The Pleasure of Memory (6 page)

Time faded. His mind folded back into the veils of sleep. It may have been minutes or days before the voice stirred him from his slumber.

He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding. He held his breath and listened.

The rain was still murmuring quietly outside the cave, though the runoff from the mountain pattered more enthusiastically at the entrance. There was no voice to be heard in it.

It was nothing. Just an illusion induced by the residual anxiety left over from the misery of the day. He’d only been dreaming again.

He closed his eyes and tried to push the world away. His wounds rallied to sabotage his sleep, but he resisted them. He just needed to let go of everything, to stop thinking, stop worrying, to get some rest while he still could. He concentrated on his heart, focused on the singular vibration of each dedicated beat. Before long, he was sinking once again into slumber.

Someone whispered in his ear.

He pushed himself up onto an elbow and peeled the poultice from his blind eye. He peered around the camp. The fire simmered worriedly as the last licks of flame struggled to hold onto life. The crystals shards hanging high above him twinkled in reflection of the pale light of the flames. His clothes pasted the rocks surrounding the fire like the shadows of dead men. He was alone.

Then he heard it again, a feminine voice lurking just under the cover of the rain. He focused on the sound but couldn’t determine the location. It floated up from the darker depths of the cave, and yet was as close as if she were lying right here beside him.

“Who’s there?” he whispered.

The voice continued murmuring. It was growing louder. It seemed all around him, near and distant in the same breath. He braced his ribs and pushed himself to his knees so that he was facing the thick gloom gripping the hidden rear of the cave.

“Who’s back there?” he said, louder this time.

Again, no response. The eerie voice was growing more distinct, though he still found no substance in the words. It was like the sound of the monks chanting behind the thick oak doors of the priory back in his childhood, where he could easily recognize the sound and cadence of their prayers, but could never quite make out the message.

He grabbed his knife, held onto the tall, black rock rising beside his bed, and scaled it to his feet. The volume of the voice continued to swell. It wasn’t an echo and it wasn’t an effect of the wind. This voice was real. Someone was here in the cave with him.

He wrapped an arm around his chest and held his knife out before him, then hobbled cautiously toward the darkness. “Show yourself!” he called out. The tenor of his words disappointed him, sounding half-hearted and far too self-conscious as they echoed into the gloom

The voice didn’t seem to notice, but only continued chanting.

He eased his way deeper into the cave. The reddish light followed him, seeping through the crystal around him like blood burning beneath translucent skin. It was nothing more than an illusion created by the fire, but he was still thankful for it. Even the dim red light made the trip deeper into confinement less terrifying.

“Don’t make me come back there!” he yelled, “You’ll be damned sorry if I do!”

The voice responded by surging louder. The intensity was becoming uncomfortable. It reverberated through the crystal, echoing back and forth through the shadows so that it sounded like a dozen voices all chanting the same words just slightly out of synch with each other.

His palm was sweating. He adjusted his grip on the knife to compensate for it. He drew a stuttering breath and commanded himself to be calm, then forced himself deeper into the cave. He refused to be intimidated by whatever fools lurked back there.

The light continued to follow him. The volume of the voices continued to rise. He realized he could occasionally make out specific words, and though he didn’t understand them, he somehow knew they were an ancient form of Vaemysh. He thought about the Vaemyd in his dream, thought about her claims that he’d stolen the eye-stone from her. The memory spurred his aggravation.

“I swear to the gods, you’d best come out of there!” he yelled out. He immediately regretted the desperation in his voice, and compensated by adding, “I’ve about had my fill of this bullshit!”

The voice was loud enough now that he could feel his eardrums rattling. He considered going back for his crossbow, but with his ribs broken, he doubted he’d have the strength to span it. Still, he’d be damned if he’d let himself be played this way. Instead, he walked deeper in. The light flowed forward with him.

The volume of the voice was nearly unbearable back here. It pulsed against his skin. He covered his ears, which did nothing. The words felt like they were inside him, like they were insects tunneling through his veins. They coursed through his blood and lapped against the walls of his skull. The words were calling to him from the inside out like the refrain of a song pounding over and over in his mind. It was too much. He squeezed his head. He felt dizzy. He couldn’t focus. He had to block it out. He had to—

The voices abruptly stopped.

Their memory quickly echoed into silence.

Beam slowly lowered his palms from his ears.

His hand was trembling. He knotted it into obedience. Enough was enough. He was good and goddamned sick of the whole mess. Somewhere ahead of him was an explanation for this madness, and he was determined to find it. And when he did, he’d give the sorry bitch something serious to mutter about.

He marched boldly forward now, the red light dutifully in tow around him. He didn’t make ten more paces before everything changed.

The ceiling disappeared above him. The crimson light ascended the steep walls, rushing upward like water pouring in reverse. It washed over the tops of the walls and slowly flooded the glassy surface of a massive domed ceiling hanging a hundred feet above him. It was at once both breathtaking and terrifying.

He understood immediately that his was no ordinary cave. This was a chamber crafted by mortal hands, a chamber as wide and deep as the nave of a great cathedral, a cathedral made completely of crystal.

He edged forward, his knife at the ready.

As the light gradually filled the dome above him, the room’s shadows dissipated, and the contents of this great space made themselves known.

In the very center of the wide room stood four towering pillars, each as clear and luminous as ice, each the girth of an ancient tree. They stood in a square thirty or so feet across, and in the midst of them rested a low dais that connected them at each corner. It was like a glass barge adrift on a frozen black sea. Perched in the center of the dais was a great chair with a high back and scrolled legs and arms. It was as elaborate as a throne, and it was carved from the same clear material that composed the walls, ceiling, pillars, and dais.

He tracked the pillars up to the ceiling towering high above him. Detailed images of pagan gods, demons, and angelic patrons completely filled the smooth surface of the expansive dome. They sprawled across one another, men and women, soldiers and maidens, all naked and youthful and robust. There were hundreds of them with their limbs and bodies tightly entwined. Illuminated by the crimson light, they looked like the constellations of young gods shimmering against the summer night sky, and as he looked from one divine face to the next, he saw them shift.

At first, he was sure it was an illusion, a trick of light, or perhaps a hallucination brought on by a damaged head. Then their glimmering faces turned collectively toward him. They smiled down at him like old friends welcoming him home. They began inching their way across the ceiling, moving with the hesitancy of a dream, their naked bodies sliding sensuously across each other in an erotic dance. It was so fluid, so natural; it seemed as if they might leap to the floor and surround him in their lust

He threw his hands to his face. No! This wasn’t possible! It had to be the result of his confinement fear, or maybe a side effect of the bloody elixir, but nothing more. He ordered himself to be calm, to be sensible, rational. It was not real. There was an explanation here somewhere, there always was.

When he finally lowered his hands, the figures were once again as still as the crystal from which they were carved. It was exactly as he expected, a trick of light and nothing more. Satisfied, and more than a little relieved, he steadied himself before moving deeper into the chamber. There was still someone hiding here in this nightmare, and he was determined to find her.

This grand space surrounding him was incredible. Near perfectly round, the room was easily two hundred feet in diameter. The smooth circular walls were also dressed with images of pagan gods and ancient champions similar to those on the ceiling, though smaller, less commanding, and fully robed. Elaborate chairs, narrow tables, and shelves crowded with scrolls, oil lamps, and bottles lined the circular walls. Dressing the spaces between these items were exotic sculptures of men and women standing on waist-high foundations, all crystalline, all burning with the brilliant red light.

Only the floor remained as black and bottomless as a frozen lake. In fact, there was no sense that a surface to the floor even existed. If not for the twin of himself dropping away from his feet into the dark depths below, he may have been walking on air.

There were no signs of anything living.

He made his way further in and walked around to the front of the dais. Three wide, deep steps led up to the landing. The riser of each stair boasted elaborate runish engravings of some language he could never begin to read, and the surface of each step curled at the lip like a glassy scroll. The chair sitting in the midst of this ethereal barge was exquisite and enticing, like a mystical throne carved of pure ice and engraved in limpid flowers, vines, and oak leaves. He had the overpowering urge to go up to it, to touch it, to perhaps sit in it and rest there in its safety. He was about to start up the steps when something shuffled behind him.

Beam wheeled around with his knife out. “I know you’re there!”

His words echoed off into time.

The room appeared empty. He couldn’t make anything out in the shadows. Still, his heart was trying to kick its way out of his chest.

Then the air began to change. Thirty feet out from the dais, the shadows transformed. Darker air flowed up from the floor like oily smoke, spiraling lazily around itself as it rose. It looked alive, looked as if it were taking on substance, looked to be coalescing into matter. Gradually, it separated into two distinct columns that each quickly melded into the form of a man, each wielding a longsword.

Beam instinctively backed away. His heel caught the first step to the dais, causing him to trip and land back hard on the stairs. He scrambled back tighter into them and anchored his hands to their curled edges. He was dreaming, there was no other explanation. He never should have eaten that wormy stinking rabbit.

The two figures were now fully flesh, though they lacked any mortal colors. One of the figures was a giant of a man, a knight clad in an oppressive black armor. The other appeared to be a Parhronii man of normal height like himself, though he was much lither. His hair was pale and he wore it long and loose over his shoulders.

The combatants moved in the round, revolving pensively around each other with their swords at the ready in anticipation of the fight. Time passed slowly. Beam was beginning to doubt they were going to do anything more than dance when the dark knight suddenly lunged. The lithe man parried and immediately struck back. The sound of angry metal reverberated violently through the chamber. Steel flashed with violent authority. The chilling clangor of steel sang through the chamber as showers of sparks bounced to their death across the dark floor beneath them.

Oddly, the fighters made no attempt to address him. In fact, they didn’t even seem aware he was there. It only made the entire experience that much more surreal.

Beam rubbed his good eye. He again told himself this was a dream, that any second now he’d wake up in a cold sweat back near the remains of that wretched rabbit. But in truth, he didn’t believe a word of it. There was no way he was going to wake up any time soon. Some dreams are relentless. Some dreams must be endured until they free you or simply run out of fire. Some dreams will kill you.

When he lowered his hand, the dark knight was on the offensive. He flew into his smaller opponent in a barrage of cuts and thrusts. The lesser man fell back from the assault, losing more ground with each blow. The knight was unrelenting, hitting faster and more brutally until he finally delivered a strike that threw the other man from his feet.

The Parhronii man landed on his knees on the cold, black floor a few yards out from the dais. His sword hit the ground in a peal of metal that Beam felt clear through to his bones. The man slowly pushed himself up from the ground, dragging his sword back with him. His pale hair poured down over his shoulders as he struggled to rise.

As Beam watched him, he was gripped with a startling revelation. This man wasn’t Parhronii. The man was a stinking savage. A goddamned Vaemyn! He had the same pale hair. He had the same svelte, nearly gaunt physique, the same sharp opalescent horns curling up like delicate boar’s tusks from under each ear. But that was where the similarity ended.

This one wore his long hair unrestrained, not braided. And he wasn’t outfitted in the typical coarse savage's rags or warrior’s armor Beam was accustomed to. This one was dressed in ornate, knee-length mail composed of thousands of tiny golden scales, and it was bound at the waist by a rich belt of silver-studded leather. Silver bracers with detailed etchings covered his forearms, though they were clearly more ornamental than functional. His legs bore no armor at all, but only billowy silk britches that ended in bare feet. A colorless cloak poured from his shoulders. Dressed as he was, it was no surprise he was losing the fight.