Part XIII: Toss and turn, slam and break
Dreams are cobwebs dusty old and susurrous.
Once curiosity and fear they inspired.
Darkness everywhere, Altar in the center an illuminating glow. It pulls my mind like gravity.
"Oez knows!"
I don't, but I will.
Step.
Bdud shk. Dook dook.
Sound of a footfall and echoes
Another step. Quieter this time.
Shk, shk
Sandy stone.
Fuf fuf
No doubting it this time those weren't echoes. There's someone here with me.
Step.
Whith ith thith
Ineffable whispers like spirals. Each step a speech.
A place for surrender here.
Step after step, the stranger knows. He sees.
Furors of whispers harmonize. Darkness glows and pulses a force all its own. Swirling vortexes bathe me, ichorous and bloody warm. Bone chilling.
Energies. I've known them before. Memories are pain, these beams are not the same as with Iksander but of the same principle they are made.
"Oez knows!"
Hand on the altar, rich cream color, of old bone it is made. Stained with blood, littered with gold, dim flames burn aside.
We've all come here, every one of us. Each one a treasure given. Bittersweet.
Ffuuf tthth uth.
I turn away from the altar.
The stranger robed in black. Quiet greeting. We know what's to be done he and I.
Awaken with tears and a start.
Hole-y mattress of the archives.
I've been mopey too long. It's time to leave.
***
Sky mother, earth child know.
"I'm going to miss you so much."
Tears and heavy breathing. Mother Sky pulls me close, earth child holds tight in a hug. Precious family, not in vein, never in vein.
Packed and ready Sky mother shows me a book. Scrap book a record of all the families that came before all the mothers she's taught and tended to, each child. Countless, so many and there we are at the very end. Photo of us all, Iksander had only just learned to walk, Earth child holds him on his lap, as I look over his shoulder serene, Mother Sky's head missing. Her head took the photo.
I smile. At least there will be more. More families more children, more mothers. Beautiful kamis.
Earth child approaches a wand held out, offering. I helped him make this, we carved it together. It's a rough job not elegant or pretty but effective, he was so proud of it.
"I couldn't, its yours."
"Dooo-ooop ooo ooo." Insistent.
I don't want to take it, I don't want him to forget me.
I take it fighting back tears. One more hug.
"This will be yours again one day I promise it brother child."
"Ooo!"
Turn and walk away don't look back. Be strong.
***
Csh shhh fsh!
Water? New water. A waterfall on the way to the wall. Eerie fog returns.
Head in the direction of the water.
Shallow pool with a small bonzai tree near it. Not a large or impressive waterfall, far more beautiful wonders in my homeland. Steady little creak and small tributaries. This water vain is young.
Crk sbk aak
Spitter spatter of water on rock.
Then I see it.
Breathing stops, world spins in my head.
Impossible.
Dagger.
Her dagger.
Ves.
Wet stained rock but above the pool it is. Near the bonzai.
I approach slow and grab it. Below the pool I think I see an eye.
Look again.
Ripples play tricks, just a rock.
"Ves!" I look around.
It's a hopeless endeavor I know, but I don't want to believe. Gone she was. Now close she feels.
"Ves!" I run and look.
Search and search.
Ominous and watched. Something has changed. Laws are altered again. Familiar but outdated.
This dagger is not chance, belong to me it does. Alien and strange. An ally. A partner in crime.
***
The triangle is opposed now. No matter how far I walk always at the center I am.
Moving with me it is.
It senses my treachery.
I must get to the sigils, but how?
***
"I cannot go, but the lights will guide. Do not let them out of your sight." Words of the fae echo in my head. Best bargain I ever struck, even the wanderer might be jealous.
Fog is clever but water stars, those glimmering diamonds above speak truth. Patterns, but only up high.
Abandoned the soil I have. The paths and ruins are chaotic and fickle with uncertainties. It is a dangerous path but the walls grow closer. The sigils burn in the mind I will be there soon. Cannot stop though the walls have many ways and are always set upon me.
***
At the sigils I stand.
Anchored myself to this place by ancient rites and song. Walls protest but submit they must.
I'm going through here today.
It feels heavy.
"Fates and laws but by the blood many things are possible. The cost is high a bridge stays but a snake circles. Remember this and all may not perish."
The words of the fae in my head. I do not know how Iksander left. I don't need to I'm going to cheat.
A knife. A cut. Blood.
Smeared against the wall, and then…
Nothing.
Too simple, I had hoped, but no fool this wall is. No matter, the blood is the key, Iksander's blood, my blood. Of this I am certain, I will leave here and soon.
***
Blood laws. Dangerous weaves, forbidden weaves in many places. The practice is old, I never played it much, seemed unnecessary and risky more oft than not. I knew my trade salves and binds as well as any other, every so often a nip, a prick, or slick was necessary.
Never like this though sigils like snares. Wolves paws.
Gnaw, gnaw.
Yelp and scrabble, hobble and drain. Vicious slow way to die.
I heard tales of such from the shepherds and herders of the south. Always made me queasy. I feel like those poor wolves.
Forearms like totems, carved and etched.
The three sigils on the wall on one forearm, Iksander's name on the other plus a dozen other runes and symbols, triangles, circles, the number three etc. etc.
Blood loss gruesome to behold but not at grave levels yet.
Many a song verse even a potion or two have I attempted. Nothing but a messy canvas to show.
Spatter, splash, streak, and smear.
Red on black and still stubborn closed. Laws are not amused by cheats and thieves, but I will break them.
Arms wrapped with cloth grow dark with saturation. Hands are shaky, its getting dark rain I smell. Haven't looked back since I left. Walls would bring me back with ease if I but gave myself to their tyranny. Miss the hearth and comfort of Mother Sky and Earth Child.
Sit and rest, think again.
So tired...
Aches where I've etched. A tingle a burn on the skin.
I feel soiled and grimy, too much blood laws. Makes me feel sick in the pit of it all, here at the the center. I wrap my arms around myself and sit. I'm repulsed by it all.
Drift and drift…
***
Druuunggmmmm
I feel it as much as I hear it. Tangible and strained, thick and tense. Like electric vibration. A gate of vipers ready to strike it feels.
I don't want to open my eyes.
In sweet dreamless oblivion I have slept.
Now, cold and wet.
And something else, something I don't want to see.
Uhhhhyuz yzz!
Thrumming sound.
Slowly my lids roll open.
It looks the same. Except that opaque rustle of white on the wall.
Did it move?
Uhyuz yzz!
A glowing shine from the opaque and then a dim fade back into the wall. It's a body on the wall… no behind the wall.
Ggzz yzzz!
A guttural electric hum bristles with anticipatory impatience.
Push myself up and stand. Dizzy. Blood laws, blood loss.
Uzz nzz.
I know that sound.
Zzz fzt!
That voice!
Shaky drippy red hand to dark wall.
No sound.
White opacity stretches.
A hand pressed to my hand.
The stranger knows.
Walls rumble. A low growl.
White hand pushes wall stretches a human contour and I am knocked back.
Walls like laws do not break easy. Foolish and dangerous it was to tempt them thus. Had to know though, eager to touch it. To touch the stranger.
Stranger is wise.
Heart flutters.
I stand.
U-u-u zzt
A stuttering exertion from the stranger.
Uzz! Uzz! Uzz-zz-zz! Zz!
Elongated and modulated a bending of laws incredible to behold. As if titanium to malleable tin was made.
"Oez!"
Barely recognizable warped beyond human speech, sonorous. A remonstration of will against law and wall.
I know.
Walls bend.
Thrrrrr Uuunng!
A reverberating anger.
Hand on dagger gripped. The stranger waits, other side of the wall. I approach and stop short. Reaching slow the dagger high.
Everything is imploding walls sense the violation.
Fast I must be, and yet precise and careful.
A bridge must stay, if careless I am though…
A stinging sharpness on my neck as I carve again. Sightless hands must cut the sigil, the Eye. The I.
Whb! whb! whb!
Sound of my heart, a thundering race of fear and flurry.
But hands are steady.
It will eat me. Deformed and twisted, strange smattering of color and now teeth, teeth as big as houses. Walls no more except for the gate, sigils do not fade. A true nature I do not understand all around.
It is done.
Knife drop.
A scrabble to grab the wand and raise it. Aimed at the center of the serpent.
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