3: Hunrim

just like everyone else

"D'ya tink hey's daid?"

"Nah, hey's jus' outta it. Hey'll wake 'p soona laita, trus' mey, boi."

"I dunno. Hey's kinda pale, aint hey?"

"Yah, b't wey c'nt leave 'im lahk dis, can wey?"

"Wa'bout da wommin, huh? Wa wey gonna do'bout heyr, sirra? Shay doan look lahk shay's gonna bay goan anywheres soon, no-sirra."

"Shay's braythin', b't shay's gotta pale look'bout heyr too, so's I na sure'bout heyr."

"Hai, hey's movin'! Hey's movin'!"

"Shaddup! Wai's ya a'wais gotta bay soh loud?"

"Sohrai'bout dat."

I'd been listening to the two talk for a good five minutes, just laying wherever it was I was laying, trying to will the lingering pain in my body to go far, far away…

"Hey doan look lahk hey's awake."

"I sah heym move, I sah id!"

When I was sure the pain had subsided enough, I opened my eyes.

Two faces, both very dirty but not at all ugly, like their voices had implied, stared with wide eyes at me. They were young, I could tell that much, one maybe fourteen or so; the other one of them seemed closer to twenty. The former person had snow-white hair, the latter jet-black; I was sure that, with the way this world worked, the colors were in no way indicative of age. They both wore tunics of some sort of greenish skin, lined with dark-green fur. It was too dark to really get a good idea of my surroundings, but from the sound of leaves rustling above me I knew I wasn’t in the Hills. Or maybe I was; Ocea’s influence could have spread all over the area, for all I knew.

"Ya oh-kai, sirra?" the younger one said. "Ya look lahk da Shee-ras gotcha—Hai, w's wr'ng?" He stepped away from me, trembling a little.

At the word "Shee-ras" I had tensed up, without even knowing it, and probably resembled some sort of freakish corpse. Black things, swimming in blue ooze, flashed in my mind.

My eyes moved—which made the rest of my body feel left out—over to the two men nearby. They seemed fairly innocent, kind of like small children, or maybe hurt animals. They probably thought I was being possessed by "Shee-ras", with the way I was acting.

The older one smacked the younger on the head. "Wai ya gosta talk'bout tings lahk dat, huh? Ya wan dem ta come afta ya, do ya? Wall, do ya?" He raised his hand up in the air threateningly, making the boy cower.

"It's alright, I'm alright, it's okay," I said, waving my hands in the air. "It isn't his fault, it's okay." It's not his fault we've got Shirasans everywhere, I thought. It's no one's fault but the Planet's, and She still doesn't know how to take care of Herself yet.

The older stared at me, then lowered his hand. The younger gave me a thankful look before sliding into something I can only describe as "uytfar mode"—his face stiffened, he stood up straight, and he did his best to glare menacingly at me. It wasn't anything new, for me. I'd been in the Palek Army, after all. You get used to a lot when you're part of the most feared military force in the world; "uytfar mode" had been almost commonplace wherever I went as a Guard. The older one had seemed to be somewhere between uytfar and a compassionate, understanding human being, but he too slid into the attitude.

The two looked down at me with almost empirical scrutiny, but I saw in their eyes that they were far from being uytfars themselves. I matched their gazes, one at a time, waiting for them to do something.

"Who ah ya, sirra?" the older one barked. "Warr ya goan, huh sirra? Warr ya goan?"

"Nowhere, right now," I said. "I don't even know where I am." It was true, too: I'd been walking through a field of snow before, and now I was surrounded by trees. I wasn't in the Hills anymore, that was for sure.

And where was Ocea?

"Where is she?" I snapped, my head turning to the left and the right. "What happened—"

"Oh, da wommin?" the younger said—I labeled him Young in that moment, because that was just how he acted. "Shay's rait oh-va hayr, sirra."

Young and Old moved away from each other, and there was Ocea. She was lying on her side, back to me, on a pile of moss. I rushed over to her.

"Shay wit ya, sirra?" Young asked. Old smacked him again. "Owieees…"

I didn't bother answering. This wasn’t Ocea. It didn’t even look like her; my mind had played tricks on me, my hope had worked against me. This wasn’t her, this was someone else. This person was too dark, the hair clearly black. Her clothes were brown, not the blue I found so entrancing, and made of several kinds of leather, all patched together. Smoke rose from every corner of her body in thick gray streamers, but she was still breathing and seemed otherwise uninjured.

"Who is this?" I asked, unconsciously staring at the unmoving woman. "Where is the other woman?"

"Wha utha wommin?" said Old. "Dis ‘s da on-lee wommin way fond, sirra. ‘s dere s’posed ta bay ‘notha?"

"Another one, yes, one with whitish-blue hair…" I was still looking at the woman before me, wondering who she was. She looked familiar, but why was beyond me. I’d never seen anyone in my life dressed as she was, and I couldn’t wrap my head around why she was smoking like she was. "Where’d this woman come from? How’d she get here? And where am I?"

Young and Old shared a look that was so blatantly nervous I nearly laughed. I held my tongue, though, and waited.

"Wayl…" Old muttered. "Wey fond ya flootin’ don da rivar, on-lee da rivar bay maid o’ s’m sorda goop, sirra. Wey b’rly got ya out." Another look was shared, and I found myself getting annoyed. What were they so nervous about?

"And this woman?"
Old swallowed a few times before answering. "Shay fail fr’m da skai, sirra. An shay w’s ahl lid up, ya know, ahn fiar."

"On fire."

"Yas."

"Fell from the sky, right?"

"Yas, sirra." Old was staring at his feet.

I took a deep breath, to try and calm myself, I suppose, and stood up. "And there was no one else? Nothing of interest? Nothing out of the ordinary? Nothing at all?" Twin nods were my only answer, but I noticed Young hesitate. I approached him, and watched his eyes get wider and wider with my every step. I leaned over to look him straight-on, and glared.

"You saw something else, didn’t you?" I said slowly. I didn’t let myself blink, and neither did he. "What did you see? What did you see?"

"Hey dint see n’thin—" Old said.

"Id w’s a stah, sirra!" Young yelped, jumping back slightly, trying to keep his distance from me. "A stah dat cr’sht, sirra! Id cr’sht, sirra, id cr’sht!"

"A star?" Young nodded. "What kind of star?"

"Id w’s blu, sirra, blu fiar! An id m’vt lahk a bird ‘n da skai!"

"Blue fire?" Hope stabbed me in the stomach, and I nearly fell over. There was a chance, a tiny little chance… "Where did it land? Can you tell me?"

Old tried to stop his companion, but Young was so happy (I must’ve stopped looking so angry) that he almost sang as he spoke. "Sirra, I c’n tail ya how ta get dere! F’llow mey, sirra, f’llow mey!" He slipped away from Old and hid behind me, smiling like the child he seemed to be.

I met eyes with Old, and saw his reluctance, resting there on the very surface.

"Ya c’nt…"

"Yes, yes I can, and I will. You can have your friend back when he’s done his job. I’ll even pay him for his services."

"Pay? How m’ch?"

"Ten Sevvils."

Old grinned. "F’r dat m’ch, I’ll go wit ya. Id will mahk may r’ch ‘n mi cl’n." He offered his hand, which I shook without a second thought. "Wey mus’ go r’t now, sirra, ‘r id bay too lait."

"We’re not going anywhere without her," I said, getting down on my knees beside the woman. I slipped my arms beneath her and, with a pained grunt, lifted her up a couple inches before the pain in my shoulder forced me to put her back down.

"I’ll do id." Old lifted the woman with one arm and slung her over his shoulder. "Le’s go."

***

It didn’t take me long to figure out just where we were, what with the Hills just a few hundred feet away, in clear sight from the path on which Young and Old led me. We were at the Foothills, who had been given proper distinction from their lifeless neighbors simply because there were things living in the Foothills. The clearly-defined line separating the two areas was so easy to spot and so unnerving that it had become the unspoken boundary between Palek and Morviz. The latter country was just like the Hills, and invariably empty. Some said a Saprim, I can’t remember which one, ruled over Morviz, but I didn’t think so.

…then again, wasn’t I in love with a Saprim? Hadn’t I spoken with the ghost of one in the Forest of the Crater? Who was I to scoff at the idea of another First-Born ruling over the deadest land in the world, after all I’d seen and done, after I’d been chased and swallowed up by a tidal wave of slime?

Who was I to naysay? I was no one, no one at all.

Then again, I wasn’t sure if I really believed in anyone or anything being a Saprim. Something didn’t seem right about the idea that some sort of "Higher Race" existed in the world. It just didn’t make any sense to me.

As for Young and Old, well, they were a strange pair. Young, whose real name was Nekuyr, was a trainee under Old (or Gorah). Both were Protectors of their family clan, the Qel, and had been scouting their Hunting Grounds when they’d found me and the unnamed woman, and seen a ball of blue fire rocket across the sky. When I voiced the worry that they’d be in trouble for wandering off, they just laughed and told me all they’d have to do was mention the twenty sevvils and their Elders would be urging them on. I laughed with them and somehow found the restraint to keep myself from shaking my head; human greed and selfishness were corrupting even the little Islander tribes.

The woman remained unconscious for a while, but eventually she woke up and Gorah put her down. She seemed a bit dazed, but otherwise fine. She didn’t say much, though.

When Nekuyr pointed out the river I’d been found in, I couldn’t figure out what he was showing me. It looked, from where I stood, like a shiny sheet of ice, colored white by the light of Siraqsa the Night-see and slick with slush and water. A second, much closer look told me otherwise: the corpses of various river-creatures, most of which with names I couldn’t pronounce, stared back at me from beneath the ice, caught in mid-death throe by an unrelenting flood of slimy, evil sludge.

All that life, just taken away like that…for no reason at all...

No. There was a reason. They’d been killed because they were chasing Ocea and I across the continent.

It was all our fault.

All. Our. Fault.

Nekuyr had to pull me by the hand from the shore, and then Gorah had to help him when my legs gave out. The woman, quiet as ever, just watched as they took me away, her emotionless face centered in my vision as I was carried to safer soils…

***

When Gorah finally declared it too late to continue searching, much to Nekuyr and my own disappointment, the Night-see had set on the southern horizon. Only five hours until the rise of the Day-see remained, and Gorah and Nekuyr, with great zeal, left me and the woman to rest while they looked for breakfast. We each took a separate fur blanket and wrapped ourselves up on opposite sides of the same fire. I don’t know why we did that, exactly, but it felt right. We were strangers, after all. We’d never met before—or had we? I wasn’t too sure, anymore. She seemed familiar, in a very vague way.

I was almost asleep when her words, whispered and musical, slipped into my ears, and I knew who she was before she’d even finished her sentence.

"it’s not your fault," she said.

I rolled over in my blanket, every inch of my body shaking with some unknown anticipation. "Wynn?"

"it’s not your fault," she repeated. It wasn’t a "yes", but I knew it was her, even though she looked so different from when she’d spoken with me in the Crater Forest. Had she always had those three braided pigtails, hanging over shoulders into her waist? Surely her face hadn’t been so dirty, or her clothes so tattered and filthy, covered in dirt and mold and torn in at least a dozen places.

The only things completely unchanged were her eyes, big and brown and as sad as ever, and the faint sense of overwhelming power, emanating from her very skin. I shivered.

"What isn’t my fault?" I asked, even though I knew already, whether I liked it or not.

"the shirasans would’ve already killed everything in palek by now, if they hadn’t been so distracted. they're so busy trying to kill you and ocea that they don’t have the time to destroy anything else." She closed her eyes. "trust me on this, i've seen it before."

"You knew what I was thinking—"

"no. i knew what you were feeling. your mind is your own, private and mute. feelings are something else entirely. they rise above thought and action, tainting the air with their power. it's not hard to know what someone’s feeling when the clues are swirling around your head."

"Oh. Okay." I really didn’t know what to say to that. "Hold on…" I sat up, cross-legged, and looked at her. "What happened to you? You look…well…" I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t say it.

Wynn bit her lip, and slowly closed her eyes. "it’s none of your business," she whispered. Small, desolate ringing tones hung in the air, accenting her every word.

"Fine. It’s none of my business." I laid back down. "Good night."

***

I heard her in my sleep, walking in my dreams in a cloud of blue-gray smoke. She spoke without words, her mouth releasing feelings in little glowing orbs that shot across a field of silver sand—the land of the Divians, the Shirasa-slaying Dreamers. They visited the exceptional people of the world through their dreams, tainting the ideas and attitudes of the most influential individuals to their own purposes. They were rumored to be only slightly better than the Shirasans, but that was just a rumor. I hadn’t been directly Visited by them before, but then again, I’d never been exceptional.

An orb—yellow-green, like all the rest—drifted up into the white sky, looking like a faraway star, then elegantly spiraled its way down to me. It slowed to a hover and hung an inch from my face, which I could see from a distance, thanks to the physics of the Dream-plane. I watched myself blink in surprise as the orb swelled, expanding like a lava-bubble in the Pyravian desert magma fields until it was nearly as big as my head. It backed up a bit, then popped, disappearing entirely.

Emotions battered my mind—

Anxiety

Despair

Confusion

Loss

Confusion

Fear

Pessimism

Confusion

Fear

Confusion

CONFUSION

Her arm stretched to me

Black spears shot through my body—

***

—ringing bells woke me up.

"wake up, triol!"

A sound slap brought me fully into the physical world, resounding pain licking at the nerves in my right cheek. I struggled, both to wake and to recover from the unexpected blow.

"i know you heard her."

I stretched my eyelids up with my hands and blinked at the face of Wynn. "You heard?"

"it was hard not to." I expected her to smile, but she didn’t. "we have to go. now."

That ‘now’, even though it was soft-spoken, even though it carried the underlying sense of beautiful music, and even though Wynn’s voice seemed incapable of expressing anger or fear, that single word struck a very, very dangerous note in my mind.

Wynn grabbed me by the shirt, lifted me up off the ground and onto my feet without seeming to exert the effort required, and took hold of my arm.

"come on."

And we were off.

***

Looking at Wynn, you wouldn’t think she could do something like this. As far as I could see she was a lightweight, maybe a hundred and ten pounds total, and slender. Not bone-showing-through-the-skin slender, mind you, but she could’ve very easily made the transition. She wasn’t a stick, but she was getting there.

Despite that, she was still able drag me through the air behind her, using only one arm, while sprinting energetically through the thick Foothills forest, jumping and leaping off tree trunks, boulders and, occasionally, the surface of a pond. Every time I thought she was going to crash into something I’d make a small, choked screaming noise—and then she’d effortlessly bounce away from incoming doom. It made me sound like some kind of tiny rodent, and Wynn would glance at me whenever I did it.

She stopped in a large clearing—which wasn’t clear at all, the ground covered in smoking bits of shattered trees, and the air filled with a most disorienting and disgusting smoke, which violated my lungs and stuck to the sides of my throat. It tasted—the air was too thick to simply be smelled—like burnt leather and fried trees. Wynn didn’t seem to notice it as she gracelessly dropped me on the ground, not even bothering to glance back at me as she rushed further ahead.

"oh dralla," she muttered.

Among the wood shards, which looked like giant, burnt splinters, was Ocea. Blood stained her clothes. And her hair. It stained nearly everything else, but especially her hair. Everything from the neck-down was drenched and colored red-purple—the dye of her clothes had mixed with the blood.

"Dralla," I said, vomit rising in my throat with the word. "Dralla dralla dralla." I kneeled beside her, the weight of my body seeming to flee me as I did so. I felt as though I could float away if I so much as straightened my back, or go spinning freely in the air if I leaned too far forward. It was as though I no longer had a body—I was made of nothing but my emotions. Only they kept me anchored to the Planet. They were my weight.

It was cold in this forest, but I couldn’t see the fog of Ocea’s breath. I watched and waited for it, but it never happened.

She was dead.

***

"she’s not dead."

I blinked. I’d almost forgotten Wynn was still there. "She’s not?"

"no. i can hear her heart beating from here. she's fine."

"But she’s not bre—"

"what makes you think a saprim has to breathe?"

My own breath momentarily left me. When I got it back, I asked, "How do you know she’s a Saprim?"

Wynn shrugged. "i don’t. it just seems right. she has a certain…how should i say this…scent to her." She seemed sheepish. "it’s hard to explain."

"Scent?" I almost laughed. Ocea smelled like a Saprim? Ha! Such nonsense!

But…

Ocea coughed and took a shallow, raspy breath. I jumped to my feet, ready to help her up, but all she did was toss from left to right a bit before settling back down. Little clouds of fog appeared where they were supposed. She was breathing, just like any old human being.

I glanced at Wynn, whose eyebrows twitched in irritation.

"she’s still a saprim."

"I’ll believe it when she believes it. No sooner."

"fine." She cast a look around, her eyes dancing this way and that, looking in the shadows for some thing. When she was sure it was safe she lifted Ocea up by the waist, grabbed my arm, and began the nauseating journey back.

***

Gorah and Nekuyr were waiting for us when we bounded back into the clearing.

"Wair ya bin, sirra ‘n missirra?" Gorah said. He didn’t seem surprised at Wynn’s entrance—somersaulting over a large log, rising twelve feet in the air, and landing on her feet in front of the fire, all without a sound—or how she was carrying two people who each weighed more than she did without trouble. He seemed a bit surprised at first, but he went right back to tending to the meat he’d been cooking when we’d got there. It was as though he’d seen it before, ho hum, nothing new, this happens every day.

Wynn let go of me. I just sat there on the ground, staring dazedly at the fire, until the wind kicked up and forced me to scoot closer to the fire. I looked hopefully at Nekuyr; maybe he was surprised at this…?

Nekuyr was staring off into space. He looked bored. Was I the only one who thought any of this was strange? Was I the only sane one here?

I shivered. I wasn’t sure if I knew what was going on anymore.

Wynn gently laid Ocea down on her side, propping her up against the same log she’d leapt over. She pulled back the bloody hair until the back of her neck was exposed. I could see from where I sat that it was clean and undamaged; there wasn’t a trace of blood on it. Wynn saw this, too, and moved on, parting the hair higher and higher up, peering at Ocea’s scalp, poking it here and there, her fingers disappearing into that blue-white forest only to come back out again. Each time they returned clean, and I felt my stomach tighten. She was injured, that much was obvious, and she was breathing, and that was obvious, too, but this waiting was terrible. How bad was she hurt? What was damaged? Would she recover?

This was too much. I had to ask. I began to say it, but then I stopped.

I stopped because there was Wynn, staring down at her hand without a trace of emotion, while blood ran in streams down her fingers, pooling in her palm and sliding down to her wrist. The blood looked orange in the fire’s light, and seemed to glow in the darkness.

Wynn’s hand dipped back down into the hair, and I could only sit and listen as squishing sounds filled the air. What was she doing? What in the Gate was she doing?

I heard ruffling sounds on either side of me, but I didn’t bother to look to see what it was. I didn’t care what it was.

I felt strong hands grab my arms and pull me onto my feet.

"Soh-rai, sirra," Nekuyr whispered into my left ear, "Bud way c’nt ‘ave ya mussin’ up missirra Sab-rum."

I tried to say something but my mouth refused to do so.

"Missirra Sab-rum aint hertin’ da wommin, sirra." Gorah, that time. From my right. "Shay’s heylpin’ heyr."

I mouthed the word "But".

"Bud n’thin, sirra. Shay’s only heylpin’, doin’ heyr part. Ya cun do ya part by lissenin’ ta us." Gorah tightened his grip. "Or elze." They pulled me backwards through the air, my boots dragging in the grass, and set me down on the ground. I tried to shrug them off, but it only made them squeeze harder. I gave in and let them drag me away.

Wynn’s face wrinkled slightly as she drew her hand out of Ocea’s hair again. Her entire hand was shiny with slick blood, and it covered the front of her clothes. She wiped her hand clean on her shirt, her eyes peering steadily into the clearing she’d made on Ocea’s head. It seemed to me as though she’d found something, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. Her eyes were constantly moving, going in small circles as they searched, and her fingers danced anxiously against her leg in a nervous rhythm.

She seemed to come to a decision, and stuck her hand back in. It came back out a second later, covered in blood and holding something tiny. She tossed it over her shoulder—and directly into the fire, which flared up as it consumed the object. Noises like the snapping of bones immediately rose above all other sounds, reminding me, for one surreal moment, of noises I’d heard…before.

"Before?" I muttered to myself. "What?"

"Sh," Gorah whispered. I shut up, more out of confusion than of obediance. What was before?

Wynn drew more of the tiny things out of Ocea—four more, by my count. Each one found its way over her shoulder and into the fire, where it joined in the cacophony of breaking bones. I only caught a glimpse of each of them, but I got the idea they were long, thin, dark and sharp.

And evil, part of me added.

It’s not evil! another part exclaimed. I could feel the first part giving the second the equivalent of a suspicious look, like a strange tickling on either side of my head. I desperately wanted to scratch it, rub it, do whatever it took to make it go away, but Gorah and Nekuyr wouldn’t have it. I fidgeted on the grass, trying miserably to scratch at my face with my shoulders.

Wynn pulled a few things from some pocket in her clothes and laid them down next to Ocea. There were three small bottles, two tiny round things, and a roll of stained white cloth.

The itching on one side began to fade away, but I found myself unable to settle down. The restraints on my arms got tighter. The sound of bones snapping was accompanied with human screams—not the happy screams of small children when they discover something new, not at all. These screams went hand in hand with the deaths of innocents, the slaughtering of the passer-by and the every-man. Unjust deaths.

Somehow, I got the feeling that these deaths—these murders, I had to remind myself—were going on right now. It made me dizzy with disgust and rage; who had the right to take such lives at such times? Death himself had not been given the right to destroy the futures of the uninvolved; the Planet had forbade him to do so.

Humans, however…oh ho ho, humans were all-powerful, all-knowing, and self-absorbed! Who cares about everyone else when there’s a profit to be made? Ha! It is all in the name of SUCCESS! We shall SUCCEED in our ENDEAVOR and ALL WILL BE WELL! And I’d thought we’d grown out of all that after the "Utopian Age", when Utopia was nowhere to be seen and Ruin had his fun! Hadn’t we learned anything from all that death and loss? Hadn’t we gleaned something from anything at all during those ten thousand years of suffering?

Apparently not. We were blinder than I’d thought. We’d learned nothing.

Maybe it was time for someone to start teaching.

A flash of blue light broke through the tears flooding my eyes, and I found myself freed of the screams and the breaking of bones. The tears broke loose, sliding across my cheeks to drip off my chin, while new tears rose up to take their place. I found myself weeping. I was surprised, because it was something I’d never done before, but somehow it felt right.

I wept for lost souls, robbed lives, and innocent deaths. I wept because I knew no one else would. I wept for people I’d never met and people I felt I’d met a thousand times before. I wept for the Big Man, the Little Guy, and the Nobody. I wept for them all.

I wept, and nothing else mattered.

***

I woke up later—much later, because the birds were awake and singing to one another in the trees. I knew Gorah and Nekuyr were maybe ten feet behind me without opening my eyes; they snored louder than I could yell. I was lying on my side, there was a dryness in my throat, and something tasted bitter in my mouth. My body felt drained, as though crying had leached every scrap of energy in me and thrown it into the air. All I had left was aching pain in my eyes and throbbing in my skull.

All of this misery was second to the fact that I was starved. Since just laying there wouldn’t get me any closer to food, I rolled onto my back, stretched my arms and legs as far as possible, and opened my eyes.

I found myself staring at Wynn. She was sitting on a flat boulder with her back to me, leaning back slightly, her hands supporting her weight on the rock. I could see her legs, stretched out in front of her, and her bare feet, surprisingly clean.

"good morning."

"We’ll see." I wanted to smile, but I didn’t have the energy.

"Where’s Ocea? What happened to her?"

"you like to get to the point, don’t you?"

"Only when it suits me."

"just like everyone else, then." She sighed; it sounded like banging wind chimes, heard from a distance. "she’s somewhere over there." She pointed off to her right, at a dirt path flanked by flowering trees.

"She’s awake?"

"she’s been awake for an hour or so." Wynn turned her head to look at me, and I could see she was smiling. "she’s been waiting for you."

"Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?" I jogged over to the path. "I’ll be right back."

"i know."

***

I felt a strange sense of déjà vu, walking down that path. Here I was, trees to my left and right, my feet slamming into a bare dirt path as I ran, just like before. It was exactly the same, but it was also completely different: things were reversed, the trees were full of flowers and the path was bare, I wasn’t being chased and I knew that Ocea was fine and waiting somewhere at the end. Things were switched, and I took that to heart.

I slowed down as I neared the end of the path. I could feel something—something like awe—begin to wash over me as I got closer. I couldn’t see very well past all the flowers, but I got the feeling that there was something special going on just beyond my field of vision. I approached the end with a kind of care and consideration I’d rarely felt before. Whatever was going on over there was something I didn’t want to interrupt.

Eventually I stood at the very edge of a deep bowl-shaped depression in the ground, just at the end of the path. The walls of it stretched at least fifteen feet down and were lined with bluish-gray rock that was so smooth it shined. Blue light, faint but growing, shone from beneath a pool of even bluer water. The light swirled and shifted on the rock with the water’s ripples. A smell I couldn’t quite place but knew was familiar slid into my nose and lifted me off to a better place, where there were no Shirasans or Saprims or Hunrims or problems, just contentment and fulfillment. I forgot all about Ocea, Wynn…I even forgot about myself, and that was just fine.

Something in me rebelled, however. Something hated the idea of a happy place even existing, wanted to do away with that place as soon and as violently as possible. Something was very angry.

I told that something to shove it and go to the Gate. I liked the happy place.

"Wonderful, isn’t it?" someone whispered in my ear.

"Absolutely." I kept my eyes closed as I reveled in the amazing scent. It felt like liberation.

"I’ve always liked it."

"You’ve been here before?"

"I think I have. The voices say yes, my mind says no, but either way I love this place. It feels right to be here, to just sit and bask in the scent and the glow and feel the way the two combined just free you from everything that you think exists."

"I know how you feel." I felt a pair of arms slide around my neck and immediately I felt even better, if that was possible. "What is this place?"

"It was where I went to be alone, in that other life the voices tell me about. I loved it even more than my actual home, but had to leave because the Hunrims…" The voice was mellow now, almost sad, but a strange sad, as if the owner wasn’t sure why she should be so sad. "Beautiful. So beautiful."

"Not as much as you." I took one of her hands in mine. "Nothing comes close."

"Obviously." She chuckled.

"You aren’t very good at modesty, are you?"

"Nope. And neither are you."

"Well, obviously." I smiled and turned to face her. "But I sure know more about than you, Ocea." I let my hands rest on her hips. There was something that felt right. She gave me a look like That’s Right and smiled. I felt even more of my worries slip into the abyss, never to be seen again.

"Really?" she said. "You don’t sound like you know anything."

"Well, that’s just how I sound."

"It sure isn’t how you act."

I laughed. It was like old times again: just us, laughing and teasing one another, like it used to be, not so long ago. A month, maybe less. Probably less. A short time, to be sure.

I’ve only known you for a month, I thought, but you’ve changed me so much by doing so little. And I’m so grateful, because I wasn’t that great before you showed up, on that day…

Thank you.

I almost told her. I should’ve told her. I shouldn’t have put it off. Everything would’ve been oh so much easier if I’d just told her, right there by that path and that pool. It couldn’t have been as difficult as I made it. Nothing is as bad as it seems in the human mind.

I could’ve, I should’ve, I would’ve if I’d known everything was going to get worse. If only I’d known…

There was just something about seven months.

***

We walked down the path back to camp, discussing my least favorite subject.

"I don’t trust her," I declared, trying to sound serious while I tried to be discrete as I gazed at Ocea. Her heavy-looking robes had been removed—they now hung on her arm—and what had lain beneath all those layers was even more mystifying. She wore a loose shirt of some smooth and shiny cloth only a few shades darker than her near-white hair. Complicated designs that, under closer inspection, were serpents and fish dancing beneath the crashing waves of the sea, stitched in front of an even more complicated view of the underwater world. Plants and animals that didn’t have names in any of the two languages I knew populated a background far more complicated than anything I’d ever seen. Her pants were made of the same material, only they were a much darker shade of blue. There was another complicated design on the pants, but her legs were moving too fast for me to really tell.

"Well, I don’t think she’s as bad as you think, Triol. She doesn’t act like she’s hiding something."

I set my eyes straight ahead as I spoke. I wasn’t about to let anyone or anything happen, not again. "True, but I still don’t trust her. There’s just something wrong about her. That’s all."

"’That’s all’? What do you mean, ‘That’s all’? Look, I trust her. I feel she’s sincere. I think she can be trusted." Ocea grabbed me, turned me ‘round, and glared right into my eyes. "You think what you want about her, and I’ll think what I’ll think about her, and we’ll just see who’s right in the end. Got it?"

I was too stunned to say anything. She’d never been angry at me before.

"Got it?" she snapped, and I thought I saw something blue spark in her eyes.

I nodded nervously. What was wrong this time?

"Good." I blinked as her demeanor instantly reversed itself. She let go of me, straightened her shirt, and even smiled as we got back to walking.

"What was all that about?" I whispered.

Ocea let out a heavy, leaden sigh and tapped her head. "Them. All four of them, rambling on in my head about things they think will make me remember." She blew some of her hair out of her face. "I just wish they’d shut up so I could at least think about what they’re saying."

"How many are there?" I asked, not without apprehension.

"There’s four, and they’re all named. And very annoying. Very, very annoying."

"Named?"

"Yeah. There’s Feyrai, Basarea…" She counted off on her fingers. "Sorna and Ceru. That’s it." She let her hands drop to her sides. "They all say they used to be me, or I used to be them, or…or something." She laughed—a shaky laugh, a half-laugh. Not a real laugh. "They’re all so confusing, so angry and sad and…and…ugh…" She shook her head mournfully, her eyes roaming across the ground. "I’m a bit frustrated right now. Sorry. It’s just…them."

This time I definitely saw her eyes spark.

I swallowed, which felt someone pouring sand down my throat, because my mouth was completely dry, right down to my tongue. The very thought that was eating away at my mind had drained all the fluid from body as well. Maybe she was…

"It’s fine. It’s been a rough time."

Ocea poked me in the ribs. "Would you like to understate that a little bit more? I don’t think it was insignificant enough for me the first time."

I grinned. There she was, the Ocea of old times! "Really? Let me try again—"

"no time."

My grin spirited itself away immediately. Gorah and Wynn were standing on the path, both looking more pensive than I’d ever seen them, with Nekuyr—

With Nekuyr in their arms, his toes dragging in a rust-colored pool of his own blood mixed with brown dirt. His face, chest and right arm were covered in hundreds of long red scratches, each no thicker than a hair, crisscrossing each other in some sort of macabre quilt design. Several circular gashes, each as wide as my palm, had reduced his right shoulder to a ragged mess; several more had robbed him of an ear and some hair. They must’ve been bite marks, but if so they were the strangest bite marks I’d ever seen. I didn’t know of anything that bit in a perfect, unbroken circle, much less something with claws as thin as paper—nothing of this world had those kind of teeth.

"What—"

"i said ‘no time’. i meant it." Wynn glanced around at the trees. "let’s go. we have to leave." She walked briskly past Ocea and I, pulling away from an unsurprised Gorah and gently cradling Nekuyr in her arms. A faint golden light shifted strangely over the boy’s bloodied body.

"What are you doing?" I rasped, as the conflict between chuckling sadist and mourning sympathizer raged in my mind. "What was that light? What are you doing?"
"stalling the body. if his state worsens any more than it has he will not be saved. any change, for ill or good, could determine his survival." She gave me a look that shook the sadist inside me to the very core. "give me another way, and i will use it."

My mouth was dry and my words, low and raspy, were hard even for me to hear. "I don’t know—"

"then let’s go."

***

The trip to the village was a grueling experience in the least. Wynn led the way, going at a speed none of us could match. Ocea and I struggled to keep our balance on the rocky lanes. Occasionally we’d trip and nearly fall, only to have Gorah, who was on our very heels, pull us back up again. He was very nervous, always looking behind him and ushering us along. We weren’t in nearly as much as a rush as him, but then again we weren’t entirely aware of just what was going on. All I knew was that Nekuyr had gotten badly hurt—badly being the day’s understatement—and Wynn was healing him.

Wait. Why was she healing him? It seemed like she didn’t care about anything most of the time, let alone the fate of some random Hunrim. It didn’t make any sense.

I tripped again, and was saved by Ocea. Gorah nudged us forward again. Wynn, far ahead, urged us to hurry. Trees flashed past me on all sides. Rocks dug into the soles of my feet. Wind—cold—stabbed at my face. I found myself running without thinking, dashing through the forest with Ocea at my side. I had no sense of direction and no known purpose. The trees, the road, the rocks, all seemed to shatter as I neared them, dropping away behind me as I pressed on. I was trying to escape a disintegrating world by sheer speed alone, and it was gaining on me.

Something growled in the trees behind me. We were being hunted.

I tripped no more. I saw only what was ahead. What was behind was inconsequential. My only choice was to go forward.

Forward, or death. The choice was easy.

***

We reached the village itself quicker than I’d expected. It was a collection of tree-bark houses built into the side of a small cliff. Green moss spread from the gray rock onto the houses, seemingly anchoring them to their surfaces. More of the flowery trees populated this place, scattered in between mossy boulders and viridian shrubs. It seemed almost…utopian. Quaint. Very quaint.

And very quiet, at least until we arrived at the top of the ridge just opposite the village; Wynn took one cursory look at the village from above, bent her knees, and launched herself into the air. I could hear the villagers screaming from four dozen feet away.

I looked back at Gorah, who was shaking his head in annoyance. He motioned for us to follow him as he turned on the path, and we did as he wished. The growling behind us had stopped, but who knew for how long?

***

We entered the village calmly and quietly, trying not to be noticed too much. We were the talk of the town within minutes, of course.

The villagers greeted us cautiously at first, but with the help of Gorah they warmed up to us. They found Ocea’s clothes fascinating. My swords were examined dutifully by the village blacksmith; I think he ended up having more respect for the weapons than I did.

Nekuyr was taken into one of the larger buildings and was not seen anymore that day. I only got the barest of glances at him, but I knew, just from that tiniest of looks, that Wynn’s healing had done much more than anything the locals could have possibly done. Most of his cuts had closed up, leaving nothing but markless flesh and bloodstains.

One gash, however, had persevered and remained untouched by Wynn’s power. It bled continuously now, gushing blood like lava from the

circular wound.

When everything in the village settled back down, Gorah led Ocea and I to a medium-sized house near the top of the cliff. It was essentially a two-bedroom apartment on a primitive level, all hand-sewn pillows and blankets and leathers. Something akin to a living room led to the other rooms. All two of them.

"Thad wonn iz yers," Gorah said, pointing at the door to the left-hand bedroom. "And dat wonn iz fer Missirra Sab-rum. Ai tink ya should ged to slaip. Ai’m sure Nekuyr wail bay fine." He smiled.

I peeked at Ocea from the corner of my eye. Would we share the bed? Would she refuse? Would she be okay? Never mind that, would I be okay?

Ocea just smiled back at Gorah, waved him away, and entered the bedroom. After a moment or two of hesitation I followed. I wondered what decision I would make once inside: join her on the bed, or take the floor?

The decision was made for me: Ocea was already asleep on the bed. Her cloak lay in a crumpled heap in the corner, and her shoes—boots, something I hadn’t noticed before—were placed side-by-side just under the bed. They were blue. Just like everything else she wore.

There was a mat on the floor beside the bed. A thick blanket lay folded on it. I glanced at Ocea once more—she was breathing softly but audibly, the female equivalent of snoring. I realized she must’ve been exhausted; nonstop walking, for all that time, running away from an unseen enemy, and then, and then…

The sadist again. Always there. Always butting in.

Dralla cus ara uytfar, you bastard. Dralla cus ara uytfar.

I blinked. Did—no. Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

I laid down to sleep.

***

I couldn’t sleep. The sounds of the villagers outside, the noise of Gorah and a limping, moaning Nekuyr coming in and tromping their way across the floor into the other bedroom, and my own turbulent thoughts kept sleep from approaching me from any direction.

Of course, Ocea was sleeping peacefully. Serenely.

I got up. There would be no sleep for me.

***

I stepped into the psuedo-living room, took two steps, stopped short and backed up half a step. Someone was in here with me. I could see the barest bit of light on a shape, standing just beside the window. I reached tentatively for one of my swords, neither of which I’d bothered to remove from my back.

"hello."

Blue light filled the room. An orb of indigo flame formed just over the top of the shape, growing until it was the size of my fist. It floated down to the middle of the room, where it grew even brighter. Tongues of flame rose up from the orb, stretching high before snapping back, making little popping noises every time. My hand dropped away from the sword.

"Wynn," I said, not without a small snarl. I wondered about that snarl for the next few days, entirely unsure of where it had come from.

"triol." She shifted in the light. Her face and clothes were clean now. "what are you doing up at this hour?"

"Can’t sleep."

"ah. the human condition: completely unable to find peace." Her face was entirely impassive as she spoke. "how sad."

"Maybe. Maybe not." I moved over to the window. Wynn moved away from it, closer to the ball of fire. I scowled. "What makes you think that you’re at peace?"

Wynn gave no answer.

"Remember the night we found Ocea? Do you remember?"

No answer for a time, then a simple nod of the head.

"People died that night, didn’t they?" I glared at Wynn. "You know it, don’t you?"

"you felt it, didn’t you? it was so strong it struck even you…" she whispered. "that was the shirasans. they've begun the slaughter."

"Slaughter?"

"they can never do things on their own," she said. "they only work through others. fear and loathing are things they feed off of."

"Literally?" I spat to the side; something bitter was beginning to fill my mouth.

Wynn nodded. "literally. if they try to eat something else they mutate. so-called ‘positive’ feelings turn them into divians. hate makes them stronger. empathy makes them infectious, capable of possessing anything they wish. fear is their meat, and they take as much pleasure in making it as they do gorging themselves on it."

I chuckled. The taste of blood got stronger. I must’ve cut something in my mouth, maybe my tongue. "I guess that makes humans the cattle of the World, huh? We suffer so the bastards of all creation won’t starve." I spat on the ground. I didn’t have to look at it to see what color it was. I must’ve bitten down on my tongue, but I wasn’t sure when. How long had I cried? My eyes hurt too much for me to think. "How wonderful."

"bastards of all creation? you don’t know the divians well, do you?" Wynn smiled bitterly, humorlessly. "always flouted and praised, just because they keep the shirasans in check. no one knows the truth."

"Let me know. I’d love another free education."

"i'm sure you would. but this comes at a price."

"Just like everything else?"

"yes."

"Well, I’m ready to pay."

Wynn didn’t look at me. "the divians are infamous tricksters, though that’s an extreme dumbing down of the truth. truly, they are just malicious jokers, uncaring of the hurt of others for the sake of having fun and making themselves laugh. they're indifferent by default and cruel by choice. they're just the same as the shirasans, only less direct."

"And they’re the ones responsible for the dreams of every human alive? How irresponsible is that?"

"dreams are a human thing. it's nightmares you have to worry about."

"Oh. Well that makes sense."

A sudden screaming made us jump—well, it made me jump. Wynn didn’t even blink. I rushed to the window.

"what is it?"

I shook my head. "It’s just some kids playing." I felt my muscles relax in waves all over my body. "I thought something had—" Another scream rode the wind to my ears, and I paused, my fingers gripping the rim of the window. Another scream. Louder. Shriller.

I looked at the kids. They were staring silently at something just of sight, and visibly shaking.

Something was coming.

***

I remember it only in sporadic bursts: running over to Ocea’s room to wake her, Wynn going to Gorah and Nekuyr’s, a pervading silence all around our building broken only by the sound of the wind caressing the trees, a hurried and spastic scramble to collect our few things and few wits, and—

And the sudden presence of an all-too-familiar sound, one so thick and wet and menacing that we knew it could be nothing else. It had followed us here. It was still hunting us. It had mauled Nekuyr to scare us into this trap—

We’re trapped.

Then the screams of the dying rose to our ears and shook us to the bottom of our souls. We stood, not quite halfway to the window, and listened as an entire village was slaughtered just to get to us. We listened, and we heard, and we chose not to look out that window. The mind’s eye can tell you just as much—maybe more—then the eyes of the body.

Gorah and Nekuyr were crying behind me, and I had to fight not to break down myself. It was their village, their family and their friends that were being murdered. And they could do nothing, and knew better than to try to do something. It was all hopeless.

The building shook terribly, throwing us to the floor in a scattered heap.

Wynn, who had somehow kept on her feet, walked over to the window and lo0ked down.

"it’s coming up the side." She glanced up, up, and squinted. "everyone to the back of the room." The finality of her tone made us act instantly.

We reached the back wall just as the building shook again, knocking us forcefully against the wall. I could hear wood cracking below us, and wondered just how long it would take before the whole construct collapsed.

Soon, I hope, said the sadist. I shuddered as its voice echoed in my mind.

Wynn joined us near the back, turned and faced the window.

"What—"

"wait."

We waited, as wood broke below us and slime made its way up.

Then, so quickly that I got just the barest look, red and orange light filled the window and grew brighter and brighter, and—

And the roof blew off.

Not just the roof, really. The window and anything within five feet of it was no longer with us, either. The edges of the remaining wood glowed red and orange before turning to smoking black ash. Little flames were scattered all along the walls and floor.

More importantly, though, was the massive bird, at least thirty feet from wingtip-to-wingtip, made entirely of red flame, which was hovering over us rather sedately. Its neck was long and thin, leading up to a head with a long, tapering gold beak. Its eyes were bright yellow speckled with orange, and it had a large crest of fire that resembled upraised feathers, stretching from just above the eyes to the base of the neck.

On its back, standing with his arms crossed and an imperious yet amused look on his face, was a man. A man with feathers the colors of flame for hair. A man with a rugged, beaky nose. A man with eyes burning with red flame.

A man who was not a man. A man known throughout history as the Keeper of the Flame, the Lampmaster, and He Who Burns Eternally.

"By the damned Planet—" I muttered.

"Kindly don’t talk about my mom like that," Pyraviar boomed. "I may have to take it personally."

I gulped.

"never mind it, pyraviar." Wynn grabbed Ocea and I around the waist. "we have to get them out of here." She bent her knees to jump.

"Hai!" Gorah screamed. "Whad ‘bout uz?" He carried Nekuyr in his arms. "Don leave uz haer! Plais!"

Wynn nodded. "i'll be back for you." I thought I saw her gaze flicker into something other than stony indifference, but it may have been a trick of the light. Then again, maybe it hadn’t.

Wynn launched herself into the air, landed gracefully on the back of the huge burning bird, and dropped me gracelessly at her feet.

"Hey," Pyraviar said, grinning. "Nice ta meetcha."

***