Into the Raging Mountains Read online

  Reaching the family farm doorway, they fled to the openness of the farm yard. Dark had fallen. Of course no lights were on. No one was home except them. Us and the animals in the barn. And the animal that pursued.

  Because of the staff’s power, the two of them could have survived simply by not moving, cloaked in the provided cover. Two, but not three. By his very nature, Baby made outwaiting the monster impossible. Action had to be taken or they were doomed to a torturous and devastating attack that would only end in their deaths. How far could they flee without discovery? There was no end but death down that path.

  Do we sacrifice him? Put him down? Walk away? He knew Alizarin would not. Ilion was not all that surprised, then, when Alizarin let go of his hand. There was a warm smile directed at him on her face as it materialized.

  *

  He might survive even if I don’t, she thought. She was alone in the courtyard. Alone with Baby. The creature that was and was not Theress saw her instantly.

  Emerging from the doorway, strutting in its flush of victory, the beast came on, confident in its power. A hole still opened its chest to the air, still slowed the bird-thing in its path of destruction, but the damage was not enough. The wounded side was covered protectively by the claws and drifts of pitch.

  “Silly thing, you are nothing to me. I would have spared you.” With a nod and a cynical chuckle, Theress admitted, “Well, probably not. But it sounded grand, didn’t it?” Eying her, evaluating, choosing her attack, the thing continued its banter. “You are marked for death, little worm. There is no arguing when you have been claimed for the sacrifice.”

  Nodding again, just once toward the sleeping infant, “I will make you this one time offer. Put the baby down and come quietly to your end and I will not eat the puny thing. I already passed up the plump package once in Gretsel’s room. I will simply find a nice farmer and leave it on his doorstep. Baby will live. You will die. Life goes on.”

  The Theress-thing came on, circling closer and closing, no doubt showing in the aggressiveness of its glare.

  With a calm she did not feel, Alizarin put down the sack of traveling supplies, easing them onto the ground. She did not release drowsy Baby. Squaring her shoulders, the baker replied honestly to the monster’s invitation, “I am no fool, Theress,” she said. “I know what you are. There is no honor amongst such as you. Baby stays safest with me. If I fall, you will do what you want with him anyway. At the least, I know you for what you are and will fight with all I have for my life.”

  Surprise flickered on the face of the night beast, “But, you misunderstand, Alizarin. We do not mean to kill you.” As the bird thing spoke echoes of blackness fell from its lips like sparking ashes from a bonfire. Alizarin felt lost and found at the same moment. With a rasp and a cackle, it continued, “No, we do not mean to kill you. Only that you must die this nightfall. It must be of your own hand and it must be an offering in sacrifice to the Void. I am only here to help you open the hole.”

  Alizarin’s mind tried to absorb the dark words.

  The thing continued, “Why would I harm you? You are nothing to me. I could have killed you in your sleep all this last moon. No, that is not the path. Pathetic human, you are just a dying ember.” Alizarin stopped listening, full of the lies. Theress whispered in the nightfallen farmyard, “Your life is nothing, unless you choose the path of glory and give yourself to the Dark. Then, we will be twined, you and I.”

  Holding Baby securely against her chest, comforted even in this moment by his warmth and soft breathing, Alizarin replied, “Your words are chameleons, Theress, ever changing. First you would kill, then you would not. If I am nothing, then why bother to talk to me at all? Why even make the offer? My mother died fighting you; I will do no less.” Holding her clenched hand in front of her, Alizarin felt for a moment Trellista’s courage in her veins. She continued, “Why don’t you flee now? The danger here is yours. As soon as I open my hand you are my captive again, and we will not make the same mistake. This time we will make certain of your death.”

  “If you wish to flee and heal, I won’t begrudge you that, because unlike you, I am not a butcher. Know though, that you can come no closer to me without me opening my palm. You don’t want that do you? Captivity doesn’t suit a beast such as yourself. Go report to your master, the Void, or whomever you will. Just leave us be!”

  Alizarin wished there was some path to safety, some way out of this mess. The only option she saw was the yellow light, which stopped but did not injure the creature. Without incapacitating the beast with deadly force, there was no way for her to safely get away. The baker had already killed to protect her lost friend. Not for one moment would she falter if that meant saving Baby from this fate.

  Theress had stopped moving, stopped speaking for a moment. Eyes of pooled black just looked at her, evaluating the options. Then softly, reassuringly, the bird-thing spoke in a sinuous whisper, “Alizarin, do you not know yourself? Can it be? Has no one revealed to you your greater path? The glory that awaits? Oh, that is rich. You hear you are special from me, your hunter? Very rich, indeed.”

  Her troubled expression was all the confirmation Theress needed. “Did your mother not tell you what she was, then? Ahhhhh … in the darkness of ignorance you have been abandoned.” The creature’s voice filled with a dark glee.

  “Well, that is not my doing. Perhaps you should have asked her. That is not for me to say. I know what you are now, even if you don’t. I offer you the option to save the child one last time before I strike. Put him down. Release him and come with me to the blackened altar.”

  Alizarin stood, protectively holding Baby’s still slumbering form, defiant. “Riddles, riddles, and more vague tauntings. Then, let us end this, Chimera!” Opening her palm, yellow light pouring forth, glowing strongly in the yard, glimmering against the dark of nightfall and of nightmares.

  The Theress-cloaked bird was instantly captured. She stood immobilized yet ever-goading, insinuating, misleading in her posture, in her silence as the monster had been with its cutting words.

  Alizarin opened her mouth to beckon Ilion closer, to discuss what she should do, what they would do. No words ever escaped her tongue. As she began to speak, blackness welled up from the very ground behind her. She did not feel its coming. She did not see it rise, nor its inevitable descent. As it fell it covered her head in a flowing scarf of darkness and took her breath, instantly quenching the yellow gem’s light.

  She fell on the ground, as immobilized as she had hoped Theress would be. Alizarin was still able to hear and see, but not to speak, nor to move. Terrified, still holding Baby, she lay bound, helpless. Ilion could do nothing, she knew. Baby began to cry.

  Abruptly, Baby’s wail was answered by the nuzzling of a small gray donkey, whose tongue licked the crying face, exhaling warm, hay-smelling breath. Alizarin was not wearing her mother’s cloak, so she could not see or hear the true words of destruction that came from the muzzle of the creature. She was only grateful as the hooves delicately, deliberately stepped over her prone body that the beast did not kill the infant. Not of enough importance or need, she supposed.

  The conversation she heard take place between the small beast of burden and the merchant farmer’s stern wife was utterly mundane and completely useless in terms of information. They spoke in whispers, neighs and spurts of laughter, while she lay almost comatose. All starlight faded in their presence. Alizarin was alone with death.

  Run Ver, run! Do not stay, do not die for this! Those words were never spoken but she said them fiercely in her heartfire, hoping he would not die with her wasted life. She swam in a lake of regret. She did not know how much of nightfall passed.

  The yellow topaz lay somewhere on the ground near her, out of reach, with the cloak. Without its light, she could not break the grasp of the pitch-black scarf that cloaked her and smothered her breath and power. As they had just learned in the farmhouse, Ver alone could not fight just one monster, let alone the two that now conver
sed in the yard. Our defense is pitiable. Only the manner of our death remains to be decided.

  Baby’s coos could be heard intermittently although his underclothes were beginning to ripen the breeze. Happy that he was still unharmed, Alizarin was unable to comfort him or to do anything else. Would Ver be able to save her? After all, what could he do?

  Baby’s very presence rooted them to this spot and would be their inevitable defeat if something or someone did not intervene. Perhaps I am just too soft hearted. It’s not like the child is mine. Yet, I could not leave him to such depravity.

  Suddenly, rough, capable, invisible hands grabbed her arms, hauling her upright. Forcefully removing the infant from her arm, leaving him who knew where, her body moved like a puppet, directed by the will of another. Whatever has me, it isn’t Ver! Away from the fallen stone, away from the abandoned and chilled child, away from any safety that might be found, her feet went plodding. She screamed with frustration in the corner of her rational mind. Alizarin could only observe the passing grounds as her body walked docilely around the side and then past the back of the barn.

  Beyond to the backhouse, the slaughter shed, her obedient muscles moved her, taking her to a location that would not, could not be a good place.

  The blood of meals past had run down the chopping block that stood to the side of the empty room. Farm animals led to their planned end, to become food for another in a never-ending cycle of reproduction and consumption. The stunning blow always came first, then the cut.

  Alizarin saw then how it would all end. She couldn’t even cry out against her own murder.

  Theress stood impassive, completely in control while sturdy, sweet, simple Samton knelt by the side of the opened doorway, casually, almost accidentally, observing the blood ritual.

  Directing her body with explicit verbal commands, arming her unresponsive hands with a small kitchen knife, Theress forced her to move to the short butcher’s block, and kneel. Seeing the terror in her eyes, knowing the victory and completion of task, Theress could not help but gloat a bit.

  “Ah, little fool. How easily you were distracted. A few grand allusions here and there and you cannot wait to be someone important in this shabby world. As if you were a hidden Somebody, as if you mattered. The sheer vanity of mortals!”

  Taking that classic moment to lord a victory over ones foes, the Theress-cloaked beast continued in its self-satisfied speech, “This has all been carefully planned. This is all the way of the Darkened Path. You never could have escaped it. Did you really think it just happenstance that Rethendrel’s cart broke down in front of your mother’s bakery that sunfall two cycles ago? Did you think that we did not slowly cultivate your trust, building your knowledge, bonding your friendship with him? Until you blithely offered yourself as a birthfriend and walked to our doorway. Not unlike a rabbit in a simple, inescapable trap. You came innocently, obviously oblivious.”

  Shaking her head with mock disappointment, the beast said, “Your mother really should have prepared you better, chit.” Her death-knell explanation concluded, Theress narrowed her eyes, watching Alizarin as she was forced to kneel.

  “Take the knife now,” came her directing voice, pitiless. “Glide it across your throat. Once, twice.” Waiting for her commands to be fulfilled, then she said, “Good. Now, go to the Void by your own hand, as it should be! Harder, swifter, cut deeply. End it all.”

  Alizarin despaired as her own fingers gripped, her own knuckles held, her own hand lifted the knife and ran it lightly biting, a practice run, over her exposed throat. Head sideways, laying on the wooden bench, her eyes watched all. She fought a futile fight. The beast’s dominance over her will and actions was mesmerizing and completely unbreakable. Alizarin was unable to stop her own body from inflicting a death blow on her exposed veins, pulsing full with bright-blue blood. Welling already from the first two tracings of the knife, she felt the rivulets traveling down her throat.

  “You will not do this!” A new voice was heard. Rethendrel.

  Just hearing the instruction alone was enough to instantly countermand the physical spell compelling her. She could not move. She was not released from her kneeling position. But Alizarin’s hands stopped moving against her own volition. Stopped just a breath and a flick away from the final offering. Who am I to be saved, again, a moment away from death? Thoughts gathered in her head, pumped full of vigor from the stress of the command averted.

  “Why do you do this to me, to us?” came his voice, pleading.

  “You know the offering must be made!” came her answer, cold and practical.

  “Yes, but I have been to Gretsel’s room.”

  Silence followed, stretching on for several breaths.

  Finally, with a sigh, the reply, “She was not the necessary one.”

  “Only one, you said. Only one would have to die for our covenant to be fulfilled. You cannot then claim her now, for she is the second. And, you have chosen my sister, against all agreement.” Straightening his shoulders, he spoke with a modicum of authority and confidence. “If you do this, our bargain is ended.”

  “It may end, but it will end at a time of my choosing, not of yours.”

  “Why do you speak to me this way, Theress? You are my beloved and promised to me. We are partners in this farm, in this family, in this enterprise, in this life and beyond. That’s what you promised me.”

  There was a heavy silence. Then Alizarin heard the abrupt words:

  “Things change, Rethendrel. They change.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Freedom’s Dangerous Path

  Azure hated it.That’s all. She simply hated it. “This is not living. This is being held forever in a tiny jail. No comforts, no privacy, stuck like this! Might as well be a smashed bug on the counter, for all the fun I have anymore.

  “All the grownups creep around, looking over their shoulders. They are completely useless! Why can’t we go play? Why can’t we run in the fields and through the soft shades of tree and rock?” The pout was fierce this time; frustration at her captivity was intense and rapidly becoming focused on her parent’s refusal.

  Then, unfortunately for all within ear shot, the tantrum continued, “Pleeeeeeassse, Mommmmmmmaaaaaaa!” A bit of a wail and a cry, anger and sorrow jockeying for display, for maximum effectiveness. “I promise we will be good! We will not fight! And we will stay in plain sight! You can see the whole field from the schoolhouse. Please!” Her head lowered in stubborn resistance, unwilling to accept the restriction of caution imposed on her play. “It’s perfectly safe, Momma!”

  Tatanya sighed, choosing to ignore the display of tears and fireworks. It is one thing to understand the frustration of a child and quite another to give into the tantrum.

  “It’s all I want. I promise I will be good. I will stay right there in the field, right where you can see me. Laylada will be there too and all my friends. Please!”

  Clearly, Azure had been gnawing at that particular bone for quite awhile. The wear was beginning to show on Tatanya’s normally serene expression. A tiny scowl began to cross her brow at the running litany of constant haranguing. Azure opened her mouth to begin asking again, pushing at her mother’s tired will, when there was a scream from just outside.

  Running into the makeshift tent where Tatanya labored to peel onions and chop celery for the stock already boiling away, the twins barreled in: complete chaos. No words could be distinguished in any comprehensible way, more of a running commentary on the wrongs that were inflicted upon them.

  “He pulled my shirt and I said—”

  “He took my toy! It’s my toy, Momma, mine!”

  “You can’t have it. Momma gave it to me!”

  “But I want it! It’s my wolf!”

  “No! It’s mine!”

  It was all accompanied with growls for emphasis and swinging hands, pushing and grabbing. Soon, rolling on the ground in a tussle, one child indistinguishable from the other, there was no understanding the argument. After all,
rarely is logic involved when small children fight. Their sense of injustice flamed on each face, beyond all reason.

  Wading into the noisome clash, a mother’s hands parted the squabble, and after much soft speaking and cajoling managed to get to the bottom of the divisive conflict. Talking low, holding each boy on her seated lap, Tatanya calmed the raging storm in each child’s heart, until they were grumpy but manageable. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to her, she said, “Hey, we haven’t made dragon dough in a while, have we?”

  Each boy immediately, attention caught, answered, “No, we haven’t!”

  “Well, today is the perfect day for it, don’t you think?”

  Smiles transformed faces, and small, willing hands sought to help. Flour flew, and spilled on the ground, as they thickened it with water and salt. Almost instantly, a large lump of heavy dough was on the makeshift table. Tatanya added a small bit of beet-juice color to half the dough. It turned a slightly pink tone. She divided it again, and added two drops of yellow distilled from dried flower petals, and the boys had white, pink, yellow, and orange clay to play with.

  Rolling against the table with fat little hands, snakes and worms of many different hues began to emerge. Tatanya used the piles of playing clay to show excited children how to make simple animals and shapes. Daylight passed quickly with all of their focus and delight, passed on happily, full of love and the joy of creation.

  Remembering in a moment of quiet, Tatanya looked around for Azure, to let her play and laugh with the whole family. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Relaxation and bubbling joy soured in Tatanya’s heart, dampened by worry.

  “Azure?” She was not under the unstable table. “Azure?” She was not behind the chest of clothes, packed with their necessities.

  Both boys looked up from their clay playing, puzzled.

  “Azure?” Surely, she was just outside?

  Walking out of the tiny tent, Tatanya went calling, “Azure? Azure? Where are you?” Taking a deep breath, her voice pitched almost to a scream, “Azure!?” Tatanya stood in front of her family’s temporary abode, crying out her daughter’s name, in the midst of the village square.