Chapter 21 – Elekeo

 

The camp seemed nearer the Perstaun than I remembered. It seemed like we’d only just set out when we left the camp and the forest behind, stepping out into the stagnant desert. Yatol walked briskly and I had to jog to keep up with him. My legs were still sore and tired, but sheer self-preservation forced me to ignore it. Every few steps I glanced back at the forest, the tents vaguely silhouetted among the trees. When they passed out of view, I started lagging behind.

Yatol seemed to slow his pace a little for me, but each step sapped more of my energy. I felt strangely tired now – not only fatigued from the illness, but weary inside. So weary. I plodded on doggedly. Even the slower pace seemed excruciatingly fast. I bent my head and stared at the ground, but I hardly saw it.

Finally Yatol came back and halted me with a hand on my shoulder. I knew the concern that would have been on his face, but I still kept my gaze locked on the sand. Even the warm strength of his hand made no impression on me.

“Are you still worried about Damian, Merelin, or is something else holding you?”

I just wanted to sit down, but I knew Yatol would never let me. I could feel his gaze scrutinizing me as if he could see my soul. I shifted my weight and refused to look up.

“I’m thirsty.”

“You don’t have to ask my permission to get a drink.”

I uncorked my waterskin and lifted it to my lips. The water was warm but pure, and it tasted good in my sand-parched mouth. I took my time drinking a few long sips, letting the fluid trickle down my throat.

“It’s so far,” I said at last. “How can we go so far? I’m so tired already.”

I risked a glance at him, saw him furrow his brow.

“You seemed a lot better this morning.”

“I should just let them take me.”

“Merelin!”

The alarm in his voice startled me, but then I faded back into sullen obstinacy. “Well? What reason do you have to go into K’hama?”

“Your father charged me with your protection,” he said sternly, taking me by both shoulders. “If you go into K’hama, so do I.”

A faint glimmer of knowledge lingered at the back of my mind, just out of my reach. But it clung like terror to my throat, and I shuddered. I couldn’t meet his gaze – I tried to look at him, but the calm, resigned light in his eyes bewildered me. I shifted, clenching my hands, fighting the grief. For all I tried to stop them, the words came tumbling out of my mouth.

“But you won’t be coming to the very end.”

He let go of my shoulders, reached up and cupped my head in his hands.

“Merelin, listen to me!” he cried. “I’ll go anywhere with you. I’ll go anywhere for you!”

I found myself clinging to him, his arms tight around me. I was shaking and crying, terrified and ecstatic all at once. Did he really mean that? Oh God…what did he mean?

With my head still buried against his shoulder I asked, “But Yatol, how’re we going to get there? Will Akhmar come?”

He released me, turning away as if suddenly self-conscious. For what felt like ages he didn’t answer, just stared out at the horizon with his arms crossed.

“It depends,” he said finally, his voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear him. “At the most he could take us to the borders of K’hama, but not beyond. That realm is hateful to all the Brethren.”

He tarried a moment longer, then finally he beckoned me and started walking. I trudged after him. Everything lapsed back into that monotonous stream of nothingness, and I lost track of the time.

“Yatol,” I said after a while. “Aren’t we walking straight toward the Ungulion host?”

Yatol scanned the dusky sky – I wondered why – and then the horizon. “If what Tyhlaur and I discovered is still true, we should be able to skirt their edges. Of course, if they reformed their lines, we may end up heading straight into them.”

“How comforting,” I muttered. “And how – when – will we figure out which?”

“When we see them.”

I glowered at his back. We slogged on. Some strange apprehension began gnawing at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite identify it. Then all at once it hit me.

“Yatol,” I said, sprinting up beside him. “It was just morning. We haven’t been walking for that long…even if it feels like it. So where did the rest of the day go?”

He lifted his gaze to the gathering shadows. “Oh Merelin, do you think it’s already night?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, nervously grabbing his arm, terrified at seeing him so uneasy.

“You’re right. It should only be about midday.”

“Why is it dark now, then?”

“It’s happened before. There’s some kind of shroud of darkness that covers Mekaema when the Ungulion come, and then all the world is in darkness. The last time it happened, the Ungulion didn’t attack us with weapons but terror, poisoning our thoughts with despair and hate. They mostly failed, though some listened. And we lost our King because of it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen it light out when Ungulion were around. Shouldn’t it have been dark then too?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen them under the light too.”

“Maybe it’s only when a certain one is around, or some group of them.”

He turned to me, surprise and realization in his eyes. “Never thought about that. You may be right. It actually makes a lot more sense than my guess. Not that it’s any consolation.”

We ran on. The slow shadow stole over the sky, until everything was blanketed in the starless dark. It felt eerily like a dense black fog. I had never seen a night in Arah Byen completely without light, but this was no night.

When I started lagging behind, I realized with a chill of horror that Yatol’s footsteps didn’t just fade to silence like they usually did. It was like someone threw a blanket over them to mute the sound. And wearing his dark cloak he was almost invisible too. After I nearly lost him twice, I kept my pace matched to his.

The air hung oppressive over us, hot and dead still. As we ran, it began to throb, like a huge heart beating dull. Too low to be really heard, it registered more like a feeling than a sound. A constant pulse. It never grew louder either, just swelled until I felt nauseated. I put my hands over my ears.

“Yatol!” I wailed into the dark, and dropped to my knees.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and nearly screamed, but he called my name and I closed my mouth on the terror. Peering through the dark I just barely glimpsed his silhouette beside me. He stooped over, wincing against the murk.

“The Ungulion.”

“How close?”

“Still some distance. We may have slipped past them, but they could have sent another dispatch. Wait here. Don’t move.”

“Where are you going?” I cried, grabbing his hand. He didn’t answer, so I whispered, “How will you find me again?”

“I will.”

And suddenly he was gone. I knelt petrified. The ground throbbed with the same sullen pulse as the air. I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I didn’t even want to stand on it. But slowly, in terror of the suffocating gloom, I eased myself down onto my stomach. I almost had to convince myself that the ground would be there, and not an empty nothingness. My heart raced.

Focus. Breathe.

I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t tell where I was. Didn’t dare move even an inch alone. I had no sense of direction, no sense of distance. Yatol was gone and I was in the middle of the desert in pitch blackness, without even a wall to give dimension to the void. Nothing. Darkness.

Agonizing, endless moments passed. I found myself holding my breath. When I tried to breathe, it came in shallow gasps, like I was being crushed between cement slabs. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the most heart-rending noise pierced through the shadows.

If despair were a sound, that was it.

I forced my eyes open. I heard the stumbling steps shifting in the sand before I saw the feet, then all at once the boots appeared about a foot from my face. Tattered black robes mingled with the night, barely visible except for a strange, surreal glow that tinged the edges. The sound rose to a shuddering wail. Ungulion.

For some reason I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t even reach for Yatol’s knife. I sat up and held out my hand, and at the last moment the Ungulion saw me. He reeled to a halt, then almost mechanically spread his hands toward me. But even in the murk I could see them shaking. Abruptly he wrenched them back, and the rotting fingers tore at the black shroud over his head. He collapsed onto his knees in front of me.

“Why don’t you kill me?” I asked.

The blood-hue eyes fixed on me, and the lipless mouth parted to let out another despairing sob. I gasped as the rotting folds of the shroud faded, revealing a vision of some earlier glory. The image wavered like a mirage, and I could see the sands behind him, all tinged with an eerie grey-blue light.

A boy about my age gazed back at me. Sad amber eyes in a flawless pale face.

“Who are you?” I murmured.

The suffering eyes closed. He reached a hand to his forehead and touched the circlet that bound his dark curls. His fingers felt over thin golden band, like he had forgotten what it looked like. Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered, he wrapped his arms around his head and bowed over his knees with an anguished sob.

“Damned,” he moaned, the sound of his voice freezing my blood. The wail rose again. “All of us damned!”

I couldn’t speak, just sat staring. The boy dug his nails against his scalp, writhing as if he’d been poisoned, then he cast his gaze to the starless sky.

“We assaulted bliss, and, for that, given what we merited.”

“What did you merit?” I choked.

The appalling black shroud stole back over him. He didn’t need to explain. When the vision returned, tears like liquid silver were streaming down his cheeks.

“What happened?”

“Elekeo was my name, son of the king. My father devised a mighty plan, a devious plan, and took every boy and man to lay siege to n’Talanthis.” He paused, his plaintive voice threading off into the night. “We sought the life-gift he thought ought to have been ours! Some few of us refused to follow the king’s command. They said he would call down the wrath of the gods for his pride. They were slain at once. Happy they!”

He gasped a shuddering sob. I wanted to reach out to him, but couldn’t force myself to move. Then he lifted his voice again, but the wail rose against his words, as though he had two voices crying out at once.

“Some of us felt as much, but were too cowardly to speak or to act. And so we are damned with all the rest! And the folly of it all is that there is nothing, there is no one, nothing to fear, nothing to regret, nothing to seek, nothing to find, nothing…”

I flinched, startled. “But you aren’t dead, are you? If you aren’t dead, then you can still choose! You can still act!”

His hand brushed the hilt of an ornate dagger hanging at his belt. “How long I’ve wished it,” he murmured. “I would do it if I could. Rise up. Strike him when he least expects, or finally to die in the attempt. Free from this prison. Death…I never thought I would long for death. We live without life and without hope of rest, wandering like unburied corpses bound to the shores of the Stukhe. Damned and worse than damned – and there is nothing to be done! Choice is no longer ours to make.”

“But you can choose. You did, just now. You chose not to kill me. If you never made the choice before, then maybe…”

The sobs faded and he lifted his head, the despair in his dark golden eyes beginning to fade. “Then perhaps I have a chance? The choice I ought to have made then, I can make at last, now? These centuries of anguish and at last a light?”

I wished desperately that Mykyl or any of the Brethren were with me. Who was I to tell this tormented soul what hope he could cling to? I reached into the pouch at my belt. My hand curled around Pyelthan, feeling its warmth. The tip of my finger traced the endless script. For a moment I sat motionless. Then the doubt and uncertainty fled, and I stared straight into his eyes.

“That choice is still yours. You must choose now, and then you shall be judged according to your acts. But do not replace treachery with a more abhorrent crime. Your father will meet his own judgment.”

My voice was firm, steady, but it sounded surreal and distant. For a second I wondered if it was me who actually said it. The darkness blurred like ink, and I bowed over my legs with my fists pressed against my brow. The ground trembled under me. I realized the pounding in my head was the same throbbing pulse in the air, drawing around me from all sides.

Everything happened at once.

A score of Ungulion appeared, forming a slow circle around me. The boy met my gaze, then with a shriek of rage he leapt up and raced toward them. Yatol flew up beside me, collapsing onto the ground breathless. The boy lifted one hand high above his head. Some of the Ungulion rallied to him, but the rest surrounded them. The darkness seethed and churned. Suddenly it was like a veil fell over my eyes, and the weight of it bore me to the ground. I could still see, faintly, and I watched the chaotic battle transfixed. Watched until the boy and his comrades and a number of the others fell and faded into the sand.

The rest of the Ungulion regrouped, rushing on toward us as though nothing had happened. The low, trembling drone swelled around us. The ground tremored. I cringed back in panic, but then felt Yatol’s hand on my shoulder, firm and steady. I buried my head in my hands.

The drone rose to a wail, then a piercing shriek. My skull felt like it would split open, and I dug my knuckles desperately against my forehead. I knew they were trying to reach me – I remembered how it felt. The chanting, the drone, the suffocating shadow… But I could hear nothing distinct. Even the shadow seemed held at bay. The only thing that reached me was the pain driving like a screwdriver into my head. I squeezed my eyes shut. The frenzy rose to a chaos.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. The drowning shadow subsided, but the ache in my head lingered – less severe now, but constant, like when you dive too deep in a pool. The Ungulion hadn’t seen us. They filtered around us where we lay, the way bats stream around an obstacle they can’t see. Their steps receded. Quiet.

The heavy veil drew back. I scrambled to my feet and ran forward, scanning the sands for any sign of the boy or his allies. After a moment I noticed that, after all the darkness, I could actually see a little. Some faint luminance seeped over the sand, tingeing it pearly gold. It didn’t really matter, though. I found nothing but empty desert. Already a gentle breath of wind sifted away the marks of the battle. I stared numbly out over the drifts and dunes, and the wind or some strange sorrow drew tears from my eyes.

Yatol. I spun around, panicked that I might have lost him in the dark. But the sand behind me shone with a subtle radiance. Yatol stood in the light, and close beside him was a luminous being. I gaped. Everything about him was the soft sheen of natural pearl – or desert sand. Hair, skin, and robe all shimmered with the same hue. Only his eyes were a honey-gold that seemed startlingly dark against the fairness of his skin. His face bewildered me – it seemed both extremely young and, at the same time, more ancient than any other being I had ever seen. The sleeves of his robe hung wide and long, ending in feathery wisps that fluttered against the sand even in the dead-still air, the color always shifting but always the same.

I wrenched my gaze away to look questioningly at Yatol. And suddenly I realized that I hadn’t actually seen him since he’d come back. My heart plummeted, and I ran to him.

“You’re hurt!”

“Not so much,” he said, smiling gently at me. He glanced down at his arms, where the sweat and blood trickled down in tiny rivulets. “It’s nothing.”

“But your face! What happened? You fought them?”

“I did, as much as I could endure. Enough to force them back for a time.”

“But Yatol!” I faltered, staring at him. “You need that drink Enhyla gave us. And you need your wounds treated.”

“Enhyla gave me a flask of it before we left, and I already drank some. As for my wounds…what wounds?”

I frowned and walked a circle around him, but beside the sweat-mingled blood dripping down his arms and cheeks I couldn’t see anything that would have caused it. I stopped in front of him.

“I don’t understand.”

He turned his head and closed his eyes. Two drops of blood gathered at their inner corners, slipping down his cheeks like tears. I stared at him, horrified and speechless.

“It will pass,” said the sand-hued being. “Do not be terrified for him. It hurts little and is not so severe as it looks.”

“But it looks awful,” I said. “Why is it doing that?”

Yatol turned away without a word, his eyes shining strangely. I glanced at the figure, but he was staring into the darkness too, caught up in some other world of thought.

“What just happened?” Yatol asked. “Stitista?”

Stitista fixed his gaze on me, and I bowed my head under his powerful stare. But I could feel Yatol watching me expectantly, so I pointed across the sand.

“They aren’t dead. They haven’t been judged.”

“What?”

“I saw one of them. He was just a boy! About my age, or Tyhlaur’s.”

Yatol knitted his brow. “An Ungulion?”

“Yes! No. I mean, he was an Ungulion, but…they were just like us once. Human. He said…”

“He spoke to you?” Yatol interrupted, baffled.

“Y-yes. When he didn’t try to kill me, I asked him why not, and he answered.” I shook my head irritably. How could I explain what had happened? “He said it was what they merited.”

Stitista watched me steadily through those piercing eyes, but Yatol just stood frowning at the sand. I felt incredibly small when I looked at Stitista, and very lost when I looked at Yatol, so I did what he did, and stared at the ground.

“And do you understand this thing he spoke to you?” Stitista said softly.

“Yes…no. I don’t know. I need to think.”

I turned abruptly and walked a few steps away, dropping onto the sand and staring into the darkness. But I couldn’t stand the blindness, so I turned until I could see Stitista’s radiance breaking the murk. All I wanted was to think, but I couldn’t. My mind felt completely empty. I couldn’t force my thoughts to focus, though a million things tugged at them for attention. I just sat, and stared straight ahead.

“We still have a long way to go,” Yatol said. “Have you seen the main force? Do you know where they are?”

I slanted a glance at Stitista as he gave Yatol a sad, mysterious smile. “You know, Yatol. You measured their pace. You know from the darkness they are drawing across the Perstaun. And you know also how long it will take them to cross the sands. You know how long it will take you to reach K’hama. There is nothing you need to hear from me.”

Yatol gazed at him searchingly. “The Ungulion will be spreading out to drive whatever lives toward Alcalon – or slay them now. And we’re days, weeks even, from the outer borders.”

He shook his head. I stared at him. His expression puzzled me – it seemed forsaken. On the brink of despair. I pushed myself to my feet and came back to them, glancing anxiously at Stitista. But he only gazed down at me, meaningful and encouraging. I knew he would not say anything to Yatol. He couldn’t. I took Yatol’s arm.

“We’ll find a way. If we have to get past the lines, there must be some gap where we can get through. I can find it – I’m smaller than you. They’ll never see me.”

He looked at me like death. His face turned ashen, stricken with more than just pain. “No, Merelin.” The raw anguish in his voice sliced right through me. “I won’t let you do that. I can’t. It’s not worth the gamble…”

He turned away, jaw clenched. I stared miserably down at my feet, scuffing my toe in the sand. Some slow realization woke in me. My gaze shifted from the strange sandals to the pants that were just my size, to the worn embroidery on the shirt. The blood plummeted to my feet, and if Stitista hadn’t reached out suddenly to support me, I might have collapsed.

“Yatol,” I whispered. “What was her name?”

“Eleya,” he said. I barely heard him. “My father called her Eleya before she was born. It means ‘one hoped for,’ because he knew she would be his only daughter. But he never lived to see her day.”

I dropped to my knees, sitting back on my heels and staring out at nothing. I could hardly breathe. Faintly I heard Stitista bid us farewell, then he seemed to dissolve into the sand, leaving only a faint curl of light hovering over the earth where he had stood. Yatol came to my side.

“Come.”

Yentsi. How strange it had sounded the first time I’d heard it. Yatol crouched beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I bowed my head and wept.