*
Time passed. I sat in the snow next to Halis, watching the pulse throb feebly at her throat, my limbs dragging with weakness and hunger and a lingering, numbing confusion worse than both of these.
I left only once, stumbling back to the Ulbari's bodies and stripping them of food: a handful of millet and two small cakes of crumbly white cheese. I ate only a mouthful—enough to awaken my shrunken belly—before resuming my vigil at Halis's side.
Exhaustion assaulted me from within and unrelenting, oppressive whiteness from without. The world began coming and going in visions and dreams and scattered hallucinations until at last I found myself on a white sandy beach, just like home; warm sand, white-crested water, blue sky stretching into forever.
A movement caught my eye. I turned to see Halis walking barefooted along the surf toward me, her long, gauzy garments blowing in the wind. The brightness of the sun reflected off the white waves and white sand, making me seek refuge in her cool dark eyes. Her soft hair tousled across the strange, sad look on her face.
We stood facing each other, unspeaking. I had never wanted her more; the feeling gushed up through the deepest levels of my being, painful in its intensity. But my voice would not work and my legs would not move. A slight smile curved across Halis's lips.
"Go," she said softly. The glow around her grew brighter and hotter until I felt that it would burn me away into ashes—
I came to with a start. Silence swelled around me in waves like the stirring sea. Halis had walked the long road.
I stared at her quiet face and thought for a long moment about duty, how it had been my lifeblood for so long, and how I had never performed my duties for others, as I had thought, but for myself. Now there was only one duty left.
I gathered my belongings and stood on shaky knees, pausing long enough to scatter a few crumbs of food to sustain her wandering spirit, before turning and walking away.
I headed toward the sea, which the people of Netria refer to as a woman; deep and dark, powerful and cold, dangerous at times, but always harboring life within her. It was time I joined them in that belief.
It was time I joined them in many things.
End
Author's note: I wrote this short story a little while before beginning my first novel Necropolis. The novel has a similar feel to it, and features a similar culture. Influenced by my love of ancient history, the great city-state in the novel is called Eretria, while the name of the city they are heading for in the story is Netria. Kem, the guardsmen here, is being driven by old tragedy, while in Necropolis, Conyr, a guardsman of a different sort, also has his fair share of adventure, combat, and past and present trials as he becomes drawn deeper and deeper into a web of intrigue surrounding the enemy priest he has sworn to protect. While Necropolis takes place in an ancient desert city, and not in a stark and deadly ice wasteland such as portrayed here, if you enjoyed this story, you may find Necropolis to your liking as well.
THE COMING OF THE DESTROYER
He came on a night pierced with stars and the shining moon, though an altogether unremarkable night except for its stillness.
I stood guard over my commander's grounds, a duty I had done many times before, and prided myself on. Relaxing at my post, I had no reason to worry, for the omen givers in the marketplace had promised an uneventful month, and I trusted their pronouncements. When the cry went up, then, it surprised me.
I ran to the main hall, my spear at the ready and my breastplate clanking. Fellow soldiers ran also, their sandaled feet slapping against the earth.
The prefect stood at the head of the well-lit hall, his body straight and tall, his head thrown back. His counselors flocked about him, but none of them dared to get close enough to touch. Ordinary men did not touch the prefect's robes. I thought, at first, that perhaps the prefect had fallen into a trance, but when he brought his head upright again I knew it was no such thing. His eyes shone bright with dismay, open so wide that the irises were ringed by white. I tensed with expectation.
"He has come tonight. The one we call the Great Outsider. The Alien. The Destroyer of our rule." The prefect's voice held no doubt.
As a soldier, a man of action, I did not shudder with fear. But many around me did.
"Go forth even now, my men. Go from city to city and capture this destroyer. Cease his advances. Bring me his head!" His voice echoed through the hall. "Look where he might be, and even where you are sure he might not be. Go one at a time, and know that if you fail we all do!"
Frightful words, powerfully spoken.
I proceeded from the hall, following my fellow soldiers. Once outside we parted in silence, each heading in a different direction across the darkened town. I went, padding softly. Fear scratched at my insides like a gnawing rodent.
The streets looked completely different at this hour, silent and naked of all human presence. Shadows danced, lamp lights flickered dimly, and night sounds replaced the bustle of the day. The tip of my spear glinted in the moonlight. A dog barked loud and close enough to startle me. I halted for a moment, catching my breath.
My mind spun with the knowledge that the fulfillment of the prophecy was here, at hand. The true origin of the prophecy supposedly lay in centuries past, but I had only heard it in the mouths of the court prophets in recent years. Still, it frightened me, for it told of a fearful warrior to come. A man who was both king and sun, whose advent heralded unthinkable disaster – the end of life as we knew it. Never had I faced a more important task. Stopping this abomination was bigger and more important than my own puny life.
Again I started jogging, searching the night for anything suspicious. After some time, I came to a hill outside of town. Something flashed out of the corner of my eye. I turned, seeking it out, and found that it was only a bright star. Then, a league or so on, a fork in the road and a choice. East or west?
East, something compelled me. The air brushed cool against my bare legs, and my tunic flapped against them as I moved.
I ran on, and I did not to grow weary. Casting my eyes to and fro, I searched for the Usurper, though I knew not where he would come from, nor what he would look like. Surely anything untoward would reveal him to me.
Time passed. I knew not how much. Neither did I care. Ahead, just over a gentle hill lay the outskirts of a small town. Two peasants walked quickly down the road toward me, whispering together in low, urgent tones.
"Halt!" I called.
Immediately, they did my bidding.
"Where do you go?"
They exchanged frightened glances, these two flat-faced peasants with dark eyes and thick curly hair, unremarkable in this desert land.
"Here now, what is your business?" I snapped.
The taller of the peasants hugged his trembling, robed body as if a cold wind blew from the west.
"We go on our master's bidding."
"Tell me."
The peasant searched my stern expression. He answered in a quavering voice, "To welcome he who our master wishes for us to welcome."
Connections fused and melted, as from lightning striking the metal statues atop the forum.
"The Destroyer!" I shouted.
The surprise and horror on their faces confirmed that I spoke the truth.
"Tell me where he is." My voice now came low and deadly.
"Please, do not make us betray our master!"
I threatened them with my spear. "Where is he?"
Wordlessly, they pointed back the way they had come, at a ramshackle type of hut barely visible through the dark. I rushed toward it, only seeing as I neared it that it was not a hut but instead a small feeding place for animals. What an odd dwelling place for the Destroyer! Perhaps, though, he was hiding. The glow of a torch leaked around mud brick walls, and low murmured voices came from within.
I stormed the building with a shout, skidding to a stop on scattered hay. A woman and a man looked up at me with terrified surprise. The woman held a baby in her arms. I said nothing for a moment
, but only looked at them. Peasants both, their garments simple, their young faces twisted with worry. The child started to cry.
This was the end of life as we know it? The Toppler of Nations? The Great Enemy? A small baby boy.
I laughed in disgust, and jogged away.
End
Author's note: "The Coming of the Destroyer" is one of the very first short stories I wrote while I was studying for my bachelor's degree in history. Two classes really stuck out in my mind – Ancient History and the New Testament. You can, hopefully, see the influences of both classes in the story. While the story is quite short, I like the role reversal and the character of the guard. Such a guard-like character seems deeply embedded in my psyche, because many of the main characters I create have a similar occupation.
THE POMEGRANATE TREE
Iambe lay on her back on the stone table, looking up at Callithoe with wide dark eyes. Callithoe wet the sheet and wrung it as dry as she could.
"Must you do this, sister?" Iambe asked in a soft and rasping voice.
Callithoe glanced at her. "You know I must. Breathe slow and shallow, like we practiced."
As Callithoe neared her sister with the cloth, Iambe grasped her wrist. "What is the use? I will feed Cerberus at the River Styx one way or the other. It might as well be tonight."
Callithoe swallowed. Some statements did not deserve a reply, no matter how they twisted her innards.
Carefully, she spread the soaked sheet over Iambe's neck, then covered her face. Not like a burial shroud, she told herself. No, like a bandage instead – healing and protecting. The cloth molded around Iambe's lips, and rose and fell with her breath. Her precious breath.
Down here, they could not hear the fearful raging of the storm above, the way the winds whistled and murmured as they shook the palace above.
From leagues off, the storm had approached in a deep, dark purple mass that blotted out the sky from east to west, horizon to the heavens above. Moving relentlessly, it ate up the earth before it as a swarm of locusts devours green stalks of wheat.
Spotting it, the cold claw of fear seized Callithoe by the shoulders. The cursed dust storms came far too often since the drought began. Each time they visited, they stole away Iambe's vitality and put her back in her sick bed, coughing, wheezing, struggling to take breath after dirt-clogged breath.
Callithoe had snatched her sister's thin wrist and tugged her down dust-roughened stairs, around the corner of the storehouse and deep into the cistern below the palace, where water beaded on the walls and plopped in fat tinkling drops to the shallow pool at their feet. Here it was always cool, always quiet and safe from the dust that permeated everything else in the once-fragrant land.
Now, Callithoe breathed in the coolness, the humid clean air. In a low voice, she urged her sister, "Count the threads in Arachne's tapestry. Separate them in your mind, one by one, from the spindle. Notice the colors, and the textures. Think about what each one means. Think only of them."
She kept her hand resting lightly on Iambe's cloth-covered forehead until Iambe's breath settled into a slow rhythm.
Together, they waited.