor did the songs of a thousand years reach
them in this deadpoint of time. All was hollow quiet that stole into their
stomachs and lifted wearily into their souls.
Marriamme walked ahead of the other two, her eyes ever searching,
piercing into the dark, and listening, listening for the merest breath, the
most quiet cry of a Shouel that might still live. Yet she seemed with each step to fall into a
void of noise, as if the whole of Menerth was encompassed by silence, the world
bereft of voice that choked on its own lost tears.
Nen-Resul who knew not of the long, beauteous lives of the Shouels,
who had never heard there songs, or the tales of the first ones, those ancients
deep as the meres in the mountains, Nen- Resul knew neither of a life that was
simple, those lives gossamer webbed, like a cloth untarnished with stains power
and politics or a greed of knowing. None of these things did he know as
wandered through the dreadful silence.
Yet it seemed as he walked one of his hands trailing along the smooth
stone of the caveway that the earth spoke of her haunted memories, and in its
portion, in each pause of breath the long lifetimes of Thet unfolded through
the stone to him. In the rock of Thet the
past resonated strong and vibrant with energy and the power of the past had
sent tendrils of fire into the future. It seemed that the dreams of the stone
solidified about him and he was ushered into a excited dance of the
interlinking city that existed beyond the Unauthors cleansing. About thronged the singing joy of the little
ones, the booming of dreamtellers and poets, the taletellers echoing through
the caveways, the laughter of the females, about the air was perfumed with the
scent of the ararine flower that grew down in the deepest cave where a pool of
blessing lapped against the happy stone. About him the revenants of the future
grew with the telling of each moment, stitching through time to a fixed moment
that led to innumerable futures.
Shouels came up to him, resonating with a blue fire of luminance,
told him of the unsullied time beyond the bloodstains of Thet’s final day, of a
past forgiven, and the future flooded with a delta of cleansing fire, each possibility racing toward the ocean
new nows.
Nen-Resul found he was seated
facing a bodiless blue fire the spread over him, touching hope against the
walls of his heart. A Shouel sat beside him and spoke of the land that was
redeemed by the warrior with no sword, the last hope that had no hope or
himself, the heart that spread solace, and joy. Another Shouel clad in the blue
fire like the skins of old gods told Nen-Resul Thet had always been, that Thet
remained like the soul that tarries and dashes through lifetimes to lifetime.
At last to rest as glory become reachable and the hearts of men are filled with
the lore of the Shouels and healed by joy and by the promises of Drendunde.
Knowledge that man and Shouel were strewn upon the lands by a single hand,
knowing that together they would not just be brothers and sisters, but true
friends as they were conceived to be, their hearts meshed in empathy. All indifference and all things base by the
blending of the blood new purpose would be loosed upon the world, and the arms
that hold Menerth would draw to them forces and beings from beyond stars reach
and gather them into the unity. This Nen-Resul learnt from whispering stone of
Thet, a final voice stretching into his cast of blue fire said to him.
‘The empty handed one, the gift-giver and the slayer of the sleeping
soul will awaken the Shouel and man. With a whisper and with his tears he took
tyranny, took hate at last from the minds of all and smiled, as new birds sang.
His smile lighted upon the world’s beauty, his smile joy, like the sunlight on
a lover face. This joy sprang from the fountain that is Menerth and now will never
diminish although it dances on and on.’
Marriamme led the two men to the gateway of Thet and wandered over
the raped land beyond. As she wandered
she wished for blindness, for a loss of memory so profound that with these
horrors so too would memories of happiness and contentment would be lost. She
staggered like a drunk, and it seemed she would stumble and fall, fall and
never rise again, but before she fell Kren took her arm, let her support
herself upon him as he led her to a large outcrop of fire blackened rock. He set her down and sat beside her. All the birds and creatures of Soen had fled and
it seemed the silence here at edge of the dead forests was deeper than that in
the cave city. Kren would have wiped the
tears from Marriamme’s face had she shed any.
She spoke. ‘Now you see- how can hearts be bold, how can hearts feel
love when such things as this can be accomplished. To fight such things would
make the avenger full of greater hatred than those that did it; they would be
unable to fight cruelty without greater cruelty. And there would be no end to
it. At such a thing as this all would desire to retaliate, but we know all that
it would mean was nothing less than man’s extermination in return. The Menerth
would be soaked with blood of generations.
Cruelty and murder will revenge upon itself, and the world will become
insane with death.
‘Such sorrows we bequeath to our children ripped from the peace too
soon from their mother’s bellies. Our children ranged against each other
destined for murder, lives silenced like a stifled song. So why? Better that we
fall from the world and become finished. Why do our cheeks wait patiently for
steel fists that mock our-aphasia- trampling its knowledge, casting
catastrophes after catastrophes? So as we fall we fear the final fear of
stamping boots transforming us into the makers of harshest brutality. Would it better that we could Mindcall to all
men, remind them of the unity we peoples shared? With what? Feeble whispers of us remain behind the walls
of war, this war justified by lies and on Menerth all will fight. Would it not better that we were slain by
our own hand? I will not fight them and barter hate with hate, just leave us
here where we lie. Fix our corpses in your
roads and fine highways and when you march off to fight those new foes that
take our place. Listen to your God of
undoing and be empowered by the fire of righteousness.
‘So now we surrender Menerth to Aflarien. We give him the Menerth and
all the powers of the peoples of the far reaches, we let him enslave the creatures of the lost
ways of Menerth, Surrender possession of
hope and sacrifice and unconditional dawn light that they have pondered upon since the forests of
Menerth first grew. So now do you see Aflarien
has left us with no choice – we give everything to him, the world will be as he
commands and all the powers and passions of the myriad lands of Menerth will be
the AntiAuthor’s toys. All Shouels shall
perish and become lost in the long grass. The streams and lakes, the forest
full of oak groves, sycamores riding on a high wind protecting Soen forgotten
with our passing .We fall into a sleep
of flowers, while steel boots stamp the
divine beauty of the Shouels with a sickening
crunch and cracking bones. He covets all. He would claim the world with all its beauty,
with all its artistry and flooded with hate, a misshapen land beautiful and
perfect under Aflarien’s gaze.
Now we have no reason to live in this world. We would rather vanish from the walking
earth. We would have no reason to remain
in this world where our crimes equaled his.
So you see now with our passing we fade, to the hopes of good, green place, tarnished and justified with our of self
immolation. We will fade and Men will
own time without us there. Those heroes of men that carry on, who hold the
power will in time fade and find forgetfulness. yet till then Man shall have
the world and Aflarien- The Rex Mundi –will
set free his rage and look about the emptiness of the Meringal and see his
ghostly face in all men’ miens. And Aflarien abomination and the accomplisher
will be all that remains.’
Beside her Kren still stood up, turned his head to look for
Nen-Resul but could not see him. A harsh wind ripped over the denuded hills
fresh with the smoke of the fires slowly dying. Yet upon the wind Kren thought he
heard a voice, a voice as green and fresh, vital and vibrant as the land about had
once have been. Perhaps it was Nen-Resul
whom they hadn’t noticed going on ahead of them. But- the voice seemed too far away. He put a hand on Marriamme’s shoulder.
‘Do you hear that?’ he asked.
She looked up from the bare stone at her feet.
‘Listen,’ Kren said. Long moments passed. The Shouels eyes pieced
into the long shadows of the approaching night, as if she could with her visual
senses encode the slightest murmur, below the gusts of wind. ‘Listen,’ Kren
repeated. ‘I think …I think I hear singing in this unhappy place. He was about
to take a few strides forward but Marriamme’s small hand clutched onto his as
if she could enhance her own senses with his.
And, yes she heard it, a bright piecing of sound above the keening
grief of the wind. The song rose up, powerful enough to dispel the storm,
unblacken the harsh clouds, and let the dying sunlight revel in the song. She
stood and clutched tightly onto Kren’s hand.
‘Yes, I hear it. I can almost
make out the sound of the words; do you hear the words, Kren?’
He laughed for he seemed surrounded by joyousness, his laughter a
duet to the song on the wind coming from deep of the damaged earth and echoing up
from the gut rock below. The song issued up the hill where they stood in
expectation, with each moment the song grew louder. And when the voice became
so clear, the physical world transformed about them, seconds shifted as if to
make way for the two moments, the crescendo of the song and the silent joy of
the Princess, which yearned to meet there on the wounded hillside.
Marriamme let go of Kren’s hand, slowly at first she walked forward
then she began to rush forward to the brow of the hill.
O, she almost sang to herself, it is him.
After their meal was finished King Loor returned to his book while
Shaneal and Aflarien went to the balcony of the glass edge at the highest point
of Helvearn. She looked up at the star
drenched night and down to the reflection of the moon upon the waters. Rabranath wondered if he should return to
Fine Misgivings, thought that if he went or stayed he imagined his presence one
way or another would be unnoticed. He took food from the plates the others left
behind, stuffing, guzzling down the flesh and fruit, and noisily slurping down
wine. When the glass was empty he found a decanter of black wine. Aflarien’s
wine-the only liquor he drank.
It was a special blend made from the grapes of Erafian Omelyns vineyards
the AntiAuthor had found a number of the bottles in the lower levels of
Helvearn. The Shouels had blended Omelyns wine with distillate of the Black Rose.
At first Aflarien thought to destroy the bottles, as he had burnt the Lore
Books of the Shouels. Aflarien though drank a glass of the ebony liquid down
there in the forgotten cellar decorated in an age of cobwebs. Often he had
imbibed the Black Rose oil, but the effect of the wine was completely different. The oil he realised was limited and slow to
control, whereas the wine, with the first taste, eviscerated the reality of the
cellar, of Helvearn rising above him as if they were but paintings discolored
with the dirt of time, denuded of magic. The oil had given him access to the
tidalverse, but the wine made him the tidalverse. With that came such knowledge,
great with power. He knew where all the
white holes and capillaries of the tidalverse led to, but knew also of the shadow tidalverse
that led to all unmade choices- to histories that had never been and of all the
futures that might be, or might have been.
Yet much more he realised as he drained the first glass- he was the
Master of Now. In a handful of half moments his being knew all thought, all
deed, all the dreams that a single moment contained upon Menerth.
Yes, Aflarien coveted the black wine, the wine that put him in all
places, made him part of all that never was and never will be. With the single
glass Aflarien knew the dreams and the daydreams of all those that lived, he
was the crux of every beings choice, he could dismantle past and future. As the
mingled grape and rose blossom revealed to him all the many, many realities
sprung from a single choice.
Rabranath, unseen, poured a glass of the dark liquid from the decanter. Before he drank he looked surreptitiously to
the couple of the balcony, they had no eyes for him and the Anti-Author the
collar of sun steel and the invisible chain that controlled him seemed slack
about his neck. He felt no resistance when he raised his head higher and stared
through his discolored eyes at Shaneal, then he was incapable of lowering his
gaze, his eyes feasted upon her, lingered along
the tender slight lines of her body of her body. His fingers moved as if they were stroking
her pale cheeks and spreading the hair from her brow. He gazed at her lips as
she spoke with Aflarien and he felt their soft touch on his, the damp moisture
of her tongue darting into his mouth.
He picked up the glass of black rose wine and tossed it down his
throat.
Aflarien laughed at something Shaneal said and tentatively took her
hand. Rabranath scowled at him, saw that
Aflarien was like a weak fawning puppy willing to fulfill her every desire, saw
too that if she asked it of him he would gladly tip himself from the tower of
Helvearn. The UnAuthor derided his own weakness. He was the Unauthor and this little, jumped
up despot should have power over him.
Araden, long ago had explained to Rabranath his purpose in the
Story. ‘For our brother who lived but a few hours we make our story-I give him
life and the entire worlds to create .I give him purpose and a place for his
dreams. Jon is his friend and leads him through each adventure of life upon
life. While you, dear Rabranath, counter all, you take his freedom and leave
him useless. You are there between his
lives sowing conflict. you deceive him with power and are there to put despair
into his thoughts, set futility in each of his actions, you are there to blind
him to the love his creation has brought into existence.’
Araden concluded.’ He who is
many-named needs what all three of us give to the story, give to him. Always he
will be unaware is us, mapping or destroying his onward journey. There would be
no journey, no need of creation if there was just me, or just you, there would
be no point to the Story and his life a meaningless waiting. Far better for him that he had been smothered
in his cradle and forgotten. Yet we weaved together in the conflicts of his
life offer his Story no ending, no end to striving, a life lived in the light
hope, he struggles because he must, for he has seen hope and wishes it for all.
Rabranath poured himself another glass from the decanter, drank the
ebony liquid slowly this time. He remembered how Aflarien had subdued him on Esplomeoir
and compelled him to murder Lebin. Aflarien
had desecrated Esplomeoir where no such humble beings should dare traverse. In
so doing he risked the Story and the existence of the brother’s lives. Aflarien
sought to usurp the place of the brother of the Esierk, the only one. Aflarien
sought to be Author and UnAuthor.
As Rabranath stood by the dining table pouring the last dregs of the
decanter into his glass knew Aflarien for the first time, could see that his
body was but a glamour disguising the woman, Krostic within, then like
disguises striped from flesh he saw beyond Krostic the glamour’s that hid far
within older beings, unknowable beings that Rabranath could not bear to witness.
Yet in that moment wine dark on his tongue the UnAuthor knew that with all his
malice Aflarien was but a bit part in the brother’s tale. He walked toward them;
the Anti-author seemed lost in the dark while the pale beauty of Shaneal was
lit by the constellations. He stood in the doorway looking out onto the
balcony. Aflarien gave him a quizzical look. Shaneal stopped speaking mid
sentence and turned to look at him,
‘Can I join you? Rabranath asked. His tongue tingling as the wine dried
on his tongue.
Shaneal looked surprised and took a step almost daunted by his presence
as if he infected the atmosphere of the grand balcony with his despair. Thick clouds covered the Moon and stars and
the lake like black ice below them. Anxiously she looked at her father reading,
she thought, if this creature became his own rage there would be death this
night. Her Father or Aflarien wouldn’t
be able to protect her. As she watched Rabranath she saw the look of contempt
on his face when he stared at Aflarien. When she held his gaze she saw a look
of slavering lust, she felt his eyes clamping on the swell of her breasts, felt
the many hands of his mind crawling between her legs, scratching upward,
invading her body. His stare filled her with nausea of dread. She looked at Aflarien, a plea on her face.
Rabranath fell to his knees as if the weight of the sun had slammed
down on him. Shaneal saw Aflarien’s fist
clench, his nails digging white welts into his hand. Rabranath whimpered,
bereft of will or the imaginings of power. Even as Aflarien slackened his grip
a tighter bond of fear held him on his knees. Rabranath relinquished desire and
hope, he could not fight Aflarien.
‘No get out of here, you no longer amuse me.’
The UnAuthor slowly got to his feet, daring not a final look at
Shaneal. Ungainly he took his leave, haphazardly down the stair spine of
Helvearn. He emerged from the tower and was wracked with sobbing. Through eyes
blistered by tears he stared up to the balcony.
Thought of Rabranath had skittered from Aflarien’s mind and for a moment
he was rid of him and his dictates. Staring upward he imagined that he saw
Shaneal looking down at him. If he had the stomach, a strength of self, all
that the will of Aflarien had excised from him, he would have thrown him from
the tower and taken her there, under the blanket of unquiet clouds which
obscured the moonlight, he imagined tearing her garments from her, almost
tasted the salt as his blunt tongue licked perspiration from arms, her back,
her legs, and slavering spittle on her breasts and buttocks, Taking the bright
light from her eye with each scream he forced from her. But, below, whimpering
there and alone, huddled round his panting thoughts he knew he was too cowardly
to realize such desires. He stumbled away from Helvearn; wet faced with weeping
and went to the hold on Fine Misgivings, threw himself down and imprisoned
himself in sleep and old dreams.
The Last lovesong of Jon
Esierk
chapter 34
Jon Esierk sun burnt and made tall by an inner energy, crushed
Marriamme in his embrace. ‘Ah, my Love,’ he said. ‘I thought I would never see
you again.’ Marriamme surrenders to his embrace, the strong arms about her
lifted her above the awful despair of
the earth, that until Jon came she would have willingly sunk down to the
blacked, raped hills and let them pull her down into a silent world where there
was no grieving and where weeping was unheard.
She kissed his neck, tasted his skin still fresh with the pure air of
The Unwritten Lands.
Slowly, so slowly as slow as the movement of the moon across the
night’s sky he released her. She spoke,
but the words seemed to choke in her mouth. Breathlessly Marriamme coughed out the
words.
‘Our Son? Do you know if he
is safe?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
Not dead, she thought, please not him too.
‘I do not know,’ Jon said. He looked about the smoldering wastes of
the hills as if he had not yet noticed the desolation. ‘Dalrosse takes a hidden
path and I think even Aflarien cannot find him.’
Her eyes tense with unshed tears relaxed. A smile tried to lift up her lips, but
failed. Even now with Jon here where so much had been lost she knew this was
not a place for smiles. Yes, she thought, Jon here with me at last, far too
many years had passed since they been together she was keen to speak to him,
but not here. Words too had no place here where thousands of her people had
been murdered.
‘Jon, my Love. I cannot stay
here. Please. Let’s just go. Let us leave this place to the wind and time. It is no place now for the living.’
On his balcony a moment paused and Aflarien sensed something on the
hot wind over the water. Shaneal like a statue stilled in an animated
midsentence. Aflarien moved to the balcony rail. His nose and eyes sensed keenly into the
night and over the dark waters. Yes, he thought, I can almost smell it on the
air.
He snapped the moment back into time. His wife chatted on amiably. Orders raged from
him to where Rabranath skulked on the ship.
He whimpered as Aflarien gripped the invisible chain taut, the collar
biting blood from his throat.
Aflariens words clanged into his mind.
‘I want its heart,’ the Anti-Author said. ‘Bring it to me.’
Rabranath knew innately whose heart and where it would be, his mind
made ready for action by the clamor like an untuned orchestra filled with the
orders of the lord of Ashenmoire.
Nen-Resul watched the couple walking hand in hand towards him where
he stood near the riven entryway into Thet. About them like an old saint’s halo
the air seemed redolent with love’s power. But a hard wind stole over the land
from the lake, a silent wind that tried to suck lithe Marriamme and Jon from
the ground.
As Nen-Resul watched- he could do nothing else but watch as if he
were dressed in a stone cloak of immobility. He saw Rabranath’s corpse pale face
illuminated upon the dark hill by the moon’s feeble light. It seemed a hand clutched
at the Chamberlain’s throat so that he could not cry out a warning. He could
not fight the iron grip of immobility that had fallen over him; all he could do
was watch. Eerily the figure of
Rabranath advanced upon the couple.
Nen-Resul’s scream leapt from his eyes as the UnAuthor grabbed Marriamme
by her hair and snapped her neck.
Her hand was still held by her husband as she slipped to the ashy
earth. Not until grief wept tears of rage from the storyteller’s mouth did Jon
see his brother.
With the death of the Shouel, of the Princess of Thet, Marriamme’s
control of the stream of the tidalverse that she manipulated, no long held it in
place. Kren, Nen-Resul saw could not resist the iron pull of the stream. Neither could he. A brief second only passed,
as life was released and she lay like a broken manikin, before the tidalverse
took the two men of Tasen back through the possibilities of new and old chances
and choices, along shadow streams to the camp in Meringal, or briefly as the
fixed moments of their lives flashed back to The Legein House where the two had
argued about the best way to deal with Aflarien after his failed attack on
Tasen. There the tidalverse and its shadow passages, twisted and tumbling like
two snakes in an epic battle and through these the two where nudged onward, on,
on to the true probability that hinged on freewill and the truth of their
hearts. The streams danced them until finally the tidalverse set them free.
Nen-Resul found himself upon a horse, Kren by his side looking over
the water of Lake Leme to Ashenmoire skirted by morning mist. At ease, awaiting
orders behind the one hundred Legein men gazed as the sun slipped above the
Island, the Lonely Isle that last day when The Gardener came.
Marriamme, in all things now, looked up from through warming water,
out from atoms of light; her gaze flitted through earth and the sand on the
beach. She saw the Legein on the beach
about Delgdreth. She knew her long sorrowful plan had brought them here and she
was glad for she had found herself reunited with Jon. Despite losing him she
knew she had made the right choice and was content.
Jon held her body in his arms spilling his tears of loss upon her
face. ‘Why? Why?’ The words like curses he could not utter. Yet as he held her,
the limp body grew lighter as if a Soulsearcher was taking her home. ‘No,’ he
whispered. ‘Don’t go. I need you.’ But
Marriamme didn’t answer, or his ears were not keen enough to hear her answer
that curled about a soft wind.
‘Go on, my joy. Do not remain in this place. Go on.’ She left the
dreary hilltop and the caves darkened with death and went to join the clamoring
of the Shouels slaughtered in Thet who had waited for her. As the last light of
joy faded from Jon’s eyes, so too did the Shouels fade and pass through the
door that would lead to the High Road.
Silently the door closed behind them and the sky itself was hushed and
reverent at their passing.
Rabranath and his elder brother were now alone outside the broken gateway
of Thet. Jon laid her body to the ground,
stood and looked at the UnAuthor whose mind was filled with the caterwauling
screams of Aflarien that demanded he kill his brother.
Rabranath slick with strength advanced toward him the clubs of his
fists ready to smash the spindly bones and tear the flesh from the storyteller.
Jon was too numb now to weep, with slumped shoulders and a lowered head he
waited for the gift of death.
Chapter 36
Angel
He remembered they’d dragged from his cell, cleaned him up and made
him dress. After that he did not remember. After-images remained, clues that
might make him recall whatever happened next, but he could find no meaning in
these fleeting images. He would always
find himself lost in the darkness, then the door was banged open, heat and
light harsh as the desert sun left him half blind as he was dragged along the
cold, cold stones of the dungeon.
Again and again he felt the blessed release of the water that
cleansed him, of the darkness and the crust in his eyes. At times he would
wonder, so many times, maybe this time he would be set free, free to walk the
forest tracks, free to think his quiet thoughts. Not the same day repeated: the
dark, the heat, white blindness and the desperate need for the cold water his feet following once more the dream of the
woods those familiar pathways shadowed by the dance of the forest canopy. Each
new path would surprise him as if he was following new ways that no feet but
his had wandered. Yet each time he forced on overlarge clothes and he let them
lead him out of the dungeon. But to where? Never the forest for which he yearned,
not to that place of rest, the green unity that guided his boot steps to the
undiscovered fields of clairvarics. He
could remember the forest and its ways, but where they took him filled Aflarien
with terror. His fear had erased that place, up out of the dungeon, that place
beyond memory was cut from his mind.
Once, while he waited for his cell door to open and the guards to
drag him out, he begged the darkness to tell him why he had been so abandoned,
locked here in the dark away from all the joy in the world. His dull eyes
searched out the black as if that would answer him. He imagined pin-prinks of
light, like a crowd of faces, luring him and urging, faces he felt he should know,
the dark itself slowly seemed pattered with dim rainbows and waterfalls of dank
red and green. Aflarien’s hands grasped at the turgid rivers of light, but they
spilled away, splashing back into darkness, to re-emerge elsewhere, tricking
and teasing him.
One day, as he was being pulled from his cell, Aflarien found
himself staring down upon a stooping, half naked creature being roughly dragged
from the dark stench of the cell. He was surprised to hear his own voice whimpering
and calling for help. He felt he was perched upon an edge of darkness, one with
hallucinatory half lights in air. As the cell door closed he realised that he
was formless and weightless, as his body slanted off into the mockery of its
existence, he remained, here, without pain, thirst or hunger.
The next day the same thing occurred. Alone upon the swells and
colours of the thought, he found that he could escape the confines of the cell,
without effort, desire for the arching sight of the dawn, and the spread of the
hills beyond R’thera, took him from his cell. Joy arrowed through his thought
as the first day he lifted into the blue haze of morning, amazed at the sun’s
amber glow as if he were seeing it for the first time. Below in his cell he
could never have imagined such a world, where the slants of sunlight began to
dress the world anew. In sleep his dreams were filled by the colours of the
day, dreams uplifted by the tentative shadows of joy, though about him the
oppressive confines of his body lay, and the darkness and the dank odour
pervasive as a twisted soul.
Yet each day he could explore further from the walls of his
imprisonment. He escaped on the wind. The thought, or being without carnate
form drifted or darted across the soft undulations of the farms of Meringal.
Swift as a soaring arrow through the bending gullies of the salmon rivers
Aflarien tested his abilities. In mere moments he could be at the edge of the Nelhdar
desert than back, fast as a whiplash hugging the old stones of the Keep.
On the wind one day, formless as the breeze he heard his name being
called. The voice was cracked with fear and urgency; the air itself seemed to
demand that he find the source of the bitter voice, its anguish pulling him towards
the crying of his name. Edges of the
wind carried him and he tore through the walls of time, leaving it meaningless,
to a clearing in a vast forest where a pristine white cottage lay.
He tried to approach the cottage, but there seemed some kind of
forbidding about it, like a memory of nausea haunting the land about that
halted him. He hesitated on the wind
looking downward at the cottage, more dreadful than voice that pleaded for his
help was the silence without it. He tried again, yet futility to get nearer to
cottage. He felt impotent, like a single falling leaf, held in hesitation, then
a new voice called on the slow air, chiming musically through veils of time
like an echo from the dawn of Menerth. He followed the sound of the voice, a
voice imbued with goodness that led him over trees and earth devastated with miasmic
floods, then on to a stark white city upon the edge of a landward sea. The air
seemed crowded with gulls, their calls disorientating him, he felt lured by
waters as if the enticement of the voice had been replaced by a need for the
free purity of the light lashed sea.
Energised by the sights in streets and marketplaces of Paternor he
heard a booming call. He focused upon the sound deep beneath the noise of a
thousand calling seagulls. Then uncontrollably he plummeted down to the city
afraid that he would fall crashing on Paternor’s white walls and break upon the
iron of the earth. Yet it seemed a wisp of a hand held him and guided him down
to a domed sacred house of learning and led him to a chamber like a soft couch.
The chamber was illuminated by what seemed a thousand candles. Not only gold
light flamed but purple flames, reds and yellows, green flames sputtered from the
wicks of the candles higher like a straight backed man. It seemed Aflarien was
asleep being watched over by a figure coloured by the candlelight. In his sleep his voice mumbled and with a
cracked, hesitant voice he asked for the name of his companion.
‘Schriven. I called you here to offer you safety for you seemed so
lost, led her by a deep need I could not
comprehend.’
Though somnolent in the flickering, mixing colours and the pungent
smoke they issued he said:
‘I was imprisoned in a cell far from here yet I heard voices calling
me to come this way. I saw a white cottage where I felt so much pain as if it
were not my own. I heard I a voice in a song that I remembered before the Dark.
There were tears in the song imploring me to go down to the white cottage. I
tried but a barrier was set about it in the air all around.’
Schriven said. ‘The only cottage near here is the Caretaker’s before
the Muem Marsh. he covets his privacy and is an issuer of evil. Perhaps he
imprisons those whom you search for.’
The Necroman as Aflarien fell
into a deeper sleep, so deep as if the world had ended. Two days passed before
he awoke. For a dreadful moment he
thought he was back in his black prison In the red stoned keep, but new candles
had been lit and the air was adorned with a vibrancy of scents. As if smiling
he told himself he had found finally a place of peace. Schriven was beside him as if he not left
Aflarien’s side that whole two days.
Schriven as he sat and waited though had left his body; rose up from
his form twisted out up through the domed ceiling and left behind the houses
and squares of Paternor. He gusted over desolate marshes, over the woods that
lined the Forgotten Way. Then he was
stopped and unable to force his way through an iron fast barrier around the
white cottage. Schriven could almost taste the fetid air emanating from the
caretaker’s cottage that seemed to vomit out into the day a name.
Dalrosse.
Was this the name that had called Aflarien? Dalrosse. Dalrosse. Who
was he? Once more he tried to force his way through the barriers of nausea
about the cottage. Although the necroman’s strength was great he was not
powerful enough to break through. so
defeated by the forbidding he retreated
back to Paternor, roused his body and sat beside the beautiful soul smiling as
if all his days of dark and hate of the world he’d known now for so long was
cured by the vigil of Schriven.
He slept and had his first Godsleep and the new soul half-wakening
joined him there. together they wandered
the old citadels of the Ailves, those beings lost to the world more, much more
than a millennium ago walked through the
insubstantial dreams of Schriven and Aflarien and with each passing through
they drew energies circling about the Godsleep. Schriven laughed and led
Aflarien to a purple gold temple and they lay down under the vast high dome.
Then the Godsleep ceased and they woke vibrant with the ancient
power of the Ailves.
‘You must go to them now.’ Schriven told Aflarien. And Aflarien
soared to the Cottage of the White Rose through the barrier of malignant nausea
about it. He watched over him, his brother the Shouel, his Dalrosse from that
moment on. Instead of Dalrosse looking for Aflarien and Shaneal they had found
him in the end and the Angel Aflarien never left him until that day he died.
Chapter35
THE RESOLVER
THE RESOLVER
Aflarien leaves Shaneal on the balcony and goes to get a glass of
the black oil wine. He sees the empty
bottle on the table. A scream in his head cymbal crashed him into a state of
immobility. Something or someone ordered that he sit. He sits. He stares ahead
of him self – to a point of space that fluctuated with incredible speed. His hand reaches out to it. There she is holding his hand, his Shaneal.
Between them was a glimmer of a shadow walking, its shoulders happily hunched
with tired contentedness.
Aflarien, King of the World was released and Shaneal took him into
her arms. She felt the coldness of a tear upon her breast. He laughed.
‘I was thinking of somebody else, someone I knew so long before.’
Again he laughed ‘I get to distracted.’ He wrenched his gaze round as his head
lay upon her shoulder and saw King Loor.
He was content as usual, reading, reading, and always reading as if he
were gobbling up the words from the page.
Loor told himself. A moment more. Be still. Rabranath was at the empty cave of Thet and
Aflarien was unprotected, but I enjoy so watching them together. Loor noticed
Shaneal guide her lips to his: her tongue like a panicking bird between his
lips, easing open her husband’s mouth.
Now, thought Loor.
-a needle pierced through the skin at the tip of her tongue, but
before it could prick Aflarien he snapped the psybots neck.
Loor did not move, for a moment. He thought he should at least show
some surprise. Then Aflarien’s bellow roared across the dark waters of Lake
Leme to Thet.
‘Rabranath. What have you done? The Shouel bitch. I want its heart. Forget your brother. Its
heart.’ the desperation in the Anti-Author’s howl of desolation seemed to suck
into it the cacophony of noise of the whole of Menerth. The hills about Thet
shuddered at the sound, yet upon the hill Rabranath whipped from his lips a
single word. No.
Aflarien trembled.
Before he could kill Jon Esierk the UnAuthor tore Marriamme’s heart
from her chest. He let Jon watch as he feasted upon her green heart. With the taste of the flesh he had a memory
of that, a that that too briskly passed
through his mind seeing in fleeting the
psybot Shaneal as she fell broken from Aflarien’ lips. Again he cried. No. The surface of the lake became vaporous with
steam, the tower of Helvearn rocked on root stones of the foundations of the
world. Aflarien went sprawling to his knees while the book fell disjointedly
from Loor’s hands
The UnAuthor left Jon alone and raced over the lake. Every atom of
the air that his presence flooded through was imbued with the savor of the
Black Rose. Tears of joy fell from his face as he imagined that at last he
could devour the long roots of the Black Rose. With the Shouel Queen’s blood on
his face like a slap of envy he was at once at his lord’s side.
‘Aflarien lick her blood from my face if you desire it so greedily.’
However he was not looking at Aflarien, he was not aware of the King; all he
saw was the surprised look on Shaneal’s face as if she were caught in a
portrait.
‘Just this,’ he mumbled. ‘Why could I at least have this? Her, just
her?’ That it was a fool’s dream that they could have returned together to
Esplomeoir. Let Kings and men have their fill of the flesh of the world. Loudly
he ordered Aflarien. ‘Give her to me.’ Yet, he felt the tug of the sunsteel
collar about his neck. ‘Still? Still. You go on with this. I said no. I no
longer submit to your whims. Murder the
Menerth on your own. I want …nothing; there is no longer anything I want from
you.’
He picked up the psybot, dormant, useless, so soft, and smelling of
waspwillow leaves in the rain.
A song fell upon the thick air, heavy with particles of endless
night, a song that drifted like a balm of the waters. ‘Shhh,’ the song told
them. ‘Listen. I have a story…’ All three at the tip of Helvearn listened. The
voice rang out clearly and slowly drifted nearer and nearer towards them.
‘I was told once that the universe is a safe place if you believe it
to be so, that I was to remember it always and such safety would be. Yet I know
that too will pass for fear and lies have disguised and distorted all hope and
such safety now is fitted with a cloak of deceit. And we laughed. Don’t you remember,
Rab, don’t you remember when we laughed together before the story unfolded. It
wasn’t much then just a thing we did, a project we fitted in between rewriting
equations for moving a bloodstar a fraction out of orbit. It was game. Like any other game until it
robbed us of our sleep and our lives. We loved it and it was dear to us. Those
that followed the fate of the Esierk they too too completely lost themselves,
stitching in the tale a tapestry of time. Our gift to our brother. You remember
Rab it began with our laughter, yet we became snow-blind as our gift with its tragedies
and woes we made him suffer. What right
had we, we designers, we giftgivers to give him the responsibility of a world
to save? Wasn’t our gift for him a place
for him to do what he wished? We butted
in, pleated in parts of our heartsongs for ourselves not for our brother. If I
were offered such a gift this moment I would refuse it.’
The words reached Aflarien’s ears, all he could hear was a grating
jabbering. The UnAuthor was listening intently. Unnoticed Aflarien took to his
lips the bottle of black rose wine and the last few droplets touched his
tongue. He became as tall as the night, more expansive than the water’s of the
Hidden Ocean on the far side of Menerth.
All that energy condensed in a brief moment and with it Aflarien stabbed
into Rabranath’s mind.
Deftly he sliced parts of the UnAuthor’s brain leaving him
lobotomized, crushing all anger and violence, and love, finally leaving him in
peace. Rabranath’s urine like a releasing of his crimes gushed from him, the
waters staining his garments of the psybot still in his arms like an
unthought-of deed, Aflarien looked about him.
King Loor was nowhere to be seen. Alone, Aflarien stood and waited until
Jon reached the top of Helvearn.
‘Stop prattling. Take this thing back with you to Esplomeoir. I…’ but
Jon’s words carried on rising above Aflarien’s voice, his voice not directed at
the lord of Ashenmoire but to his brother. ‘Do you not remember how we used to laugh?
Do you Rab?’ Spittle drooled from the UnAuthor’s slack mouth.
‘I said,’ Aflarien’s hands snaked about Jon’s neck.
‘To be silent.’ Disgusted
with the old tale teller he released him. ‘There,’ he pushed Rabranath towards
him. ‘Take him. Tell him your stories and of the gift that has taken your
lifetimes to give.’
Jon though began to sing a song long lain upon a flame. Of the
passing of all things. The notes and the timbre of Jon’s voice knitted a
healing in Rabranath’s mind.
‘We go now to Esplomeoir.’
Now, but for Aflarien, Helvearn was empty. Ashenmoire, his
Ashenmoire all about him. On the edge of hearing there were the sounds of the
men of Tasen upon the lake sailing to the island. He lifted up a bright flag,
the flag of the five Roses and draped it over the rail of the balcony. Almost at once a brisk wind ripped the flag
from its place and Aflarien had to watch it drift away until it became
indistinguishable in the night. He laughed a laugh that sounded like a
profanity, as if he were bereft of joy,
as if he had always within himself a rainbow of tears since that first in the
garden with Countess Krostic who had made him monster. He descended the
stairways of Helvearn and walked the cluttered path up to the Hollow where the
air was thin. Sitting on a flat ledge of rock was Dalrosse he was gazing as if
amazed at the rose, as if before he had been blind. Dalrosse saw new colours
sneaking between each particle of earth and green as the morning came.
Aflarien kicked over the pile of rocks Dalrosse had collected.
Patiently, for time itself seemed to be waiting on him, he gathered together
the rocks and when the Shouel seemed satisfied Aflarien kicked them apart
again. Once more Dalrosse gathered them. Then the sun rose over the horizon and
seemed to laugh with expectancy. For the first time Dalrosse lifted his head
and met the gaze of his brother.
So silent up above as if waiting either for the end of the world or
the fresh flower of new one the female blackbird circled, unseen.
‘Brother,’ Dalrosse said as he walked toward Aflarien, he repeated
the word so softly that it was a voice speaking the slang of the soul. ‘It is
enough,’ he said. The Angel of Aflarien fleets down like a dancing wind into
his body. Dalrosse stood beside his brother within arm’s reach, then Dalrosse
the Shouel took Aflarien in his arms, holds him tight, hugs him as a child would
do. As joy would do.
The blackbird circles down swiftly as if gravity in the moment had
strengthened. As she fell her wings
slowly transformed into arms, her bill and sharp feet revolved and resurrected
into the face of Aflarien’s sister and Dalrosse’s best and final friend. Her sharp feet and tiny claws stretched into
pale, freckled skin and bone. She falls,
yet not too harshly and is softened into the embraces of Aflarien and Dalrosse,
the kingfisher flying like a rainbow watching over her.
Within Aflarien the wretched shrieking of Krostic, that being who
had possessed him, raged on and on. ‘You will love none be me,’ but the words
were obsolete in their embrace and the embrace of the Angel within him. The music
that had been Aflarien rose from a whisper and he began singing of the woods
and old, old pathways through the trees, he sang of the surprises of wild
flowers, stutteringly, then finding his true
voice. Dalrosse heard the song and held him tighter. And with them holding him
and the Angel singing made Krostic, stabbing inside his brother’s soul, a
statue, crumbling and blackened by time like those old gods in the gardens of
R’thera, her desperate screams diminished from time and life as the song flew,
freeward into joy. Now she had no grip upon the child of the forestways, the
mushroom dreamer and the flower in the long grass.
‘Am I free? Really, is she gone? ‘He smiled and in a whisper and the
earth shook in affirmation. He remembered what he had done to the forest, those
forests he had burnt. There in the Hollow of Armoroth where the black rose grew
imbued with the power of the five roses, away from Ashenmoire over the Water of
the Leme he sent his song to Soen. New trees grew, thrusting up from the fire
eaten hills, in moments mighty, a green tsunami flowing over the land, the wind
in their branches played to the sun. Then he was silent and in the arms of his
brother, The Shouel, his sister, his wife. Aflarien died, as he should have
died so long ago upon the green mound at R’thera, but here he did not perish
alone or unloved. His last sight was of their smiles. Shriven the kingfisher alighted
upon his shoulder, singing. They lay his body in the hollow and built a mound
for him under the shadow of rose.
The Black Rose finally bloomed, its flowers were of many colours
like the sunset and sunrise on the waters of the lake. Menerth had finally
found hope and Shaneal and Dalrosse danced at the edge of the water, as
children would, as they danced they laughed remembering the manic, stamping
dance of Aflarien in big clunky boots and how free he was then and now.
The second part of
Thrice Advent,
The History of the Psybots
continues this tale.
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