Dreams and Shadows (The Aylosian Chronicles Book 1) (49 page)

Otherwise, they had survived. The Nixu’s arrival had been a boon as they fought alongside the Shosa, Devu and Erena, and together they managed to finish off the last of evil canines. Although Arevu had, indeed, suspected Michael of orchestrating the attack and then escaping, Jixi had spoken in his defence and insisted that he was the victim.

After that, their lives had continued much as before Michael’s arrival in Aylosia, although Michael enjoyed learning more of their customs, and asked a lot of questions about their winter festival in particular.

Eventually they agreed that with a long march ahead of them the next dawn, they should retire to bed and so returned to the patch of ground claimed by Aneh’s family. As they whispered their goodnights Michael again resisted the urge to offer her a kiss, instead smiling before he lay down.

***

They arose early the next morning, with the Waylet leaving their camp by the time light first broke.
 
Scouts had returned in the early marks saying that Jashmarael’s forces had picked up speed and were now only one dawn and a half behind them. Though it would normally be a full dawn’s journey to Tarellin’s Folly, with the slower pace they would make with their wounded, it would likely be twice that. So if it took Jashmarael a dawn and a half to get to the camp, and then another to get to the gorge, that meant that if all else remained the same, by the time the Waylet arrived at the Folly, they would have half a dawn or less to prepare for their final battle: five thousand against perhaps three hundred able to carry a weapon. He tried to push the inevitable slaughter from his mind as they began their slow march.

The sudden appearance of so many Gulan surprised Michael, and he wondered where the Elahish kept them when they weren’t needed for packing their tents and goods, but decided not to ask. Even with the additional wounded the expedition was remarkably well organised, and it became quickly obvious that these people regularly moved en masse. The title the people of tunnels under Aperocalsa had given them – Wanderers – seemed apt.

Despite the sombre reason for their early departure from their Spring Stay, the children brightened the journey, running and playing back and forth through the travelling camp, as if the morning were like any other in Spring. Michael wasn’t sure whether to laugh with their irrepressible need for games, or to weep that they were enjoying some of their final smiles: they would likely all be dead in two dawns. But most of the other adults chose to ignore their impending doom and allowed their hearts some final joy.

Perhaps noticing his melancholy, or perhaps to release her own tension, Kasha began to sing as they travelled. Michael had forgotten the beauty of her Weaving. It seemed that even the birds they passed joined her song, somehow pitching their own music in perfect harmony, the breeze ebbing and swaying to complete the symphony. For close to two marks she continued, and he was transported to another place.
 
Forget Time Weavers
, he thought as he listened,
this is real magic
.

Aneh occasionally travelled with her family, but more often she was mixing with the wounded, even now using her talents to heal. A part of Michael saw the futility of it all; the irony of healing people only marks before their deaths. But wherever he looked he saw a people who loved life, and they were determined to enjoy as much of their remaining time as they had, using whatever talents and gifts with which they had been blessed to lift others. He imagined a world under Jashmarael’s rule that would mock them for their naivety, but he found their company inspiring, and he promised to make a greater effort himself.

But by the second dawn, the mood changed. Not much, but just enough to be noticeable. There was still a happy feel about the large group, but parents sought to keep their children close, perhaps treasuring their last time together. Aneh, too, travelled with her family. Whether she had completed all of the healing that she could, or whether she also now wished to spend time with those she loved, Michael didn’t know. But as time passed, he increasingly felt like an intruder. Aneh’s family talked and laughed, reminiscing of times gone by.

Michael had never enjoyed such experiences. Even if his mother were with him now, they would have no stories about which to remind each other. No doubt there were humorous anecdotes to be told of his growing springs: it is, after all, the nature of childhood for innocent exploration to highlight the flaws and inconsistencies of the world in ways that brighten the heart. But there had been no-one to witness Michael’s early springs, so if he had created such stories, they would forever remain hidden.

Much of his journey was thus spent ruminating on his life as an orphan, or the regrets that had piled on his soul since his arrival in Aylosia.
Oh well
, he eventually decided,
it will all be over soon enough
.

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at the gorge. There had been no warning. A halt had suddenly been called, and when Michael joined Aneh and many of the others to walk forward to investigate, he saw it: Tarellin’s Folly. The trees halted in a straight line roughly fifty yards from the edge of the gorge, as if the forest itself feared the deep scar in its midst. Michael had never feared heights, though, and was therefore comfortable walking right to the edge. The cliff face below him was sheer, disappearing into the darkness.

“How far down does it go?” he wondered aloud.

Aneh had remained a couple of paces behind him, apparently not so comfortable so close to the drop, “No-one who has made the journey has ever returned to tell,” she replied.

He laughed, “Very droll.”

Peering to his right and left, he saw that the descent appeared consistent as far as the eye could see, and Michael realised that any slim hope they might have had for some unknown rock slide to have opened a pathway down was gone. Looking across to the far side, he guessed the gorge was roughly a hundred yards wide.

The other members of the Waylet who had come to examine their deep barrier had quickly come to the same conclusion as Michael – that they were going no further – and turned to re-join their friends or families. Michael and Aneh did likewise.

“Why is it called Tarellin’s Folly?” he asked as they walked.

“When Jashmarael attacked Peralcalsa, he brought a small force to the bridge that spanned the void,” she replied. “Tarellin was the Hafashal of the Lora and convinced them that Jashmarael was goading their defenders to cross the bridge and that he had some devious plan to destroy them, thus leaving no defenders alive. Jashmarael’s force was too small to defend against the city’s warriors, and so it appeared a reasonable assumption that it was a ploy. Dawn after dawn, Jashmarael stayed with his tiny army, not moving, but though none in the city could determine his reasons for such strange behaviour, still Tarellin kept his warriors in the city.

“After half a moon, finally Jashmarael made his move, destroying the bridge. At first, his actions created nothing but questions for Tarellin and the Lora, but soon Jashmarael’s plan was revealed as a much larger army attacked the city from the south. Jashmarael’s main force quickly overpowered the city’s defences. The bridge would have served as the people’s escape, but because it was no more, they had nowhere to flee.”

“And because Tarellin could have prevented that if he had ordered his warriors to cross the bridge and attack,” Michael added, “it’s called his folly. He had been foolish. Is that about right?”

Aneh nodded.

“Oh, the poetry,” Michael breathed sarcastically.

“Poetry?”

“He finished off the city on the other side of the gorge because he had destroyed the bridge, and he’s going to finish us off on this side for the same reason, a thousand summers later,” he explained. “I’m sure he thinks it’s poetic in his own twisted way.”

Jixi found them before they returned to Aneh’s family, signalling for Michael to follow him. He had spent their journey to the gorge with Arevu, and Michael was pleased to see his friend again, happily following him.

They walked for probably five minutes as the Nixu led them to another part of the ledge along the gorge wall, where two huge stone pillars stood almost thirty feet apart from each other.

“The crossing was here,” announced his friend.

As Michael looked across the chasm, he could see similar pillars on the distant side, marking the edges of the bridge, he assumed. “But that was a thousand summers past,” he finally said. “How are the pillars still here? They look in perfect condition.”

It was true; the twenty-foot stone giants were still perfectly round, their surfaces smooth as if only polished yesterday. Neither time nor weather had worn their exterior in a millennium.

“Stone Weavers,” said Aneh. But while Michael had been primarily looking across the wide gap to the far side of the gorge, Aneh’s attention had been focussed intently on one of the pillars. She was now staring at something high above her head. “Michael, come and see,” she said.

Her breathing appeared to have quickened, and Michael walked to her side, wondering what she found so intriguing. But as soon as he arrived and looked at the place high on the pillar she was examining, his own heart began to race. There, as if carved yesterday, was the image of the Woodland Star.

“But that’s impossible,” he gasped. “What do you think it means?”

“I do not know,” she replied, “but perhaps it is a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

But if she knew what she had intended by her words, she kept silent about it now. Aneh looked at him briefly, and left to tell her mother.

Once she was gone, Michael turned to Jixi, “Do
you
know what it means?” he asked.

“The crossing was here,” he repeated.

“Yes, you said that,” Michael replied, “but that was a thousand summers past, and it’s not here
now
. Jixi, do you know what that symbol means?” he asked again pointing to the Woodland Star.

The blood red eyes that stared back at him blinked once before his friend answered, “It means… you.”

***

Try as he might, he couldn’t get anything useful out of Jixi, and he was still pacing when Aneh returned with her mother, quickly pointing out the symbol engraved in the pillars. They now noticed that the symbol was in the same position on both. But between the three of them, they could come up with no explanation.

Jixi soon left, and not long afterwards so did Michael, Aneh and Lohka. Something within each of them insisted that the image was tremendously important to their current predicament, but none could identify what that might be.

As nightfall came, scouts arrived, reporting that Jashmarael’s forces had also stopped for the night.
 
Assuming they resumed their journey at first light, they would be upon them by mid-morning.

Michael was thrilled when Aneh suggested they go for a walk together. He could think of no better way to spend his final mortal evening and quickly agreed. Again they didn’t stray too far from the camp, strolling through the woods just out of earshot of the rest of the Waylet.

They were silent for a while, either not sure what to say or lost in their own thoughts. It was Michael who finally broke the silence.
 

“I found her, you know,” he said, “my mother. I guess I’m originally from Aylosia after all.”

Aneh smiled at his news, “That is wonderful.”

“Yes, it was. I couldn’t quite believe it when the Guardian said he had tracked her down. To be honest, I still don’t know why he did it; maybe to try and gain my trust, although at that point, he already had it.”

“Jashmarael located your mother?” Aneh asked, surprised.

“Yeah. But then he killed her. Well, I say he killed her. He did give the order I’m sure, but if I’m totally honest, it was my fault.” His heart was heavy at the memory. He hadn’t wanted the final night of his life to be full of regrets. But it is at such times, when we know our end is near, that our innermost fears and desires reveal themselves; when our hopes and dreams and regrets return to either bless or curse our final breaths. The vision he had experienced while unconscious in the caves with the Nixu had somehow allowed his fears and guilt to no longer overwhelm him as they had done previously, but they were still there like a ball and chain around his ankle; and tonight, he again felt their weight.

“No, Michael,” Aneh pleaded. “No matter your actions, if Jashmarael commanded her death you bear no responsibility.”

“But if I had just… she told me to get a move on, but I stayed. I wanted to ask one last question.
 
That delay was what got her killed.” The tears were now coursing down his cheeks. He felt embarrassed that Aneh was seeing him like this, but somehow the confession was necessary, as if voicing his guilt and shame could offer sufficient penitence; that if his soul lived on after the death of his body tomorrow, his words tonight would afford him forgiveness for his foolishness.

Aneh’s sympathy gained an edge, and she surprised him as she growled, “How I hate that man! He is evil beyond words.”

But her eyes again softened as she looked into Michael’s, “I do not wish to add to your grief, but Jashmarael is a master at lies and deception. Can you be certain that the woman he
discovered
was truly your mother? He convinced you that I was dead.”

The question prompted swirling emotions in Michael’s chest: anger that she would suggest Eramica wasn’t his mother; renewed grief at her loss; disbelief that Aneh of all people would suggest such a hurtful thing. However there was also a part of him that knew the question was valid, and a tiny corner of his mind wondered whether it had all been part of Jashmarael’s game. It had, after all, been highly convenient for his attempted manipulation. But he quickly swept the thought aside, the guilt for even entertaining it washing through him.

Eventually replying to Aneh, he said quietly, “It all fit. When she had lost me; her nickname for me. She even looked like she was my mother. That’s an awful lot of coincidences.”

If Aneh wanted to press the point she didn’t, though, instead locking her arm through his. Her touch instantly released the tightness in his chest and pulled him from his memories back into the moment. Her nearness again thrilled him, but even now, when the end drew so near, he still could not bear to reveal his feelings for her; still knowing his brief desire for Pava had made him unworthy. And so they walked in silence, simply enjoying each other’s company one last time.