From Across the Clouded Range (30 page)

Nothing. She was limp. Her shoulders
sagged in his hands, her head hung to the ground. “Okay,” he
continued. “So I’m sorry. I need you. I can’t do this without you.
I didn’t mean it. I was just so mad, and I . . . well, I . . . I
wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean it. Now, please, wake up and get us
to the shelter.”

Still nothing. Dasen looked at her
long and hard. Her face was pale despite the burns, but her cheeks
were bright red. Her eyes were shut, her mouth limp, her chest
barely moved. He felt her cheek, it was hot, burning. By the Order,
she was really sick. He was on his own.

He sighed and examined their
surroundings. The forest was dense and growing darker by the minute
as the last shadows of twilight compounded into night. The trees
and bushes all looked the same, and he could not see more than
twenty feet in any direction through the tree trunks that
surrounded them.

Doubt filled him. He could barely
support his own weight, how would he ever carry her? What would
happen if she didn’t recover? He would be lost. Without food or
water he would be better off in the hands of the bandits. He wanted
to sit down right there and die. He was so tired that he would have
almost welcomed that solace.

Still, she had pointed to the west.
She had said that it was not far. There might be food and water in
the shelter. Dasen looked at the darkening sky and said another
prayer, asking this time for guidance.

He bent down and scooped up Tethina.
She was not as heavy as he had expected, but he still had trouble
with his bum knee and nearly fell from the exertion. Stabilizing
himself, he held her cradled in his arms and took the first uneasy
step in the direction she had pointed.

#

The forest was decidedly dark. Dasen
could not see ten feet, but he was still walking, moving steadily
in the direction he hoped would lead to the shelter. He had shifted
Tethina to his back – holding her arms over his shoulders and
crouching to keep her weight on top of him. It was not the most
comfortable way to walk, but it allowed him to see what was under
his feet and use a stick to support his knee. Still, exhaustion
mounted. His legs and arms were shaking so that he thought they
would give way with each successive step, and his eyelids were so
heavy that he thought he might fall asleep while
standing.

His knee buckled under the pressure of
another step. He leaned on his stick to keep from falling, but
Tethina nearly slid from his back. He recovered his balance only
through great effort. The air rattled in his lungs, gasp after
gasp. His legs trembled. He looked up to curse the heavens. The
words died on his lips. Immediately in front of him was a wall of
rock. It had to be the wall Tethina had mentioned. The sight gave
him renewed strength. He had to be close. His curse turned to
thanks; certainly, he could hold out long enough.

The face of stone was nothing more
than the cut-off side of a hill standing fifteen feet above the
forest floor. Dasen followed it with his eyes but could not see its
end in the murky twilight. He grew disheartened. Trees ran all the
way to the face. It would be all but impossible to find the shelter
through the gloom, but he had not come this close to fail. He took
a deep breath, gathered his strength, and followed the
wall.

Dasen shambled through the overgrown
area near the rock with Tethina’s hot face resting on his shoulder.
His back ached from the exertion of carrying her dead weight. His
legs protested every step. He expected to collapse at any second
and not rise again. To distract himself, he focused on the shelter,
considering what it might look like, and allowed himself to get
excited whenever he saw a bush or clump of trees that might be
mistaken for his goal.

His eyes were watching a particularly
promising grove when one of his tremulous steps came down on a
slick root and slid out from under him. He tumbled face first into
a pile of needles. The needles broke his fall, but Tethina’s weight
on his back almost knocked the wind from him. He could not go
another step, could not rise again if there were wolves chasing
him. He rolled Tethina off of his back so that she lay next to him,
facing the sky. They would sleep here. Tomorrow, perhaps, they
would find the shelter.

Dasen looked up, stared at the rock
face. The moon had risen above the trees and shone through the
small clearing into which he had fallen. He scanned the sheer wall,
his eyes roving down its expanse, until he came to the bottom where
the grey of the stone was interrupted by something out of place. It
took him longer than it should have to realize that he had found
the shelter.

It was nothing more than several thick
logs leaned against the wall with thinner branches woven between
them. Pine needles and leaves covered the thing to keep out the
rain, and pieces of hide hung over the entrances on either side.
The whole thing was not more than six feet long and maybe four feet
high. It did not look like much, but at that moment, Dasen was
certain it was better than any palace he had ever seen.

He somehow found the strength to gain
his feet and drag Tethina the short distance to the structure. He
stumbled through the hide door and maneuvered her onto the blankets
that acted as the floor. He moved into the shelter behind her,
kicking over several items as he did and finally sat on something
soft. In the pitch black, he was not certain what he had disturbed
until he felt his pants grow damp. Standing quickly, he narrowly
avoided hitting his head on the cave wall above as he grasped the
end of the bladder and held it up to protect the precious liquid
inside.

He maneuvered in the shelter so that
he was sitting next to Tethina with his back against the rock face,
which was angled to create additional space within the structure,
and took a long drink from the bladder. He nearly spit the water
out. It tasted foul and stale, but he drank deeply and reminded
himself that it might be the only water he would have for some
time.

When he was finished, he turned his
attention to Tethina. He pulled her the rest of the way into the
shelter, found a blanket to lay over her trembling body, and felt
her forehead. It was hot.

He knew that he had to do something.
But what? He found another blanket and placed it over her then
lifted her head and poured some water in her mouth, forcing her to
drink. She choked at first but then drank deeply even as she lay
unconscious. He struggled to think of other treatments, but his
fatigue was overpowering – his eyes would scarcely stay open. The
only thing he could think was to moisten her brow, so he felt
around until he found some cloth. He poured water over it and
placed it on her head. The water quickly became warm as it drew the
heat from her. He rang it out and moistened it again.

He repeated the process a few more
times, but the water was almost gone and his need for sleep was
crushing. His eyes grew bleary, his body refused to respond to his
commands, and his head drooped. He fought to stay awake, but it
felt like there were weights on his eyelids, and they slid shut
time and again no matter what he did to prop them open. It was not
a fight he could win. His eyelids came to rest for the final time.
His body eased back onto the wall of rock, his face nestled into
his chest, and he was instantly asleep.

Chapter 15

Ipid looked out from the bow of a
monstrous galley. Water surrounded him in every direction as far as
he could see, extending to the horizon as flat and barren as the
bleakest desert, until it met an equally somber steel-grey sky that
perfectly masked the sun. Waves lapped at the sides of the
motionless ship in a monotonous chorus of solitude. There was
nothing but his ship to disturb those shadowy green ripples, and
they came in a steady pulse that scarcely moved the mammoth
vessel.

Turning from the wasteland surrounding
him, Ipid scanned the ship that held him above it. It was one of
the largest and most beautiful he had ever seen, but it was
motionless and empty, a ghost ship long abandoned. He called to the
crew. The slap of waves answered him. He peeked into the cabin then
searched the interior with a ravenous need, but there was no
indication that the ship had ever been occupied – an ornate prison
built for him alone. Pewter plates sat on tables with no sign of
food and nary a scratch from fork or knife. Ornate furniture still
smelled of oil and dye. Closets full of rich clothing crackled with
starch. The inside of the ship was every bit as opulent as the
exterior and every bit as lifeless.

He ran from the cabin in search of a
reason for this ship and his purpose upon it, but when he reached
the deck, the ship trembled and began to shrink. He stared in
disbelief as the ship transformed from a mighty galley into a tiny
rowboat that rocked ominously under his weight. Worrying that the
precarious craft would grow smaller still, he again searched the
horizon – this time for some sign of land or location. Nothing had
changed. The horizon showed only green waves and grey sky. For some
reason, Ipid’s desperate loneliness waned, but his worry grew – the
pathetic craft did not even have oars.

As if propelled by his thoughts, the
diminutive craft lurched forward, nearly sending him over the side.
The boat moved slowly at first in the direction it was already
pointed, but its speed increased until he was forced to sit. He
looked around for the source of its acceleration but was left
wanting – no wind was blowing, no current pulled the water, and no
other means of propulsion were apparent. Still, the boat
accelerated, careening toward what appeared to be only more green
waves and grey sky. With no other options available, Ipid accepted
the ride, which settled into a heady clip that generated enough
breeze to ruffle his hair and bring tears to his eyes.

After what seemed a long time of
watching the same lifeless horizon, he finally saw something. He
peered through the cool breeze generated by the boat’s propulsion
toward the specks of brown with hope that they were ships. The
specks grew but not into ships, at least not any longer.

The water everywhere was soon littered
with the remnants of a decimated vessel, a profusion of debris. And
people. People clung to the shattered planks. They yelled to Ipid
by name, pleaded for him, but despite all his efforts, his boat
would not slow, he could not steer it, and the victims were not
nearly close enough for him to reach, so he careened past the
wreckage with his hand stretched in futility toward the victims and
words of salvation frozen on his lips. Their cries echoed after him
until the breeze claimed them, and they were lost to all but his
memory.

Shaken by the shipwreck and his
inability to assist its victims, Ipid barely noticed the wind that
was building beyond that created by the motion of his craft. It
increased in bursts, seeming to blow from every direction at once,
but remained inconsequential compared to the boats appearing around
him.

Many of those ships had been destroyed
like the one he had seen earlier. Survivors struggled and called to
him from the wreckage. Other ships still held their passengers, but
none of those was larger than his, and their passengers were all
crazed. They screamed invectives, tore at their hair, and ripped
off their clothes before they dove into the water to be greeted by
the dark shapes that circled beneath the surface.

The black shapes, Ipid realized, like
the wind, were new. They appeared to be very deep, but they were
multiplying, like schools of sharks waiting for the first drop of
bloods that would start their frenzy. He looked around his boat and
saw the same dark forms waiting for him in the murky depths. Purest
black, the things moved and shifted like vats of jelly, distorted
and indefinite with no consistent features save one: row after row
of sparkling razors stood out against the background of black
wherever he looked, spinning around the churning shapes to always
face the surface.

The wind built to a howling gale. The
black forms multiplied until the water was composed entirely of
churning black disturbed only by sterling white. Ipid scanned the
horizon again and was horrified to find his destination. A black
cloud stood on the surface of the water, dominating the horizon
with an enormous funnel churning below it. The great tornado
propelled the wind to crushing extremes and pulled his boat toward
it with such speed that Ipid had to brace himself against the
sides, frozen with fear.

The terrible storm soon comprised the
entire sky, but as it grew, he realized that it was not a storm at
all. It was the bodies of a million creatures writhing together.
Shapeless like their brethren in the water below, the forms bubbled
from the water into the maelstrom, raced through the cloud, and
plummeted toward him with snapping teeth and clasping
talons.

The creatures did not get close enough
to do any harm, but it did not matter. The funnel was all that Ipid
could see. It was composed entirely of the creatures, swirling
gleefully in a vortex of devastation. Their dance did not appear to
have any pattern, but as the tornado grew closer, Ipid saw an image
outlined by the flow of indefinite bodies. The shadowy face of a
sinister man with white teeth curved in a menacing smile looked out
at him from the center of the storm.