SIXTEEN

 

THE SPIRIT WORLD

 

Krystos had come to the conclusion some hours ago that Leonado wasn’t coming back. This didn’t concern him unduly. It would have happened sooner or later. What did make him stomp and curse obscenities, was that he’d left without telling him how to reverse the invisibility spell on The Crystal Rose, or the route home, but perhaps he never even knew the way across the Noiva.

“I can’t bear to be stranded in this primitive land for the rest of my life,” he raged, pacing around his small campsite like a caged dragon. Nestled in a small alcove of rocks, it provided protection against the biting wind, but Krystos could cope with the cold. He came from a country that was covered in snow and ice half the year. Homesickness for the familiar winter’s chill gnawed at his heart.

No doubt his withdrawl from Darkfire probably also had something to do with his restlessness. At first he’d craved the thrill only Darkfire could give him, but it only took him a few days to get over it. He no longer yearned for its power. Yet he was still determined to retrieve it from the ocean cave where he’d placed it as Moreshe; he didn’t want Leonado or his dark master to have it either. Strange how Leonado never spoke of it again after he’d asked Krystos to hide it. Did they have no more use for it, as they no longer seemed to require Krystos?

“Well, Leo, I might not be able to follow you, but I do have the ability to keep track of your whereabouts.” He folded up his bedroll and sat cross-legged upon it. “Time for some astral travelling,” he muttered. “Must stop talking to myself when I’m alone. Don’t know who might be listening.”

Those cursed spirits had kept him awake most of the night with their howls and shrieks. It was possible that they could also hear him, but somehow he doubted it. They seemed too preoccupied with their own pain to worry about anything else. What were they? he asked himself for perhaps the fiftieth time, knowing he couldn’t bear to spend another night in their company.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on working the anger from his body. Unclenching his fists he let his big, calloused hands collapse into his lap. Visualising a serene stream, he saw himself floating in it, the gentle waves lapping at his ears. In his mind he wasn’t the ugly Moreshe, but Krystos, the clever, handsome man he’d grown into.

Even after all this time Krystos had no trouble remembering his own features. But today another man’s face superimposed itself over his own, one that had become equally as handsome as he grew into manhood. It almost threw Krystos from his path, and he had to try a different image to relax. He conjured up a calm ocean with soaring gulls, and he soon slid free of his cumbersome form.

He didn’t even bother to look back down at it. Discovery beckoned, and he was soon gliding over the desolate landscape that reeked of death and destruction, but nowhere did he catch sight of the elusive Leonado. Had the nasty little snake led him to believe he was travelling east, only to turn around and head west? Perhaps he hadn’t been after his father at all. Or maybe, just maybe, Lorenso had defeated him. If Leonado hadn’t met with difficulties he would have returned for his glass sphere. Krystos had little use for it. Even though he’d watched Leonado use it numerous times, Krystos could find out what was going on many leagues away simply by thinking about it.

Krystos’s spirit travelled higher, trying to see where this horrible place ended, if it ended at all. It seemed to grow into a peak, rising to a jagged point some hundred yards ahead. Shapes shifted and change in the fog at the top of the mountain. As Krystos drew closer he realised they were people wreaked with pain.

So this was where the moans and shrieks emanated from. He suspected the only reason he could see them was because he was in spirit form himself. Macabre curiosity propelled him closer. The beauty of astral travelling was that he merely had to think about where he wanted to go, and he moved easily in that direction.

Hundreds of creatures covered the mountain top in a deathly mantle. Some were splattered with blood. Others missed vital body parts. A few seemed to have survived with slit throats. Others had limbs twisted at odd angles, but most looked emaciated and on the verge of death. It didn’t take Krystos long to realise that they were dead; perpetually caught in the throes of whatever ailment or injury had ended their lives.

The sight of so much torment made Krystos’s spirit shudder. He felt it tremor all the way back to his physical self. He’d witnessed a great deal of suffering in his young life, inflicting some of it himself, but this perpetual - eternal agony even had him cringing in horrified disgust.

Suddenly one of the spirits broke from the main group, and started hobbling on gangrenous legs towards him. An elderly man, his eyes were clouded with pain. Why was he trying to walk? Krystos asked himself. He soon realised why. He could see Krystos, which made him wonder whose physical form he assumed as he travelled through the air; the ugly soldier from King Rostan’s Court or his own handsome self?

The old man slowly extended a trembling hand, as clear and solid as Krystos’s own when he wasn’t in spirit form. “He-elp me!” he croaked feebly.

“How can I help ye, old man?” Krystos asked harshly, hiding his macabre wonderment under a cloak of coldness.

“End this agony.”

“Why do ye ask me?”

“Be- because ye- ye’re a meh- messenger from Serpon.”

“Serpon sent you here?”

“Who else?” he gritted out.

“Then ye must have done something to displease him. Ye’re here as punishment. Is that not right?”

“Foh- for five years, may- mayhap more. Here time has little meaning. Could- could you stand five years of constant agony?” His face expressed his torment in intimate detail, and something within Krystos responded. No, he could never bear five years of continuous pain.

So Leonado’s God was behind all these peoples’ suffering. This could only mean one thing; Serpon was real - in this land at least. In Krystos’s homeland only Roseana, the Goddess of The Crystal Fountain was worshiped. She was both the keeper of good and evil, her role to maintain a natural balance between the two. Until now Krystos hadn’t believed in any deity. Now he wondered if gods were more than the construct of weak and searching minds.

He had no intention of staying to find out, not wanting to end up like these poor, tortured souls stuck forever in this horrid, barren place. As a spirit he could move with lightning speed, and was soon soaring across the rocky wilderness back to his physical form. The old man called pitifully after him, but Krystos had seen and heard enough.

A few moments later he sat trembling on his bedroll, his fists clenched tightly against his chest. The realisation that Serpon was real, that He had created this Hell, terrified Krystos. What had these spirits done to displease him, and how did one ensure it never happened to them?

Somehow he had to find the way home, with or without Leonado.

Of course! The answer came with blinding clarity. The flamboyant little wizard’s father would know how the unlock the invisibility spell cast over The Crystal Rose. Krystos was reluctant to do it again so soon, but he set off in spirit form once more, seeking the elusive magician’s parent. If Leonado couldn’t be found, it must mean his father had defeated him. This could work to my advantage, Krystos thought, his devious mind already concocting a plan of action.

This time he gave the jagged mountain peak a wide birth. He seemed to be searching for an eternity, but time had littile meaning whilst in astral form. He could have been looking for minutes - or hours. Nothing but rocks and stunted bushes covered the rolling hillsides.

He eventually reached the lush green farming lands that dominated southern Avion. In the distance he saw a town and a square stone castle on the hill overlooking it. Troops were marshalling within its walls, and Krystos drew closer to find out the nature of their mission.

They were after Alecsis, Lorenso and the pretty, dark-eyed Antano. So Leonado had managed to kill Prince Dorban. Krystos never doubted him for a minute, but where on earth was the bejewelled little weasel now?

Slowly he retreated, returning the way he had come, soaring high above the land on invisible wings. When he was about to give up his search, he saw them. They numbered five, not three, and he drew closer to find out who the others were. Women! Why would they be travelling with women? Wouldn’t they slow them down with their whining and incessant female problems?

He hovered longest above Alecsis, as he led his horse carefully over the rocky ground at the head of the group. The ex-knight looked drawn and worried. Having the king’s army after you instead of leading it, must be so degrading, Krystos thought. Oh poor Alecsis, he commiserated slyly. Your life has been one great hardship after another. Well, that’s the price you pay for taking what should have been mine!

 

Alecsis was suddenly overcome with the sensation of being watched. He stopped, scanning the surrounding area for possible hiding places. There were literally hundreds among the jutting crags, and the uneasiness churning his stomach grew.

“What is it?” Lorenso whispered, drawing to a halt beside him.

“I sense... a presence,” he answered.

The wizard was quick to cast a searching spell, projecting his gaze up into the sky to survey the surrounding area.

As Alecsis stood nervously beside him, another image from the past ambushed his mind. Like before it came out of nowhere, hitting him like a slap across the face.

Once again he found himself aboad the sailing ship which had brought him across the Noiva, but this time he was outside. Crouched on the deck under a blistering sun, he was swabbing down the wooden boards. From the ache in his arms, he knew he had been at it for some time. The intricate network of rigging screeched and rattled as the wind hurtled them across the ocean.

He glanced down at himself, seeing a thin, almost emaciated chest. His slender arms and legs looked like they belonged to someone no older than thirteen or fourteen. How long had their journey really taken? He had been at least sixteen when he arrived on Avion’s shores.

He couldn’t understand why he was working without a shirt. The other sailors wandering around him, dirtying the area he’d already scrubbed, were clad in crisp white shirts tucked into navy cotton breeches. Even their heads were covered, protecting them from the midday glare.

But Alecsis laboured without head or chest covering. Neither did he possess a pair of boots. All he wore was a pair of old breeches that had lost their true colour long ago.

“Get back to work, you lazy brat,” a harsh voice boomed from above him. It was quickly followed by a sharp kick in the ribs. Alecsis cried out as it collided with a healing bruise.

Whimpering in pain, Alecsis glanced up. The tall, blonde man with the icy blue eyes stared down at him, his hard face an angry mask. By simply staring up into his flinty gaze, Alecsis knew his life abroad this ship had been one of misery and hardship. He struggled to banish the memory. It felt like trying to swim through seaweed, slow and laborious, but eventually he surfaced, finding himself back in the arid Sirmon Ranges.

He turned to Lorenso. The old magician stared back at him, his eyes dark with concern. “No one is watching us, no one in human form at least,” he said.

“What do ye mean?” Alecsis asked, his mind still foggy from the struggle to return to the present.

“It could have been one of the spirits of the mountain, straying further afield. Ye’ve had another flashback, haven’t ye?”

Alecsis nodded. He had told Lorenso about the earlier two visions, and the wizard agreed that they should return to the Pavlo Inlet and find out what had happened to the pirate ship. They no longer had a home, so what did they have to lose now that both Krystos and Leonado were gone? Now that Alecsis had started remembering snippets from his past, Lorenso was adamant he continue nurturing the memories.

“T’was terrible,” Alecsis murmured, suppressing a shudder. “I was given the hardest jobs of all, and beaten when I grew tied. That man was a cruel and vindictive master, tainted with the same brush as Krystos...”

“He’s gone now,” Lorenso reassured him, placing a comforting hand against Alecsis’s shoulder. “You said ye saw him drown.”

Alecsis exhaled heavily. “I thought I did. I hope I did.”

“Is everything all right?” Antano asked, having caught up with them. The women remained together. Nira watched their interchange, her face grave, but Karina kept her eyes averted as she stood stroking her horse’s neck.

“Aye,” Lorenso answered. “Alecsis seems besieged with memories today. It isn’t easy for him to remember times gone by, particularly when they were fraught with difficulty.”

“I do not know how I would cope with losing my memory, and then having it return little by little. It must seem like piecing together a puzzle,” Antano said gravely.

“‘Tis precisely how it feels,” Alecsis agreed.

A shadow passed across the sun, dimming their surroundings as though a candle had been snuffed out. Alecsis glanced up, seeing a mass of thunderheads approaching.

“I have a tent,” Lorenso said, patting his back-pack. “With the aid of enchantment it should be large enough for five.”

“By the looks of that, we’ll need sturdier protection than canvas,” Antano muttered, motioning upwards. “It looks positively evil. Are you sure ye sent yer son to a monastery? Those clouds look very much like something he would summon.”

“Nay, they be nature formed and fed,” Lorenso answered. “I sense no dark meddling.” A sudden burst of thunder made everyone jump. A bright flash of lightning followed, streaking angrily across the massing sky. “And ye’re right about the tent. Let’s see if we can find a cave or overhanging rock to shelter under.”

They set off again, this time with Lorenso leading the group. Alecsis walked close behind, his mind in as great a turmoil as the churning sky. Why was his memory returning now, and in such jagged, puzzling fragments?

It had something to do with the ship. No, it had everything to do with the ship. But where was he supposed to take her? After his last flashback he very much doubted he’d be able to sail it anywhere. The intricate network of pulleys and winches that controlled the sails looked like they required at least fifty men to operate them. Krystos’s crew had been about three dozen strong. Was he meant to gather another army and sail back from whence he had come? Was that what his flashes of memory were telling him? And what about Karina? Was he meant to take her too?

He glanced over his shoulder at her. Head downcast, she plodded along, her shoulders slumping under a cloak of misery. He should have made Antano take her and Nira back to Braythe. But Lorenso, being able to see great distances with his magically enhanced vision, had insisted there were too many troops about. They were likely to kill first and ask questions later.

Before Leonado had violated Karina, Alecsis was happy to have her by his side. He’d longed and dreamt of it, but now that her heart was so full of unhappiness, he suspected the only place she wanted to be was in her safe, comfortable tower.

More thunder roared. Lightning followed in its wake, stabbing the sky with sharp forks of light. But still the rain held off, hanging in heavy black clouds that thrashed like restless demons. The wind, which had eased during the middle of the day, returned with biting fierceness, threatening to tear the cloaks from their backs and their hair from its roots.

“We’re fortunate tonight,” Lorenso cried, pointing into the gloom. True to his assertion, centuries of erosion had weathered a substantial overhang into an enormous rock. There would even be enough room for the horses to shelter under it with them.

“I hope it doesn’t cave in while we are under it,” Antano remarked. “It looks rather precarious.”

“If it does then all our worries shall be over,” Alecsis answered.

“Alecsis, the eternal optimist,” Antano said with a nervous laugh.

Large cold drops of rain began to splash onto the dry, dusty earth as the last person led their mount under the rock. Even though there was nowhere to tether the horses, they possessed enough sense to stay out of the rain. It grew heavier as the weary travellers collapsed onto their bedrolls. Unfortunately the wind drove some of the water into their shelter, wetting the unfortunate horses huddled together under the higher section of rock.

The humans, however, remained dry, but their stomachs stayed empty as it continued to rain into the night. Darkness came early, and the only light in their dismal stone cavern came from the nightstones Antano placed in a pile near their feet. Lorenso stood all their drinking flasks outside to capture the rain. At least they wouldn’t be short of water.

Sleep didn’t come easy for any of them. Hunger gnawed, keeping them awake. They didn’t hear the spirits’ eerie shrieks tonight; the noise of the driving rain drowned them out. When they did sleep, it was fitful and full of bad dreams.

For a long time Alecsis lay awake, listening to the others, well aware of who was asleep and who wasn’t. When Karina started to whimper, he longed to rush to her side and comfort her, but Lorenso and Antano lay between them. The nightstones still lit the cave, and he sat up to stare across the sleeping men at her.

Her mewing noises stopped, and she rolled over, her back facing him. Oh, Karina, he thought, I love you so. Don’t shut me out. I would never hurt you. If it means never sharing pleasures of the flesh then so be it. I can survive without it. I did until now. All I want is your forgiveness, to show you I still care. If I ever see that monster again, I will kill him no matter what Lorenso says. Tear his heart out and ram it down his throat. No man should be allowed to do something like that to another human being and get away with it.

Bide your time, Alecsis, he told himself, repeating Antano’s words. She needs to come to terms with it in her own way.

But it hurts. It damn well hurts! He clenched his hands into fists, feeling very much like hitting something, but as rock didn’t yield to vulnerable flesh and bone, he refrained.

Taking a few calming breaths, he lay back down, staring dismally into the gloom.

He must have fallen asleep, because the images from the past slid into his mind like wisps of ether on the wind. He was back in the large wood-panelled room, which he now knew to be the captain’s cabin. He lay naked on the big bed, and his nemesis leant over him, but this time Alecsis couldn’t see his face. His long straight hair fell forward, obscured his expression from view. He seemed to be rubbing some kind of balm into Alecsis’s sunburned chest. It felt cool and soothing, but Alecsis couldn’t relax. Something was about to happen, and even though his conscious mind couldn’t grasp what it might be, his subconscious knew.

And it terrified him.

The blonde man rolled him over, starting the same treatment on his back. His hands felt so big, so strong, and Alecsis knew this memory dated back to when he had been a scrawny youth with wasted arms and legs from the meagre scraps that occasionally came his way. The tall man ate well, however. Alecsis could see how healthy he was from the sinewy forearms and strong, capable hands that stroked his quivering flesh.

I hate you, he thought. And I hate what you do to me.

What does he do? What do I hate?

The strong, work-roughened hands slid lower, caressing Alecsis’s naked buttocks, and then slipped between his legs. The youth wanted to scream, run, fight back, but he had been beaten into submission often enough to know it wouldn’t hurt so much if he lay still.

He didn’t need to turn and look up to know that the blonde man was removing his clothes. He heard them drop one by one onto the floor. The bed depressed as he climbed back on it, this time positioning himself between Alecsis’s legs.

Alecsis choked back a sob. Pretend it isn’t happening, he told himself.

It didn’t work. It never worked.

The pain speared through his slender body with each violent thrust. What excited his enemy tortured Alecsis to the core of his being. While the other man sighed with pleasure, Alecsis whimpered in pain.

He came out of his nightmare with a scream lodged in his throat. He shivered and trembled, tears stinging his eyes. No wonder he had closed his mind to the memories. The pain and humiliation had been too great, too degrading for a youth on the verge of manhood to cope with.

He should have been glad the bastard had drowned, but it felt as though it was happening all over again, the wound reopened, raw and festering.

Now he knew why he had been so reluctant to enter a physical relationship with Karina. His subconscious had been reminding him of those cruel hands that caressed him one minute, and beat him the next. Even though he had derived great pleasure from making love to Karina, Alecsis wondered if he could ever do it again. The tremors of revulsion continued to pulse though him as he sat there in the dimly lit cave.

He knew all too well how Karina now felt, and it shamed him - shamed him to the core.

“What is it?” a soft voice penetrated his spiralling misery. “Alecsis, why do ye cry?”

He stared through the haze of tears into the worried face of his friend.

“‘Tis another memory, isn’t it?” Antano asked.

He nodded, sniffing. “Oh sweet Lorin! How could she have allowed such cruelty to persist?”

Antano laid a gentle hand against his forearm. “What cruelty? Tell me, Alecsis.”

“I cannot,” he muttered, seeing that Lorenso has also woken. He lay wrapped in his bedroll, staring with wise eyes up at him. He knows, Alecsis thought. He knows what I endured, and as with Karina, he’s helpless to make the pain go away.

Karina! He stared past Lorenso to her spot, but she slept on. So did her maid.

“I won’t go back,” Alecsis stated. “I refuse to set foot on board that ship. It’s contaminated with evil. It - ”

“You must,” Lorenso insisted, rolling onto one elbow.

“Why? Dammit! Tell me.”

Lorenso sighed, knowing Alecsis wasn’t ready for this. “Makim told me that yer destiny lies with The Crystal Fountain. I heard ye use the word before. Clear as crystal ye said.”

“That I did,” Alecsis asnwered, remembering the moment clearly. “The Crystal Fountain?” he mused. “I know the words, but not what they refer to.”

Lorenso shook his head. “I don’t know what it means either, but Makim told me that ye must return there. ‘Tis somewhere in your homeland. Yer people need you, the goddess said.”

“My people?” Alecsis’s eyebrows shot up. “Are they in danger?”

“Mayhap,” Lorenso said, remembered Makim’s concerened expression. Something was amiss on the other side of the Noiva.

“Who am I to them? Why did she not explain?” Alecsis demanded in frustration.

“That is what we must discover for ourselves. As far as I can see, the only way across the Noiva is by that ship. Nothing we construct hath the strength and power to sustain a long sea journey. Everyone who ever set out to discover what lies on the other side of the ocean has perished, their wreckage washed up on the shore... Ye did it once. Ye can do it again.”

“I didn’t sail that vessel. Over fifty sailors did, each with a specific job to do. I was just a deck-boy, a nobody, someone to abuse and kick around... My destiny lies on Avion, not some distant land I have long since forgotten. Why else did the sea creatures save me and bring me to Avion? My job should be to find that dammed ship and destroy it, set it alight and watch it sink into oblivion,” he insisted, but all of a sudden his reason for being here seemed more elusive than ever. He had become an outcast, a hunted fugitive. He spread his hands helplessly, and his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “All my memories are linked to that cursed ship, but nothing of the place I came from. I remember the language, and a few religious songs, but nought more.”

“T’will come,” Lorenso tried to reassure him. “You survived so ye can return to The Crystal Fountain. Yer future lies across the Noiva. We’ll find a way. If my son could save that ship from sinking, I’m sure I can work out how to sail it.”

Alecsis sighed, knowing he was right - as usual. “So ye’ll come with me then?”

“Makim said I must,” he reassured him.

“Does that include me?” Antano asked uncertainly.

Alecsis clasped the slender hand still resting against his arm. “That definitely includes you. But I don’t know about them.” He nodded in the direction of the sleeping women.

“I know I was against them joining us, but I think we should leave that decision up to them. I’m sure we could convince some kind family to take them in. With the aid of magic I could disguise their true identity, but I suspect Karina will not leave you, Alecsis.”

He began to demur, but Lorenso cut him off. “Deep down she still loves you.”

Alecsis wished he could believe him. He had never faced such an uncertain future. Even when he sat in the dungeon awaiting his death, he’d known what was to come. Now he felt as though he was walking a tightrope; one wrong move and he’d end up splattered on a hard, cobbled street. And most of all he feared his own mind, wondering what kind of horrors it would reveal next.