Guardians of the Light (Book One of The Nebril Riverland Chronicles)

  Chapter 12

  Lovis stroked his chin thoughtfully. "There used to be many more like you, Emerin. Back in the days when all people lived in the wild, in tribes like the Twelve Clans and other such woodland peoples. When a bei clu was born, he was recognized and revered for what he was, and when he came of age he was allowed, encouraged in fact, to go out and seek his bei clu va. Because of this, most bei clu va inevitably found each other and had children, producing many wu bei. Their presence kept the bei safe, but certain circumstances have led to the near extinction of the bei clu and wu bei."

  He stopped for a moment and stared out at the first rays of sun shimmering off of the rocky mountaintops. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand and fidgeted on the bed of moss. "What kinds of circumstances?" I asked, when the silence became too much to bear.

  "Oh, well, community isolation, for one. I'm sure you see now, my dear, how isolated and uninformed your community is. Well, the other farming villages are much the same; they keep you from each other, hold you bound there with guilt from your families and from your Gods. War is another reason. Many bei clu and wu bei were killed in the last great war; some just went missing and were presumed dead. Oh, and the disappearance of Lamorian rock; that created even more difficulties."

  I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Lovis cut me off before I could utter a word. "Yes, my dear, I know you don't know what Lamorian rock is; I will explain now. You see, two bei clu va together are very powerful, as is a wu bei, however, they cannot affect changes on the bei unaided, specifically where the blackness is concerned. Although they are able to absorb the blackness into their own bei, ridding the world of it, they are unable to release it. It then stays inside of them, warping their minds and corrupting their souls, and, if they take in enough of it, it kills them. Then of course, when they die and their bei is released back into the Great Bei, the blackness returns again, so the whole act was pointless really.

  "However, many hundreds of years ago, a very lucky wu bei stumbled upon some Lamorian rock. I assume that neither of you have heard the story of Sweltz?"

  Jalya and I exchanged glances and shook our heads.

  "Ahh, I thought not," said Lovis. "You see, according to our legends, Sweltz was a wu bei from the clan Wallhamay. During Sweltz's time there was much evil and corruption, much disturbance of the bei and much blackness as there is now. The wu bei and bei clu knew it was certain suicide to absorb too much of the bei, so they would absorb just as much as their bodies could take and still remain alive. Then, of course, they would go mad and be capable of all manner of evils, so they would have to be imprisoned, either voluntarily or forcibly. As their tortured lives naturally came to an end, other wu bei and bei clu would come and take the blackness from them and carry it throughout their own lives. The people of the time called them the Guardians of the Light, because they kept the darkness away....kept everyone else safe. It was quite the sacrifice that these men and women made, some of them no older than the two of you."

  Lovis looked at us for a moment with sadness clouding his purple eyes. Then he brightened momentarily. "That's how Lock Up got started; I'll bet you didn't know that."

  I wanted to shake my head or give some sort of reaction to his question, but I was too overwhelmed by what this might mean for me...and for Ashel. Did he want us to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good as these others had done in the past? To live out the rest of our lives imprisoned as raving, evil lunatics? Before tonight, I couldn't have imagined a future worse than the one I was facing with Callum, but yet here it was being laid out in front of me.

  "Yes, yes, quite a sacrifice," Lovis continued. "That was until the wu bei Sweltz found the solution. Sweltz was aimlessly wandering through the forest, his soul heavy with black bei, preparing for his journey to Lock Up, when he tripped over something in his path. He stumbled straight into a massive rock wall and banged his head quite hard, hard enough that he became momentarily too dizzy to walk. He lay down next to the rock to collect himself, when he realized that something unusual was happening. The weight of the blackness was leaving him; he could feel it being pulled from his very soul."

  "He stayed there for quite a while as his body returned to normal, and he observed what happened to the rock. Apparently it turned from its original red-brown color to a deeper shade of almost black. Then the black eventually gave way to a vibrant hue of colors which swirled about within the rock before being released from its surface back out into the atmosphere."

  I glanced at Jalya briefly and wondered how much of this she was believing. Magic swirling rainbow rocks? If the sun seekers hadn't so accurately described my situation earlier in our conversation, I would have been laughing in disbelief by now. Jalya did not look at all skeptical. She stared, mesmerized, into Lovis' eyes, obviously anticipating the rest of the story, like it was a bedtime fairy tale. I sighed and turned back toward the huge purple eyes, determined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  "Unbelievable, yes, my dear," Lovis said, apparently reading the doubt on my face. "You're not the only one to think so. In fact, when Sweltz returned home, no one believed his story. They thought that he was just raving mad from the blackness. So they tied him up and took him by wagon to Lock Up. But when they got there, the guards realized that he was different than the other affected wu bei. They saw that his eyes were not black, he did not have the same intense evil gaze of the others, he was calm and lucid. They had no choice really but to eventually accept his story of the Lamorian Rock, so they sent some of the Wallhamay warriors out to collect a sample. Well.....I must say they were in for a surprise! The warriors chiseled chunks from the rock and returned to Lock Up with them. One by one the ailing Guardians touched the rocks and one by one the blackness left their souls. The black bei reverted to its previously colourful state and was returned to the world harmless. A great miracle!"

  Lovis closed his eyes, took a deep breath and held his arms out dramatically. I recognized his Reverend Grell tone when he began to speak again. "Year after year, century after century, portions of the Lamorian rock were passed down through the generations. Even during periods of complete balance of the bei, the wu bei and bei clu still carried small pieces of the rock with them in case it again became necessary to use it. The original rock became smaller and smaller as more and more wu bei were born."

  "Is that why it eventually disappeared?" Jalya asked.

  "No, in fact there was still quite a large portion left, even after everyone claimed a piece. However, the Twelve Clans became nervous for its safety. They had yet to discover any more of the rock other than the original piece, and they knew that it might eventually become necessary for the safety of the world. So they decided to bring it to Malhadron Mountain, the highest mountain in the Nebril Riverlands, to be guarded by the Lumeai that reside there. It's our largest and most populated village," Lovis smiled.

  "Unfortunately, the clansmen that they sent to retrieve it never arrived at Malhadron Mountain. Others were sent to check on it and found it removed from its original place, but the rock and the clansmen were never seen again. Now the only remaining Lamorian rock are small pieces that have been collected from bei clu and wu bei that have passed away during the years, whose friends and relatives have been kind and knowledgeable enough to bring them to Malhadron Mountain for safe keeping."

  Magic swirling rainbow rocks on top of the tallest mountain. My head spun. "How many pieces are left?"

  "I believe four at last count." Lovis was quiet for a moment and studied his fingers as they tapped against the white shiny orbs of his knees. When he turned his head toward us again, his serious expression was replaced with one of suppressed mirth. "How do you girls feel about mountain climbing? Because if you liked your journey to our village, then you'll love Malhadron Mountain."

  Jalya looked at him incredulously. "You want us to go up there?"

  "Well, yes, my dear. Emerin will need that Lamorian rock when she gets to Nebril City. Your brother too if
you can find him. You need to find Ashel and Emerin's bei clu va. As far as we know, you are the only ones remaining that have the ability to restore the bei."

  "Restore the bei?" I stared at him in disbelief. "I have no idea how to do that, even if I do find my bei clu va."

  "The Lumeai at Malhadron Mountain will instruct you in everything you need to know. You will be fully prepared when you reach Nebril City. If the origin of the blackness is there, as we suspect, that is where you will need to fight it."

  Jalya looked at me and I could read the excitement in her face. I didn't have to ask if she wanted to go. She likely would have gone even without me. With her adventurous spirit, she would probably be more successful than me also. Though I had spent most of my life with this intense desire to leave the village, the feeling was only a subconscious one. My conscious rational mind told me on a daily basis that to actually go would be rash and dangerous and that my longings were silly. Pretty much everyone around me told me the same thing, so it was a fairly easy idea to accept. But now, faced with leaving everyone and everything I'd ever known to march into an unknown woodland filled with wild clansmen and Orlogs terrified me.

  As if to add to my fears, Darlus addressed us grimly. "You must be very careful though, my dears. The Natki that were here a few days ago, we sent them to look for Hallen and the wu bei Ashel, and well, they never returned to us. They were supposed to bring them to us, but it seems they never reached them. This is why we sent Sharl to find out what happened." She looked at Sharl in sympathy, as he writhed on the rocks. "We don't like to leave our mountain. As you can see, it's dangerous for us down there."

  "It's dangerous for everyone now, so it seems," Lovis said, "but the Nebril must be stopped. They are taking everything that is good in our world and clouding it with blackness. And there are so many of them, so very many. They keep reproducing you know, but never dying. Where do they all go? Where can they all go?"

  Sharl looked at him with a furrowed brow. "The chill in the air seems to tell us something, Lovis."

  "Ah yes, the Varsak are coming. The Nebril are pushing too far into the north. This terrible coldness is a bad sign indeed." Lovis shook his head sadly.

  The Varsak were coming. So Ashel had been right after all. I still didn't want to believe it.

  "Something must be done. A Nebril can only be killed by burning, beheading or the literal cutting in half of the body, something that cannot be recovered from. The Varsak will figure this out very quickly and the slaughter will be brutal. If that many are killed at once, the black bei will overload the atmosphere. It will block out the sun's rays and we will not survive it. Or very few of us at any rate. And definitely not the Lumeai."

  Darkness seemed to cloud his features at that moment, though as I looked around, the other Lumeai appeared to be growing dimmer as well. I assumed it was in response to the rising sun. The green glow had diminished to a barely perceptible phenomenon, rendering the village with a much less supernatural feeling than it had exuded upon our arrival. The sun seekers began to look less like magical beings and more like bald, naked children, whose green hue allowed them to blend into the surrounding bushes. Maybe it had all been a dream and I was about to wake up in time to go to my wedding.

  I looked down upon my village, the place where I had grown up, the only home I had ever known. The valley was awash in soft yellow as the tip of the sun peeked over the mountain. The sun seekers would have been barely noticeable now, if they had stayed still. However, as the warm rays draped across their faces, they turned toward the sun and swayed in mesmerized bliss. I was envious of their expression of happiness and wished I could stay on this mountain forever, in the safe embrace of the green light.

  However, I could not. I had two choices: one undesirable, one terrifying. I thought of Callum and a life of safety amongst family and friends, and yet incredible unfulfillment. Or I could follow my desire, the yearning that I had been experiencing my entire life. I thought of the man on the hill and the possibility of seeing him again, unhindered by the constraints of my village, my parents, and Callum. But what had happened to him that day, after they dragged him away? Darlus had said that some of the Natki had disappeared. What if we couldn't find each other? What if he...

  "Lovis, if my bei clu va were to die, you say that I would know it, right?" I asked tentatively. "That I would feel it somehow?"

  "Oooh yes, yes, you would definitely feel it my dear. It would come like a rush, as the other half of your soul flooded your body. It's an incredibly overwhelming feeling, or so I am told."

  "So, you're saying if that were to happen, I would be normal, like everyone else?" It was a prospect that I couldn't even imagine.

  "Not only normal," Lovis said with a smile, "but extraordinary; you would become a very powerful being." He stopped momentarily, as if to add emphasis with his pause. "Yes, my darling, a very powerful being indeed. You see the bei that lives inside a bei clu must compensate for the fact that there is so little of it. Over the years it works hard and becomes stronger, more resilient. So once the two halves rejoin, either in one body, or by the physical closeness of two bei clu va, they are extremely powerful. It's quite an amazing thing to behold."

  Jalya pondered on this for a moment. "So, if we found him and......killed him.....then Emerin would have her whole soul. Then she would be all powerful and be able to take on the Nebril and all the blackness herself." She smiled mischievously, as if swapping a life for almighty power meant nothing. It was just another thing we'd do in between breakfast and mending our stockings. I glared at her, but, as usual, she didn't notice.

  "Yes.....yes," Jalya continued, malevolently, "that would be much more efficient than having to drag some guy around, I mean, unless he was good looking of course, then it might be worthwhile....or a good hunter, that might be helpful too.....hmm....but on the other hand, Emerin having all this amazing power, now that would be fantastic!"

  I shook my head and stared at her incredulously. She made me sound like one of the superheroes that we read about in our children's books, a superhero with a crazy, sadistic sidekick that never knew when to stop talking.

  Lovis didn't seem fazed by Jalya's murderous plot; he only smiled at her gently and petted her hair. "Oh, but my dear, one simply cannot kill their bei clu va; it is physically possible, yet not emotionally. There is too much attachment, too much feeling for the one that holds the other half of your soul. You would be much more likely to fall in love with him, than to kill him."

  "Does that often happen, that they fall in love?" I asked.

  "I have never seen it not."

  "Oh," I said softly and thought about that for a moment. All of my life I had known that my inevitable marriage would not be one of love, or at the very least it would not start out that way. However, I had always dreamed of a life with someone whom I was drawn to, someone I was with because I wanted to be with him, someone who I could not keep myself away from because of the love in our hearts, someone who I lived for and would die for. Instead I was told that I would have to force love into my heart for someone who the church elders deemed to be a good match. So, as the years passed, I learned to stuff down my instinctual yearnings and accept practicality. However, now, with this knowledge, all of my romantic childhood notions flooded back to me in an instant. Maybe that kind of love was within my reach after all.

  As if to answer my thoughts, or perhaps just to mock them, the church bell started ringing at that very moment. It was loud, even at our high elevation, and the crisp chimes resonated off the rocks and brought all movement in the Lumeai village to a standstill. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I watched forty some round glowing heads turn toward the sound. My fate, my horrible destiny, from which I hid on this mountaintop, was finally happening, and I couldn't help but think of the disappointment I would be causing this morning.

  If I ran down the side of the mountain now, could I still make it on time? Huffing and puffing and sweating and still in my nightgown,
but maybe only a few minutes late. My parents would see me and be angry at my antics as usual, but they would be relieved because at least I would be there. I squirmed in my seat as I wrestled with the decision that I had only a split second to make. Could I leave it all behind? Yet could I actually stay?

  I turned and looked down at Carper's Village with an aching heart. I watched as people emerged from their houses into the soft sun's rays--men, women, and children walking along the pathways, condensation curling out from their mouths as they breathed into the cold morning air. How many times had I done this myself, Sunday after Sunday responding to that bell, the noise that insisted that I drag myself to a church that would ultimately plan out my life for me? I wondered if the sun seekers watched us every week, as they did now, quietly observing as we diligently answered its incessant reverberations. I looked at Jalya and saw that she too was watching the townsfolk, our families and friends, as they joyously strolled toward an event that would never happen.

  Everyone was so small that I shouldn't have been able to see them, but, for some reason, perhaps due to the green luminescence, my vision was exceptionally clear. I was sure that I could make out Josal the baker, and Pedrie the blacksmith, and Marrack and Sheem, my father's farmhand apprentices. Marrack was so attractive that Jalya had run to my house every day after breakfast last summer just for the chance to talk to him before they set out for the fields. I took one last look at him now in his Sunday suit and wondered who the elders had lined up to marry him. Maybe it would be one of the girls from school that I now saw coming through the sholberry bushes in a boisterous group. They laughed amongst themselves in a carefree manner while trying not to drag their beautiful Sunday dresses through the squashed berries that littered the pathway. I saw Salare, who was uncharacteristically alone, sitting quietly on the church steps, looking sadly at her shoes. Could I really leave them all?

  And then I saw Callum, standing next to the church, trapped in conversation with Mrs. Grell. Even though I couldn't see his face, I knew he was wearing his smug, look-what-a-nice-guy-I-am expression, flashing a big smile under his crooked nose. My sadness evaporated into irritation, and I found myself wishing my arm was long enough to slap the look off his face. How could I even think about going back to that? I had almost worked myself up into enough aggravation to feel better about my decision, when I saw them.

  My parents appeared in a painful instant and walked quickly out of the sholberry bushes and straight up to Reverend Grell. I knew what they must be saying and after a moment of intense gesturing, Reverend Grell looked around the church yard as if he had magical vision and that somehow he would find me when my parents could not. My chest ached as I looked at my mother and imagined the panic on her face. She was holding something close to her face, a handkerchief perhaps. Had she been crying? Of course she had. How could I leave her? It was too much for me to bear and I looked away and lost myself in the lines of my hands--my right one with the soul, and my left one, empty. How could I stay?

  I took a deep, shuddering breath and lifted my head to face the Lumeai. All forty some pairs of sad violet eyes had left the scene in Carper's Village and were staring at me with anticipation. I smiled at them as bravely as I could and hoped my voice wouldn't tremble when I spoke.

  "So..." I said slowly, choosing my words carefully lest one of them cause me to explode into tears. "...just how do we get to this Malhadron Mountain that you speak of?"