Final Fieretsi: Part I of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle

  Chapter XI: A Glimpse of Beyond

  After a short walk, the Blue Tails halted.

  “Welcome to our humble home,” a grinning Reilos said and swept his arm before him.

  “There’s nothing here,” Stefi said. All she could see was an empty clearing and a large oak-like tree spreading its shady branches protectively over the forest floor.

  In reply Sohei pointed one finger towards the sky. “Up!” She smiled. Stefi and the Fieretka followed her gaze and a surprised murmur rippled through the group.

  “What is it?” Cédes asked. “Not another problem?”

  “No,” Sansonis said. “Just what I always wanted growing up. A tree house!”

  Several meters up, and all but hidden within the embrace of the towering evergreen tree, perched a small house. Its walls, dappled with green and brown paint, rendered it nearly invisible. Half a dozen hammocks hung from various branches, all carefully positioned to make the most of the sunshine throughout the day. Its roof was a patchwork of metal sheets. It could have almost been any house, only it was hidden in a tree.

  “Let’s get up there. I’m hungry!” Reilos clambered up the rope ladder with a practiced ease, followed closely by Leuma and Sentinel. The bird perched protectively in a high branch and kept watch, living up to its name.

  “How does dog-face get up?” Ifaut asked and cast a glance at Rhaka. “I’m not carrying him.”

  Rhaka grunted in annoyance and sat back on his haunches, tensing his back legs. Almost faster than the eye could follow he released the tensioned muscles and launched himself straight up like a bird taking flight. His claws found a branch and he hauled himself up before springing lithely from branch to branch, finally coming to rest on the unwalled porch of the Blue Tails’ home. “I may have the face of a dog,” he said and peered down at Ifaut with what could be nothing but a sly grin, “but my legs and paws are comparable to those of a feline.”

  Ifaut sighed. In a few seconds a grin of her own dawned on her face with all the radiance of the rising sun. “Impressive, cat-feet!” she called after him. “Now how do we solve the little problem of Lady Cédes?”

  Sohei appeared at Cédes’s side and took her arm. “I’ll help Lady Cédes up. It’s the least I can do after the way we acted. And you lot are our guests here.”

  “Thank you, Sohei,” Cédes said and followed her to the ladder. After her hands had been guided onto the ropey rungs she managed to clamber up as Sohei came up underneath, awkwardly carrying Cédes’s staff in one hand while guiding the pale Furosan with the other.

  “I suppose that just leaves us,” Sansonis said to Ifaut and Stefi. “Well, ladies first.”

  “Okey dokey!” Ifaut started forward only for Stefi to halt her by grabbing her tail.

  Stefi shot Sansonis a nervous stare, fixing her eyes upon his, and slowly, deliberately, drew his gaze down her body to her skirt before looking back straight ahead, pleading silently. He thought for a few seconds before realization struck.

  “Ah, I get it. S-sorry,” he stammered and scrambled up the ladder, leaving the two girls and the ferrets alone.

  “Hey, what was that about?” Ifaut tugged her tail from Stefi’s grasp, leaving behind a few tan and black hairs.

  “Notice we’re both wearing skirts?” Stefi said as she dusted off her hands. “Did you really want Sansonis sneaking a peek?” she asked before adding, “Wait, don’t answer that. I know you’ll say yes!” She giggled.

  “Hey!” Ifaut scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” A blush of embarrassment began to creep across her cheeks and she turned to hide her face.

  “You know exactly what I mean,” Stefi teased in a singsong voice as she sidled in front of Ifaut. The Furosan turned away. “You like him, don’t you? It’s written all over your face in red, splotchy ink. I don’t know much about the whole kamae thing between you, but I know a crush when I see it!”

  “Karandhi asalam firik,” Ifaut said from behind the wall she had hurriedly erected before her face with her hands.

  “Is that Mafouran for yes?”

  “No, just a curse on your very soul…”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “You’re right…” Ifaut said quietly, defeated. “I just told you to shove off, or words to that effect. How do you see through me so well, anyway?”

  “Maybe it’s to do with being able to understand ferrets. Or maybe it’s because you’re really obvious!” Stefi laughed.

  “I am not,” Ifaut said and slowly uncovered her face. “Am I?” She locked her blue eyes upon Stefi’s.

  “Just a tad, but Sansonis is too dense to even notice. You could kiss the guy and he wouldn’t even think anything of it.”

  “Do you think?” Ifaut squeaked, her face fading back to normal as happiness took over.

  Stefi laughed. “Joking, Ifaut. What is it with Furosans and humor?”

  “I don’t know.” She wrung her hands and bit her bottom lip. “Can I ask you something? Promise not to mention it to anybody else, m’kay?”

  “You can ask me anything,” Stefi said. “Can the ferrets listen in?” Gemmie and Maya’s ears twitched and they sat up, alert.

  “Of course. They won’t tell anyone but you.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “Please, Stefi. I feel like I can trust you with this, so don’t laugh or anything.” She hesitated as if unsure of herself before continuing. “Do you think, if in theory I really liked him, and if in theory he really liked me back, it could work out?” She stared at her feet and wrung her hands so hard Stefi thought she’d break her fingers.

  “Sure, why wouldn’t it?” Stefi shrugged. “In theory, of course.”

  “Well, I’m Furosan and he’s human, Kalkic to be precise, so…”

  “The other Furosans I saw didn’t seem too concerned with you hanging around him. They even seemed to think it was cute. And as for your dad, well, let’s just say I wish mine was that nice when it came to boys.”

  Ifaut nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Stefi,” she said. “And perhaps I should just ignore Richo too.”

  “Richo?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe you humans also have the custom of ahiyau, where a father promises his daughter to another man’s son?”

  “You mean you have an arranged marriage?” Stefi gasped and stepped back so suddenly that the ferrets nearly fell from her shoulders.

  “Yes. Please don’t tell Sansonis!” she said.

  “I think this is too big to keep from him. I mean, hasn’t he told you everything about himself?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like I’d be betraying him somehow. I couldn’t care less about Richo, though. He’s from Ariga and they’re all a bunch of uptight snobs. But daddy must’ve chosen him for a reason. He probably thinks it’ll bring the Mafourans and Arigans closer together again.”

  “Would it?”

  “Of course. There could be no stronger show of unity. It’s just… Ariga’s so far away… too far away. I may have to marry Richo for the Furosans, but Saun, I mean Sansonis, needs me too so he can be happy and I can look after him. How can I decide between the one and the many? There’s no simple answer. What should I do?” Her happiness faded fast as something she had tried hard not to think about resurfaced. The more she tried to suppress it, the more it grew. She clasped Stefi’s hands and Stefi saw that she looked suddenly drained.

  “And here I was thinking you were so carefree, Miss Ifaut,” she said, using Cédes’s name for her with the same level of concern the pale Furosan always bore. “I never knew you carried such a burden.”

  “Yeah, and so do you. You have the ferrets and the whole world to worry about. Stefi, I’m scared…” she whimpered.

  “It’s all right,” Stefi said and embraced a shaking Ifaut. A current of calm flowed between them and Stefi heard the same strange singing as she did during her brief session with Cédes. The voice seemed to dart through her, Ifaut, and the ferrets.

  “I don’t know what you just
did,” Ifaut whispered, “but that noise was nice. I feel much better now.”

  “You heard it too?”

  “Of course. I wasn’t meant to?”

  “No, it’s just that first everyone hears the ferrets singing, then you hear Feregana’s voice…”

  Ifaut gasped and knelt down, clasping her hands in prayer. She hurriedly spoke a few words in her native language then glanced up at Stefi. “As long as I lived I never thought I’d hear the voice of Feregana!” she said nervously. “You really are special. Well, except when you tease me and be mean!”

  “You know it’s all true!” Stefi laughed.

  At that moment Sansonis called down from the tree house. “Hey, what’s keeping you?”

  Yeah, Maya piped up, we’re getting hungry!

  “Nothing,” Ifaut called back and hurried up the rope ladder, followed by Stefi. Maybe, just maybe, Stefi’s advice might work. In theory, of course.

  Far, far away, Pheia floated in blackness, in darkness so thick that no light could penetrate it. It was so utterly overwhelming that with what little of her consciousness remained she felt terribly helpless and alone. Time did not seem to pass wherever this was. If it even existed. Maybe this emptiness was all that there ever had been. But Pheia didn’t care. Caring took too much effort. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  After what could have been one day or one eternity, a speck of light flared in the distance like a far off star, a mere pinprick of light in the endless void. It looked warm, she thought, and that thought brought with it the sudden realization that she was cold.

  “Cold?” she said aloud. Her voice fell flat and empty. “Am I dead? So why am I so cold?”

  In answer to her question the point of light grew outwards like a sun exploding at the end of its life, sweeping away the blackness and swallowing Pheia in a blinding light. Even though she squeezed her eyes shut and hid them beneath her hands, it wasn’t enough to keep out the terrible whiteness. At least the blackness hadn’t hurt.

  Just when she thought she could take it no longer, she found herself lying on a grassy plane. As the searing after-images withdrew from her eyes she began to make sense of her surroundings. The grassy surface was in fact a broad field sprinkled with white star-shaped flowers that had no smell. Great trees, each so thick it would take a dozen people to ring them, towered upwards like massive bulwarks, so high that their tops seemed to support the dome of the eerie sky. The cobalt tapestry of the heavens lingered behind the branches of the trees, while poison-green wisps of clouds scurried and turned before the burning white lights of stars. There was no sun. Only permanent twilight.

  Pheia propped herself up on her right elbow for a better view, silenced by the landscape that looked so beautiful and yet utterly unearthly. There was something else about it she couldn’t place, something that wasn’t quite right.

  Suddenly the realization that she had just been shot struck her full force and her hand flew to her shoulder, expecting a horrible mass of torn flesh and shattered bone. Nothing. Her arm was fine. She stumbled to her feet, now more scared than relieved. Messes like that don’t just disappear…

  She spotted her bow a few steps away. As she picked it up and fitted an arrow to the string with fumbling fingers, she realized there was no other sound in the dead, heavy air. No birds sang, no breeze stirred the trees, no insects hummed. Nothing.

  “What’s going on here?” she shouted, raising her breaking voice to the treetops. It didn’t even echo. Now true fear edged its way into her thoughts. Was this death, this haunting, silent landscape that showed no signs of life?

  Pheia broke into a run, although she had no idea where she was heading, or if there was even anywhere to go. She couldn’t tell how long she ran; time didn’t seem to matter. And neither did the physical limitations of her body. She didn’t lose her breath even though she’d exerted all the energy she could. Her legs didn’t ache. Her feet seemed to float across the grass like birds of prey skimming the waves of the ocean. And every tree looked the same.

  Finally, mentally exhausted, she stopped in front of a tree. “Why is there nothing here? Where is here? Tell me!” she screamed at the silent tower of bark and sap. It stood there, unheeding.

  “Answer me!” She punched and pounded it with her fists. The bark tore at her hands until they streamed with blood.

  “No… pain…” she said, her voice belying her defeated spirit. She blinked and her wounds were gone.

  “Argh!” She unleashed a frustrated cry and pulled an arrow from the quiver at her hip. She raised it to her heart.

  Stop. I cannot bear to see you in this state any longer, Pheia Inessa Ariga, a disembodied voice said, ringing through her head.

  She dropped the arrow in fright. “Who’s there? Show yourself!” she said, her voice shaking.

  The tree that she had attacked shimmered from existence and in its place appeared a shapeless light, vaguely human or Furosan. What race or gender it was, she couldn’t tell. Even its voice was barely a voice at all, but more of a series of thoughts that reverberated through her being.

  She gasped and staggered back, letting her bow fall from her left hand. “I really am dead, aren’t I?” she asked the light.

  Yes, you are. Unfortunately, this greatly hampers my plans for you. You were not meant to die, but the thread of another’s fate failed to entwine with yours as it should have. It appears as if I must intervene, though it be against the rules of life. Ought not the souls of mortals, once lost, be allowed to return Home, to Arolha?

  “Look, I don’t know who or what you are, or where I am, and I accept that I’m dead. But what are these things of which you speak?”

  The voice seemed to laugh, a haunting vibration that gently shook the ground and set the flowers nodding. Do you truly accept your death, Furosan? I see into your heart. Your mind is like an open book; I need only flick through pages to see whether you speak the truth or not. I know you speak falsehoods.

  Pheia sighed. The light, whatever it was, was right. She was not ready. At least not yet. Somewhere out there were the Fieretka, somewhere out there lay the remnants of the other four elemental guardians, her own stone aside. And somewhere, perhaps, Sohei still lived.

  “You are correct, light,” she said, placing bitter emphasis upon the final word. “What of everything I had left to do, what of my family, my people? I can’t accept death. Not yet.”

  I see that which you speak is the truth. The laws of life and death usually cannot be broken, but I must make an exception, break the rules. There is still much for you to do on the side of the living.

  “Then where am I now? Some sort of in-between?”

  Yes. This is a land between worlds, a confluence of lives where the souls of the departed find themselves upon death.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  Come.

  Once more the brilliant light enveloped Pheia, and when it cleared she found herself in another part of the forest altogether, suspended high above the ground, her bow now slung over her shoulder. Alone.

  Watch, the voice commanded from nowhere.

  Below her stretched a green field like that which she had awoken on before. Heightless trees still scraped the stars, although they left a large clearing, and green threads of clouds still blew across the sky like cobwebs on no breeze. But now a dull, dying sun hung low in the sky. It illuminated a bustle of activity while still allowing the stars’ light.

  The grass teemed with the shimmering forms of Furosans, humans, and ferrets playing with each other as they tumbled about in the soft grass or dozed in the shade. There was no hunger, no suffering, and both humans and Furosans chatted and laughed happily, forgetful of the hatred they’d held while alive.

  Below and to her left a crack seemed to appear in the fabric of existence and a young human male several years younger than herself stumbled out, blinking in surprise at the sight before him. She watched closely.

  Somewhere within that scene of happiness she felt her eyes d
rawn towards a lone silver ferret napping upon the sun-dappled grass. Its ears twitched and it burst into life, stretching its slinky body and yawning to reveal many pointed teeth. The ferret took off, weaving through the feet of the humans and Furosans, sometimes leaping, sometimes tumbling over the other ferrets in its haste. A few of the other souls looked up and grinned with delight, while others pointed and shouted words of encouragement Pheia couldn’t hear.

  As the young man tried to make sense of his new surroundings, the silver ferret approached his feet, dancing and dooking with joy. The human caught sight of the ferret at his feet and Pheia noticed he was crying. He mouthed something, his face lighting up, and picked up his friend to be greeted by the ferret’s eager tongue planting licks on his face. He looked about, the gaze of hundreds upon him, and smiled. The ferret must have said something, for the human nodded and stepped forward. He weaved carefully about the scattered others as they returned to what they had been doing before.

  Now that Pheia looked around she saw that the field ended abruptly some distance to her right, opening into a yawning abyss that was really just the night sky and stars, strangely down instead of up. Far on the other side another land shimmered in a haze like one sometimes sees on a hot day, but she couldn’t make out any details, only muted greens and blues painted in broad, watercolor brushstrokes. Arolha.

  But what really caught her eyes was the bridge. Between the two worlds, spanning the abyss, stretched a flat, glass-like bridge. Every color on the spectrum, and even some she had never seen before, glimmered along its whole length, one moment flowing like the currents of a river, the next waving like grass in a breeze.

  As the human set foot upon the bridge, showing no signs of hesitation, Pheia caught a snatch of voices.

  I’m sorry I got sick and had to leave you, the ferret said, but I always knew we would see each other again.

  “Where are we going?” the human asked as he blinked tears from his eyes.

  Home. I’m taking you Home.

  And just like that they were gone.

  A moment of pure beauty.

  Pheia jerked in surprise. The light had once more returned to her side. “Yes,” she said, and found that she had shed a few tears without noticing.

  But this fate does not yet await you. Somewhere down there lies Lirun, but she must wait a little longer.

  “Lirun? You mean little Lirun’s down there?”

  Yes. The souls of all ferrets await the ones they had to leave behind so reluctantly. Sometimes circumstance is reversed. Either way, she must still wait.

  Pheia nodded. “So I will return to life?”

  I shall restore you back to the Dream. Do you know why it is that I showed you this place?

  “No.”

  Because this is what you are fighting for. This is what you must keep alive. Beauty, friendship, companionship, love, understanding. My power is fading and with it the bridge that the souls must traverse across the eternal waters of the Fountain. The light seemed to sigh sadly, displaying some semblance of emotion for the first time.

  “Does my stone have something to do with all this?” Pheia asked and removed it from her pocket. As soon as the light of the being beside her fell upon it, it glowed brightly, bathing her in a soft blue light.

  Yes.

  For a moment Pheia’s stone shimmered red and cast a halo of bloody light around her.

  “Laure Musrem, Daga Te’a,” a chorus of voices seemed to sing from the stone as its colors phased between red and blue.

  “Te’n Laema, Feamat Mus,” they continued

  “What’s going on?” Pheia asked, quite alarmed.

  Though they do not know it, they are calling for you. From far away. Their song has drifted far upon Fairun’s breeze to reach this place.

  “Who? Who’s calling?”

  The Fieretka.

  Then the other voices died away, leaving only two singing in high, pure notes that pierced Pheia’s soul and made her feel as if she could swim across seas and run across continents without tiring.

  Soma Serne, Ue Sae Sem’la, Peper Ter-Ram Tela.

  As the voices subsided, a fog descended upon her, slowly smothering the mysterious light.

  Go now to them. Traverse the unfound Dark Bridge. You will once more walk the Dream, but once your purpose is complete I shall call you back here so you may journey Home with Lirun.

  As the fog shrouded Pheia she felt her consciousness once more slipping away, lowering her back into life.

  “Wait!” she managed to say, although it seemed to take all her energy to do so. “You never told me who you were!”

  I was once known as Yifunis, the smoldering light said, but now I am called the Fieretsi.