Awakening into Dreams: Part II of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle

Chapter XVII: Ahiyau

  “You were very lucky, Miss Ifaut. Few could survive a fall like that. Even I can see that you are bruised purpler than my sister’s eyes. Falling with Saun long ago must have toughened you up.”

  Ifaut’s eyes fluttered open and she found Cédes leaning over her, her face framed by her white hair. She sat up, every part of her body aching, to find her left arm held stiffly in a splint. She was in a bed, she saw, in a small room flooded with sunlight.

  “What happened?” she asked. Suddenly everything came rushing back: Elian falling, stabbing Karick, her and Maya plummeting to the ground. She gasped. “How’s Maya?”

  “He is fine,” Cédes said, “although somewhat sore. Thankfully you and his armor broke the fall.”

  “Sansonis? Stefi? You? Alzandia?”

  “All fine. Sansonis has just left for lunch. He has barely left your side for days. You are very lucky to have him, Miss Ifaut.”

  “And the elementals?”

  “They returned at last to their stones. Except Makora, of course. He has taken a liking to drifting about the lake. Most useful for retrieving the dead,” she said somberly. “Though the children enjoy riding him too. He makes it much easier to reach land.”

  It was thanks to these same children that Shizai’s stone had been retrieved from the deep water. In fact, they’d made a game of seeing who could dive and retrieve it first as Shizai’s slinky form swam alongside them.

  Ifaut gave a smile, but it soon faded when Karick’s words came rushing back. “Lady Cédes… Karick said… Mafouras has been captured by the humans.”

  Cédes turned away, hiding the pain on her face. “It is my fault. I left, taking the Veil with me.”

  “It’s not.” Her good hand reached out, took Cédes’s, squeezed it tightly. “It’s the humans’ fault for attacking.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Ifaut continued, more to herself than Cédes. “Mummy and Daddy are dead too. But the war’s over, right?”

  Cédes shuddered at the news. “The men of Sol-Acrima’s top military company are gone; the airships too are destroyed, Karick with them. Yet I fear the war is not over. Stefi must yet reach Arolha Se-Baht. And there are the humans who hold Mafouras. No, we may still be in for a… hell of a trip.” She turned away.

  Ifaut squeezed Cédes’s hand again, finally asking the question that so nagged her. “If he was telling the truth, that leaves me in charge, doesn’t it? Of Mafouras, I mean.”

  “Yes and no, Miss Ifaut. In name, yes. And with limited control. You must marry Richo of Ariga to fully succeed your parents.”

  Cédes felt Ifaut’s pulse quicken, heard her sharp intake of breath. She knew right away what she was thinking. “Sansonis?”

  “Yeah. You know, first he was just a kamae, like Saun. But now I… I…” she hesitated, embarrassed to tell Cédes how she really felt.

  “You love him. I know,” Cédes said with a warm smile. “Yet you must marry Richo for the future of both Mafouras and Ariga.” She closed her eyes as if thinking. “Quite the dilemma…”

  Before she could elaborate, a sudden disturbance rippled through Alzandia, and the sounds of shouting and pounding feet reached them. A minute later the door to the room flew open and there stood Sansonis.

  “What’s happening?” Ifaut said, reading the panic on his face.

  “Someone’s here. Lots of someones, actually,” he said, then added, “It’s good to see you’re awake.” He hurried over and hugged her, careful of her fractured arm.

  “Humans?” Cédes asked.

  “Looks like it,” he said grimly and released Ifaut. “Perhaps fifty or sixty on horses, and that many again on foot.”

  “Horses?” Ifaut echoed. “I always wanted one of those! Way cooler than dirriwans.”

  Pheia came into the room, her presence suddenly making it appear much smaller than it was. “It is my brother,” she said, turning to Ifaut. “The Arigans have come, though a little late for the fighting.”

  “It doesn’t mean there’s no further business here for them, though,” Ifaut said, her stomach churning.

  “What do you mean?” Sansonis asked. “Aren’t they on our side?” He turned to Pheia, questioning. She nodded

  “Yes,” Ifaut said. She turned her eyes from his, suddenly finding the scenery outside the window very interesting “More than you know. They may have missed the fighting, but with my parents dead-”

  “And undoubtedly mine,” Pheia interrupted.

  “-the time has come for my ahiyau with their prince, Richo.”

  “Your what?”

  “Arranged marriage.” Her eyes filled with tears, like shimmering sapphires magnified by sadness. “Sansonis…” She reached for his hand. He pulled away. “I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you.”

  “When?” he shot back. “After the reception?”

  Was he angry? Jealous? Ifaut couldn’t tell; she could barely see his face through her burning eyes. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I was hoping it would never come to this.” Then, her voice cracking, “I don’t love him, I love you!”

  “Not enough to tell me about this!” He turned away and punched the wall. His fist sank into the plaster and his head hung low. Torn inside, he gritted his teeth against the tears. Everything he had loved had been taken from him: his real family, the Otsukuné, and now Ifaut. He didn’t blame Ifaut for her arrangement; in fact he hardly found it surprising, given her status. What really hurt was her silence on the subject.

  As thoughts rose up in the sea of his anger, they told him what to do: leave her. Yes, he admitted, she might love him, and he her, but her marriage to another of her race, another of her status, would be better for her, better for the Furosans, wouldn’t it? There was nothing he as a Kalkic human with no first name could offer her. Except love, perhaps. How could that compare to wealth? Power? Status? Security?

  “Goodbye,” he said, refusing to look at her. That would only make it harder. “You’ll be better off without me. I love you more than anything. So much so that I’ll leave you to a better life I can’t hope to offer. You deserve the best, If.”

  She screamed, sitting up despite Cédes’s protestations, and struggled from the bed. Her weakened legs collapsed beneath her and she fell back, jarring her arm against the bed’s headboard. “I don’t want him!” she shouted through the blinding, scarlet pain. “I want you!”

  But Sansonis didn’t hear her. He had already gone.

  Despite Cédes’s protestations, Ifaut had been moved to one of the larger rooms later in the day, though now confined to a large cushioned chair.

  The council chambers had been destroyed in the attack, along with the lives of many Alzandians. Stefi and Radus had spent the past few days aiding the survivors and finding the dead. Despite Stefi having healed Cédes of her severed tail, she found her gift had since abandoned her. She put it down to stress. A nagging feeling deep down kept telling her otherwise. And it was only made more painful by her inability to save young Kei-Tenla’s crushed right arm.

  Gemmie and Maya had wasted no time in catching up with Stefi when she found herself with a free moment, telling her of Pishti and Crepusculum. At Maya’s insistence they omitted Kilara, as well as Pishti’s words that perhaps it would be better if Stefi died. No, she had more to worry about in the meantime. Like the Arigans’ arrival.

  “Distinguished Elders of Alzandia,” a Furosan said as he strode back and forth before the small assembly, “the sincerest apologies of Ariga and her people for our late arrival.”

  Three Elders, the only ones who had survived, were present: Kas-Rovet and two whose names Stefi didn’t know. They were joined by Cédes’s two siblings, Pheia, and the rest of the Fieretka, bar Sansonis.

  From where she sat Ifaut glared at Richo despite his rather striking looks. He really was his sister’s brother, she thought. He had the same auburn hair, though somewhat shorter and tied back in a ponytail. A large silver ring gleamed from each ear with a sparkle to
match his eyes, and Ifaut at once gleaned his personality from his swagger. She didn’t like it. Or the winks he kept shooting her.

  “Following the recent death of my father Atticus Ariga, the responsibility of our kingdom fell to me. And finding the Fieretka fell to my sister, a task she has performed admirably. Unfortunately, I come bearing bad news of which you are undoubtedly aware. Despite our intelligence to the contrary, the Sol-Acriman military moved on Mafouras without assistance from the airship fleet, but rather a hastily assembled militia. The last message we received indicates that Phastus III and Rivista Mafouras are dead, and that the centre of Mafouras has been captured rather than razed like Ariga once was. Why, we do not know. My guess,” and here he cast a lingering glance on Ifaut, “is a ready slave labor force for some unknown purpose.

  “Of course,” he continued, seeming to bask in the sound of his own voice and the attention of the several young women before him, “I am bound by honor to assist the Alzandians in any way possible. Once myself and my soldiers are no longer required, we head at once for Mafouras, where we hope to offer assistance to those who are left.” He stopped walking and focused all his attention on Ifaut. “Once Mafouras is free, I shall fulfill my contract of ahiyau by marrying the very beautiful Ifaut Bayaurun Mafouras.”

  He approached, not noticing that Ifaut shuffled backwards deeper into her chair, or the fear that caused her mouth to hang open. He seized her right hand and kissed it, giving her a smile that made her want to cry again.

  “Once you are well enough we aim to depart this damned ruin straight away, my love,” he said in her ear and made to leave. He mistook her subsequent sigh of relief for anxiety. “Fear not, I shall return to you in good time. For now, myself and my fellow Arigans must help tidy up this place.” With one last smile he turned to leave and swept out the door, his irritating (or so Ifaut thought) cloak billowing behind him.

  “Has… has anyone seen Sansonis?” Ifaut asked tentatively once everyone except her fellow Fieretka had gone.

  No one had.

  “Then leave me alone.”

  Before Cédes left, she paused and whispered words Ifaut had to strain to hear. “Remember what I am.”

  Ifaut looked out the window, noticing the remains of Alzandia’s highest tower stretching across the lake like a broken finger. Her soul felt much the same: fallen, cracked, drowned. Cédes’s words meant nothing. Being in charge of a whole kingdom–two jointly–meant even less. All that mattered was being with Sansonis. Sure, he was strange. His stubby ears and lack of tail would make any self-respecting Furosan laugh, and his somewhat taciturn manner certainly wasn’t as endearing to others as Richo’s confidence. None of that mattered. She still wasn’t sure what it was that she liked so much about him. Then, sitting there, staring at the lake, she knew what it was. He had little to offer, and nothing materially. Yet he would offer it all. And more. He would even, she realized, give her up so she could be well-off. And that’s what hurt the most.

  “You okay?” Radus asked deliberately, his Common Language vastly improved from when Stefi first met him.

  “Yes,” she said, though her voice meant just the opposite. Radus soon noticed.

  “What worried about? Sit. Talk.” He placed his hands on Stefi’s shoulders and steered her to what he hoped was a particularly soft spot of grass. “Radus idiot, listener too.” They sat side by side, looking out over the lake and towards Alzandia, both glad to be away from the destruction for a little while.

  Stefi couldn’t help but smile. Even though she’d left him behind on bad terms several days earlier, he didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he’d been more concerned with Stefi’s feelings than his own, and they’d soon made up. Provided, of course, Stefi would continue language lessons. And, he hoped, accept a kiss from him like from Cédes.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Idiot listens.”

  She swatted his head playfully with an open hand. “Idiot, yes. My idiot.” Absorbing the scenery of the still, flawless lake and broken Alzandia, she breathed deeply, trying to capture the stillness in her mind. First, she thought, focus on what’s right. The worst of the war seemed all but over already. Gemmie and Maya had returned from a seeming fate of nothingness. And best of all she was sharing the clear afternoon with someone she liked. Liked very much. Also, to make things even better, he and the ferrets had hit it off straight away.

  Suddenly her worries didn’t seem so bad after all. Still, she couldn’t help feeling for Ifaut.

  “It’s Ifaut,” she said at last. Gemmie lay napping in her lap. Maya, still clad in his light leather armor, in Radus’s.

  “Ah,” he breathed, a sound universal in any tongue. “Mafouras girl. She is pretty. I would marry if ahiyau.”

  For some reason Stefi felt a prick of jealousy. She soon shook it off, realizing he was probably just being polite. “She loves someone else.”

  “Yes, blue-hair. I not know him. Fun hair though,” he said, grinning broadly. Because Sansonis had spent so much time with Ifaut, Radus had only seen him in passing. Even so, those few glimpses of his blue hair, and Adnamis’s, had fascinated him.

  “The thing is,” Stefi continued, “even I don’t know what she should do. I mean, she has to marry Richo for her people and his, but it’d make her sad. Sansonis makes her happy, even if she can never marry him. I think she should anyway. The problem is, is staying with Sansonis being selfish and forsaking her people when they need her?”

  It took Radus a minute to digest everything Stefi had said. “She should follow heart,” he said. “Alzandia not have kings and queens. Choose leaders from wise people. What it called by you… demo… democ…?”

  “Democracy,” Stefi said. “Too bad Ifaut can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “People…” she sighed, “especially kingdoms, don’t change their traditions so easily. And anyway, Sansonis is gone who-knows-where.”

  “Why?” Radus asked again.

  “Because he loves her very much. Some might think he left because he was angry or jealous. I reckon he did so because he felt it was best for her.”

  “Don’t get it,” he said. “I really like Ste-, I mean you. I not just leave if you marry someone else.” Then he added hastily, a hopeful look in his eyes, “You not marry anyone?”

  With a giggle Stefi rested her head on his shoulder. She left it there. “Of course not. Why, do you want to marry me?” she teased.

  A blush that would’ve put Ifaut to shame spread across his cheeks, stifling his words. “I… yes… no… don’t know? Radus like Stefi, but-”

  “Only joking!” Stefi rocked against him, leaving her head where it was.

  His awkwardness vanished.

  “Sorry I embarrassed you. Just being here like this is fine with me.”

  “Me too.” He tentatively stretched his arm behind Stefi and over her shoulder, seeing if there was any resistance. He found none so left it there.

  They stayed together until the sun had crawled near the hills, not speaking a word. Nothing needed to be said. Just being together said enough, even when he and Stefi eventually dozed off in the warm sunshine.

  “Wake time,” he said, at last waking up and fighting the urge to slip back into soft sleep.

  Stefi stirred. “Another minute…” she slurred, soon accompanied by her rumbling stomach. “Then breakfast, mummy.”

  “What is mummy?” he asked, prodding her until she awoke with a start.

  “Nothing, nothing,” she said awkwardly and stretched, shrugging of Radus’s arm as she did so.

  “Not time of breakfast.” He stood up and yawned, then handed a still-sleeping Maya to Stefi. “Time dinner. I cook.”

  Stefi smiled as she tucked both ferrets inside her shirt. “Good looking and a cook,” she laughed. “I might just marry you after all!”

  He blushed again, and Stefi stammered that she’d been joking.

  As they started to make the long walk back to Alzandia, Radus hesitated for a minut
e.

  “Wait, got something for you.” He ferreted about in his pockets before pulling out a small envelope. As he handed it to Stefi the wind snatched it from his fingers.

  The envelope, sensing freedom, somersaulted through the air and came to rest a few meters away.

  “Oops,” he said with an embarrassed laugh and chased after it. Picking it up, and making sure it was secure in his hand, he made to return to Stefi.

  A sudden crack rent the still evening air, rebounding off the hills and striking the silence with each echo. Stefi felt as if her heart had stopped. The horrible sound of war had returned.

  She looked to Radus. He stood as still as the evening had just been, a look of stunned surprise on his face. His eyes, looking like two wide amethysts, shifted slowly from Stefi to the letter held before his chest.

  Strange, Stefi’s panicking mind thought, there wasn’t a hole in the envelope before. Or spilt red ink.

  “Radus!” She clutched the ferrets tightly in one arm and sprinted to the Furosan, catching his body as it wavered and fell, the bloody envelope still clutched protectively in his hands. She lowered him to the ground and laid his head on her knees.

  “What happened?” she shouted, her gaze flicking between his wide eyes and the ragged hole punched through his chest. But she already knew.

  “Shot…” he said, touching the wound. It came away stained as scarlet as his letter to Stefi.

  She should have known the attacker was still nearby, but the panic flooding her body made her mind cloudy, as if Alzandia’s fog was settling on her senses. The only sound, Radus’s rapid breath. The only sight, a dark, bloody hole in him.

  “Too easy,” a familiar voice said.

  She raised her eyes, barely making out a human outline and the sleek form of a rifle pointed at her head. Somehow she didn’t care, her addled mind told her. There was no reason to. If Radus died…

  There was a click, followed by a curse. The rifle had jammed.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, she was surprised to find herself crying. And Karick standing before them, his left leg sagging and bloody, triumph written across his battered and bruised face.

  “You!” she shrieked in a cracking voice. “What do you want? Why would you do this?”

  “Revenge,” he answered. “We would have preferred our bullet had found your heart. Yet killing the one close to you brings satisfaction.” He tossed the jammed rifle aside.

  Radus’s breathing grew more rapid and his shirt became steadily redder as the life flowed from his chest.

  “We will, however, show our generosity by granting you death. Then, that... that… Furosan and ferret will die. Slowly.”

  I sincerely doubt that, came a confident voice as Maya wriggled from Stefi’s grasp. You are the one who will die here today. Already wearing his leather armor,, he tugged at the war-claws that Stefi had tied to her belt. Seeing what was happening, she hurriedly secured them to his paws.

  “Hah!” Karick laughed as a dark cloud seemed to cross his eyes. Nefairu. The same darkness Stefi had seen in Sansonis’s. “So the wretched thing comes seeking death, does it? Killing the final war-ferret, then the Final Fieretsi. What a busy day!”

  Look after your friend, Maya said so only Stefi could hear.

  She nodded, pulling off her shirt and pressing it against the wound. Maybe Radus would like seeing her in only her undershirt, she thought stupidly, or it would take his mind off the pain as well.

  Maya turned his attention to Gemmie. Gem-girl, he said, a resigned sigh in his voice, take care of Stefi. He sidled towards Karick, his eyes appraising the human’s injuries as he lured his enemy away from his friends.

  What are you doing? Gemmie said, her tail puffed with panic.

  Making the future.

  His black eyes turned to Karick’s darker ones. Hatred coursed through his body so that every hair stood puffed, energized and ready. You have robbed me of many friends, he said. You took my mate, my home, my friends, all for some stones that no longer exist.

  “What do you mean?” Karick said, his cool exterior weakening to show a trace of fear.

  They are not stones any longer, Maya said.

  No! Gemmie interrupted. Don’t tell him!

  We are the stones, he said. Dawn and Twilight. He knew what was coming next. The grin of triumph on Karick’s face didn’t surprise him in the slightest.

  That’s right, Maya continued. Kill me, you destroy Dawn. Light will give way to dark, and the world will descend into perpetual twilight. Feregana will die, and Crepusculum will be born once more.

  “And,” Karick said in a voice that wasn’t quite his, “the ferrets will fail yet again.”

  Maya ran forward, knowing all too well that whatever came next would change the face of Feregana.