Melianarrheyal

  ~*~

  That night I am still much weakened, so that I can hardly grip nor eat my supper, and sleep claims me easily for once. By morning the strength has returned to my limbs, and my fingers twitch with nervousness, but my mind is yet empty and still. I eat my breakfast and I climb onto Karr's back and I give Therrin a slight nod when she bids me good morning, but I do not speak. I do not think. I do not remember. It is the same in the days that follow.

  We fly west, away from the gate. It is a long way. I watch the world as it goes by – it seems a little more colored now, if only a little, and the sun shines brighter when it shines. It does not shine often. The sky soon turns gray with cloud, and a heavy snowfall hails the arrival of winter. I wonder how long it has been since this world has seen any snow at all. It has always seemed so dry here.

  The air around us is filled with whirling flakes, dark shadows against the blank sky, so that my mind grows dizzy with watching them and Karr complains that he can hardly see. They melt when they touch his hide, but they cling to Therrin's hair before me when they land, and the ground below us is quickly blanketed in white. It falls fast and thick.

  Ty has taken to telling us stories again, to while away the time, and now with this weather around us the stories he tells are of Feather-touch. She is not often heard of in the Mountains, so I listen with interest to his tales: she is a goddess of cold, of snow, of sleep, of the numbness of the heart; and she is said to appear as a pale woman clad in white, whose dance beneath the earth draws down the snowfall. The feather-soft kiss of wet flakes on our skin is said to be her calming touch.

  She can let us forget, can clothe our woes in soft and glittering white; she can bury us beneath her blanket and let us sleep in the darkness of earth. She can keep us safe and hidden and unfeeling.

  Ty sings for us the Island-folk's songs to her, and he tells us about the mortals she has saved and doomed, and he tells us that she has a different dance for every type of snow. I listen and watch the dancing flakes and I offer her a prayer of thanks for the stillness in my mind.

  At night we sleep in the warm red darkness beneath Karr's wing. I will not sleep until I have given Feather-touch a prayer for safe sleep untouched by the dreams I have fled for so long. I hope she can hear me.

  Without the motion of flight to sweep the snow from his wings, even Karr is bedecked by snow when he rests. He looks like a large hill until he stirs and shakes Feather-touch's white blanket from his scales. So we are hidden and safe while we rest – but nothing is searching for us, nothing can be searching for us, there cannot be a need for this safety. I mustn't even think of it.

  Sometimes I hear the others speaking of Karr's speed, and of the speed a rider might have in this weather, and of the time we spent wandering the stone plain and then convalescing in the temple; but I will not listen. I empty my mind to the falling snow and the wind of the flight, dreaming of Feather-touch's dance.

  So the days pass, until the snowfall abates. When at last we see the great mountain ahead of us, it is only a few scant flakes that float down from the heavens. The clouds above are only a thin veil, and I can see where the sun is behind them – it must be afternoon – but it is only a lighter place in the sky, no true sunlight breaking through.

  The mountain itself rises steeply from the snow-covered land around it. The great cavern wherein the dragons must be hidden is perhaps halfway down the slope, and the entrance is just large enough that Karr will pass through it easily. I cannot yet see beyond it. And at the base of the mountain are some twenty or thirty dark moving spots on the snow – steeds, steeds in full barding, and their riders setting up camp – and some of their faces are upturned, watching as Karr spreads his wings above them – no, I cannot look. I cannot see. I turn my demon-eye toward the dragon's bright scales beneath me, and try to see nothing else.

  Around me they are speaking. I mustn't listen. I mustn't. “They are here,” says Therrin, and Karr answers her: “There's nothing we can do right now. We must hurry. I can feel the others calling us – they are nearly out of time.” Perhaps we dallied too long in the temple after all, then. But no, I mustn't think. I am not listening.

  “It will take them at least a few hours to climb the slope,” Therrin says; “will that last us?”

  “I cannot know,” says Karr. “Our task may take us that long, or longer.”

  “It may not take them that long,” Ty says grimly. “If any one among them can still use his talent, they might easily send up a single person.”

  I am not listening. I am not listening.

  “I still have mine,” Therrin says, “– but we've been with Karr all this time, and they've been in this world longer than we. Still, we can't be certain if they've lost theirs.”

  “I know from my time traveling with her that she is determined, if nothing else. If there is a way to reach us before the dragons are freed, she will find it.”

  I AM NOT LISTENING.

  “Stand guard, then,” says Karr, and he flies into the cavern.

  The mountain looks as though it was hollowed out by hand. The tunnel we fly through is easily large enough for Karr, but I can see corridors to both sides through which no dragon could fit, if they are all as large as he is.

  (Cold gray stone on every side...)

  “Is there another entrance?” asks Ty.

  “None large enough for my kind, but I think there are some smaller holes.”

  Please no. Please, please no.

  Karr lands at last in a strange room. The floor and ceiling and most of the walls are all of the same gray stone, but the largest wall looks like thick bluish ice. The dragon snorts at it angrily. It doesn't melt, even when his flames lick against it.

  “They are behind this wall,” he growls. “Therrin and I must use the chalice to reach them. It may take a long while.”

  “I will keep watch,” Ty promises.

  Karr curls up on the floor, and Therrin sits with her back to his flank and makes certain that she has the necklace and the knife with her.

  “I hope we are not too late,” she says as she fills the chalice. Some of the clear cold liquid she pours onto Karr's forked tongue; the rest she downs herself. As soon as she has swallowed she falls back onto the dragon's flank, asleep. They both are, asleep and empty.

  For a long time I sit and watch them; but they do not move, and there is nothing to watch. My mind shies away from thought, and my fingers itch for something to do. I rub at the skin on my hands and wrists and I bite at my nails and I run my fingers through my hair. I have left it loose – is it finally long enough that I may do so? I forgot to bind it back, that is all – the painful spot on my scalp is long healed.

  When I cannot bear it any longer I stand and I pace. My stomach twists with worry, with fear (no there is no reason to be afraid there cannot be, it cannot be). I am still scratching myself, hurting myself, rubbing out the skin. I cannot bear this waiting. Ty is silent, and I very much doubt that I could listen to his stories now, if he were telling them.

  With my pacing and with Karr's nearness in this small room – it is only perhaps twice as big as he is – I soon grow very hot despite the ice so near beside me. I strip off my leather coat and leave it in the corner, and I pace. I don't know how much longer I can bear this. I don't know what Therrin is doing; I don't know what (NO I will not think of it) I don't know, I don't know, I can't do anything. I don't know how much time we have. I don't know how much time it will take. I can do nothing to make it go faster. I can do nothing.

  At last I can bear it no longer. “I'm going for a walk,” I tell Ty. “I want to see where the other tunnels lead.” It is a lie – but I must move, I must walk somewhere where I don't always see Therrin's sleeping face whenever I turn.

  “Don't go too far,” he says. “Yell if anything happens, and I will come.”

  What could happen? What could possibly happen here? But I nod to appease him. I leave my coat on the ground – I am still hot, and don't want to carry it –
and I leave the room with its ice-wall.

  I walk without aim through the mountain, taking turns where I see them. My feet are restless; I try to wear them out. The curse follows me. I was so eager to forget it, and it was easy enough when Karr made it keep its distance; but now that we have landed it stays close by, always following. I don't think it can leave me. It is never more than ten or twenty paces away.

  I try not to watch it.

  At last I come to one of the little holes Karr spoke of, a slit in the mountainside perhaps twice as tall as I am. I fit through it easily. I step outside more for the snow than anything else: I am hot and thirsty and eager for a drink. I lift the snow with my hands and swallow as much as I can. It is colder than I expected, and I empty my hands quickly and hug them to my chest for warmth.

  I can see the dark spots below me, the steeds and their riders, much closer now – this hole must be farther down the slope. And there is something moving, climbing the mountain – no – it cannot be, it must be my tired mind seeing things that are not there. I turn away quickly, back into the cave, and put it out of my head.

  Now that my feet are tired and my fingers are cold from snow, I find I no longer want to walk. I sit down in a corner, leaning back against the stone. It is much colder here than beside Karr. I long for the warmth of my coat, but I don't want to move. I don't know if I can remember the way back. I don't want to ask the curse – I never want to speak to it, I never want to look at it.

  It is watching me. I throw a stone at it – it passes through its black shadow-flesh without harming it.

  “Go away,” I say, half growling, half screaming. It retreats to another corner, but will not leave the room. I content myself with looking at the ground where there are no shadows, only even stone. I will not look at it. I will forget it is here. I am alone.

  It is very cold here. Is that a sound I hear? No, it cannot be. It must be only the wind in the snow. But I do not like it here any longer; it is too cold, and too close to the world outside, and there are too many strange noises. I ought to leave. I ought to go back to Ty and Therrin and Karr. I ought to help him watch over their sleeping bodies. Surely if I wander long enough I can find the way back.

  I put down my hand to push myself up, and I put up my head – and I see a shadow over the entrance.

  I sit frozen, afraid to move.

  She steps inside the mountain, dressed as elegantly as a noble ever was – with jewels in her golden hair – her cheeks flushed with cold and exercise, her polished black boots caked with snow – her fox-fur cloak draped across her shoulders.

  No, this cannot be real. It must be a dream, it must be. She cannot be here. It cannot be real.

  Hardly a moment has passed – I don't know what to think – I haven't the time to move or speak – when the curse rushes from its corner, runs toward her, with its arms outstretched. It flings itself at her, embraces her, presses itself against her.

  “What! –” she struggles against it but she cannot push it away. It holds her close but her hands push through it. There is fear in her eyes, her hateful eyes that I had hoped never to see again. The black shadow puts its mouth against hers as though to kiss her and it flows into her, onto her, consumes her – her skin is half-covered by black – she screams, Snake, how she screams (Ty must hear it he must he must come to protect me) – and then the black is gone, and she is all alone, panting, her eyes wild.

  I push farther back into my corner. I shrink down into the rock at my back, trying to vanish, trying to flee. I cannot flee, I cannot flee, there is nowhere to flee to. The hard wall behind me refuses to yield.

  She turns to me, she turns her scarred face to me, she looks at me with cold gray eyes. She smiles her carefully gentle smile. “There you are, Arri,” she says, her voice so soft, gentle, forgiving. My stomach twists with fear. Is she real then? Is she real? Stay away, stay back!

  “What was that black thing?” she asks, taking a step toward me. I try to flee, scrabble against the rock, but I can go no farther. I shake my head mutely. Go away, go away! She cannot be real. She is only a dream. But she is here, she is here.

  “Are you so afraid of me, Arri?” she laughs. “Whatever for? Come now; come here and everything will be all right. It is only I! Come here now.”

  No. No, she hurt me, she hurt me so much. I watch her in silence, beginning to weep with terror.

  “You look a fair sight,” she goes on as she takes another step. “Your hair's growing long, and your clothing – almost as though you were trying to be a commoner! Aren't you ashamed to dress like that? You are kretchin after all. Surely you remember. You must cut your hair at once – and you simply must cover up that demon-eye until it can be removed – it's really quite unsightly.”

  (“That's repugnant,” she said. “Cover it up.”)

  “This whole world is gossiping about you, it seems,” she says. Doesn't she remember? I knew her so long – I know what she is doing – she hopes to distract me with her kind words, she hopes to make me forget what she did to me. “They say you fell from the sky amid a shower of bones! Whatever does that mean, do you think? But they've also said that you stole some things – a necklace and a cup and some sort of knife. You do know that it's wrong to steal, don't you? I know you're only kretchin, but I thought I'd taught you that much at least.” She takes another step. She is so close now, so abominably close. I never want to see her again. She cannot be real.

  “It wasn't you, now was it, Arri? It must have been that betraying conjurer – I knew he was trouble all along, didn't I? – and the bastard.” Her lip twitches with distaste. “Her mother stole my dear Kerheyin's body when she died, do you know that? But I know that you could never betray me, Arri. You have always been so loyal. They stole you away, didn't they? Come here now – tell me where the others are. I need to return the things they stole. You will help me, won't you?”

  No, don't come nearer! Please! She must be only a dream but I cannot trust in that, I cannot. Where is Ty? I am too afraid to yell for him. Maybe I am too far away. Maybe he didn't hear the scream. Maybe he won't come.

  I draw the knife from my belt – gods, it is heavy – and sharp – what am I thinking? I cannot fend her off. I would prefer to cast the thing aside at once, and never touch it again. I cannot hurt her. I can't. I would hold it out to ward her off, but I will not reach toward her – even wielding a knife – I will not come any closer to her. She is already so close. My stomach clenches with horror and fear, my breaths are coming short and fast. I am too afraid even to whistle. And she smiles her horrible delicate smile and she laughs her deliberately pretty laugh and she says: “What, will you fight me off then? I know you can't use that knife – better to drop it now! Now stop being foolish and come here. Come here, I said!” She takes another step forward and makes as if to grab for me.

  No. No, she cannot, I cannot let her. I cry out in terror and lift the knife – no, I will not come closer to her, I will not – I turn it – I shut my blind eye tightly and I cut the only thing I can reach – and in my terror I cut hard and deep and fast. I can feel it tearing through my skin, my flesh, so deep.

  Through my open demon-eye I can see her, her eyes wide with something that is not quite shock – is she annoyed with me? Is she angry? – and over her shoulder I see Ty in the tunnel, his dark eyes alarmed, dismayed, confounded – his skin gone pale – his mouth hanging open in horror – the stoic mask gone, the raw emotion beneath exposed – I have never seen him like this before, this open, never – and on my left forearm I see the cut, a wound, a hole, deep and long and wide where the skin has split apart though the knife was thin, all white and glistening, paler than my skin, and bloodless and large, so large, gods below, I have never seen such a wound. And now the blood comes from deep inside the slash, welling up dark and red and deep; and now the wound is filled, and now it flows from it in quick rivers, running down my arm to collect at my wrist, running down my fingers, running, flowing, quickly, so much, so much blood.


  My breath quickens and fear pierces through me. I have seen blood before – little cuts, scrapes, quickly healed however much they stung – oh, I dreamed of it in the temple! I dreamed of great rivers of blood, lakes in which I could drown! But that was never real, nothing more than a fantasy of my frightened mind – and this is so much, and it is real – it flows from my arm, it flows – when I shake it several drops come loose and hit the ground – I have never seen such a wound before. I didn't know it could be. I lived like a child, thinking every hurt would heal in a few short days, thinking no wound could bleed for more than an hour. I watch the flow and I breathe in desperate bursts – has another fit come over me so soon? I shouldn't be surprised – and I whistle to Snake, again and again.

  She is speaking – I cannot help but listen – she mocks me, and she scolds me – “What, did you think to kill yourself before I had the chance? I will not be stopped so easily, and you are mine to kill, mine and mine alone!” And she comes at me with her dagger at the ready – and seeing this Ty awakens from his stupor and leaps between us, drawing his sword – and their blades screech against each other – he keeps her at bay, he stands before me and keeps her away – and my arm is bleeding, bleeding.

  There is blood coming out of my arm – it does not merely well up and dry there – it comes out in little rivers, it flows, it flows, it will not stop.

  My mind is filled with horror and fear and confusion – I don't know what to do – I don't know what I can do – I must do something, it will not stop bleeding – I pull up my sleeve – it is already bloodied and cut by my knife – I pull it up and watch the wound in horror – I watch the blood flow – I whistle to Snake again and again – what do I do – I whistle – what can I do – help me – make it better – make it better – my breaths are fast and they will not stop but it doesn't matter – my breath doesn't matter – there is blood coming out of my arm.

  I have never seen this much blood in one place. It drips quickly, and leaves pools on the ground – pools – not just spots but pools with depth to them. I cannot look away. I cannot. The skin has folded back under itself, so that there is a thicker line of skin beside the wound – it sickens me – I want to pull it out but I will not touch this wound, I will not reach into the blood. I am afraid of the hurt, so afraid.

  My knife lies beside me, dropped without a thought, and its blade is still clean – it pulled through my skin so easily and at first there was no blood, only a gaping white hole, and the knife is unstained.

  And before me they are fighting, her dagger scraping against his sword, and she yells to me, “Arri, kill him, fast! Stab him in the back with that knife of yours! Surely you can do that much!” I whistle again – Snake, protect me from her voice. Protect me, let me forget her though she is so close beside me. I don't want to know.

  She was trained with her dagger but she is no match for Ty's swordplay. He grabs her empty hand – he lifts it high, out of the way – I see it above his head, his hand around her wrist – she is struggling in vain – and then suddenly she screams – screams like death – I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear her, I want her gone – her voice is gone – she whispers with her dying breath: “Kerheyin, my beloved, forgive me,” oh, her voice is broken, her breaths short and ragged, “for I have failed you; but I shall join you now in death – and you,” her voice grown stronger with rage, “you should die, if I could kill you now, you betrayer; you deserve no bett-” – and Ty makes a quick movement and then she is silent. Her life in my mind goes out.

  Snake, she is dead now.

  He steps aside and I see her, her body in a broken bloody heap, her dress stained and wet, her eyes unseeing, staring, dead. I watch her, I watch her but her sides no longer lift with breath. She is dead, unmoving, lifeless, dead.

  Snake, she is dead.

  He drops his sword and kneels beside me, pulls my hand from my arm roughly, rolls up my bloody sleeve. He examines the wound in silence. It is maybe as long as my finger, and also as wide at its widest, in the side of my arm, running between my elbow and my wrist; and it is still bleeding, bleeding.

  He takes a small cloth from one of the many pouches at his belts and wets it from his waterskin and cleans off my wrist and hands. His hands are shaking. I have never seen him like this – he is always calm, always, always – his hands are shaking and he is pale and sweating and I don't know if it is fear or rage in his dark eyes. He washes away the rivers. He is a little more gentle with the wound itself, but it still hurts, and it is bleeding so fast, the wound fills again almost as soon as he dabs the blood away.

  He is brimming with emotion – is it anger? Is it? – but he does not speak.

  He wets the cloth again – I watch him and I see the water and I am thirsty, I am so thirsty – he pulls a length of fresh cloth from a pouch and ties it around the cut, pulling sharply to be sure it is too tight to slip – it hurts. It hurts so much.

  Finally I dare to speak: “I'm thirsty.”

  He hands me his waterskin in silence. I take it thankfully in my right hand, and I drink, and he puts his own hand – still shaking a little – on my left arm, over the dressing, over the wound – already the blood shows through – and presses down hard. It hurts. It hurts but I say nothing. I only drink.

  When I put down the waterskin for a moment my hand lands in a pool of blood – it has thickened considerably – it must have already begun to clot. I wash it away quickly and drink more. I am so thirsty.

  My arm hurts. I want to wriggle it away from Ty, but I don't dare.

  At last he releases the pressure and sits back, and looks at me. I am afraid of that gaze, of the accusation and the horror in his eyes.

  “What was that?” he asks in a low voice shaking with suppressed rage – if that is what it is – I am so unused to his showing emotion that I can hardly place it. I can only shake my head and look down, turn away from those eyes. There is no answer I can give.

  I run my fingers over the dressing, over my left hand – that hand is cold, so cold, like ice against the other. I am afraid, afraid of what I have done.

  My head spins with dizziness – and it aches – and my stomach turns with fear. And it hurts. It hurts. I try to move my arm a little, to find a way to hold it that isn't quite as painful, and I can find nothing. It hurts. It hurts no matter what I do.

  I'm afraid.

  I don't know what to do.

  I drink again, empty the skin. I am thirsty and I am afraid and I am still breathing too quickly and I don't know what to say to him and it hurts. It doesn't sting the way a small cut will. It doesn't throb. It only hurts, it hurts. And the bloody spot on the dressing is still growing.

  Ty makes a noise between a sigh and a growl and he stands up. I don't look at him directly – I am afraid, afraid of his judgment – but I watch as he lifts Mel's bloody corpse – Snake, she is dead, dead! – and heaves it outside, onto the snowy mountainside.

  And it hurts and I cannot stop the tears of fear and shame and horror – how could I do such a thing? – and I am so afraid.

  Now that he has carried her his shirt is stained red with her blood.

  “They will have seen that, and will come for her,” he says. “We must seal this entrance and return to Therrin and Karr, quickly.”

  I say nothing, but only touch my left hand again – it is still so cold, so cold to the touch.

  “I hope I still have my conjury this far from Karr,” he says. I can see him moving on the edge of my vision – he must be summoning something – but I will not look up at him.

  There is a loud sound – I jump a little – and there are rocks falling around us, the cave is collapsing.

  “Come, we must flee this,” he says, urgently; but I will not move.

  He lets out a growl. “This is no time for –” but then he breaks off, and sighs. “All right, then,” he says, sounding irked, sounding angry, and he lifts me from the ground.

  I briefly consider struggling, but I will not mo
ve to do so.

  So he carries me back to Therrin in his arms, while the entrance behind us is sealed in a shower of rocks; and my arm keeps bleeding; and she is dead.

  ~*~

  Epilogue

  ~*~

  What Came After