Chapter 26 – Sea and Stone

I lost track of time. With the world sullen under the grey-swathed sky, I could no longer tell night from day. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of Olte’s pale orb between the tree boughs, tracing a slow arc across the sky, but I could never manage to connect the sight with the idea of day. We stopped hardly at all, just to sleep and eat – and sometimes not even that. Yatol had been almost mute since we left the burning hut, even quieter than usual. The old Yatol seemed like a regular chatterbox by comparison. After a while I gave up trying to talk to him. I had a hard enough time conjuring up words to say anyway. Even Akhmar’s pace seemed to slow as we went. Maybe it was my exhausted eyes, but after a while I thought the radiance of his coat had begun to fade. I hoped it was only an illusion.

We left the Branhau and came to the hills. It felt colder here, and the grass clung like tenacious weeds to sandy soil. Desolate. Then it too passed away beneath us. We rode between mountains and over meadows, all grey, all dead. A constant thirst abraded my throat, but I hardly drank from my waterskin. Food was even worse. We had gone through the supplies Ingaea gave us in a few meals, and then all we had was the dried stuff from Syarat’s camp. Tasteless and unsatisfying. It certainly did nothing to bolster our energy. Dust. It was all dust, everything.

At last we came to the top of a tall plateau, and I felt Akhmar draw to a stop. Yatol slid down, and after a moment I practically fell off Akhmar’s back. I didn’t know why we had stopped. I was just happy to be on solid ground.

“Merelin,” Yatol said, beckoning me.

Okay, I was even happier to hear his voice.

I followed him, while Akhmar trailed behind, silent. Just ahead, gleaming vaguely in the spectral light, I glimpsed a few thin, tall structures of stone, like shards of bone. Ruins.

“I’ve read of this fortress,” Yatol said. “Last outpost before the Laoth. It was called Lathelin.”

The sound of stones under my feet was strange, even stranger the way it echoed in the emptiness. Rock crumbled from the massive pillars, and failing arches spanned over our heads. A broad ledge spread beyond the columns, and Yatol and I walked out onto it to gaze over the edge of the plateau. Below I glimpsed another brace of broken pillars angling out along a wider ledge before vanishing into a strange, green-tinged darkness.

A solemn, surreal stillness hung tangibly over us. The air smelled of salt and clay. I felt the chill wind, heard it scattering chips of stone across the ledges. Saw the sad facade of some ancient building behind me, a glimpse of faint light roiling far below. Touched a column, a piece of stone crumbling beneath my fingers. There was no peace here, but it felt like a sanctuary. I had the word rolling around my thoughts when Yatol spoke again.

“Lathelin was once a sanctuary for scouts and travelers. It was as close as anyone dared come to K’hama. They kept a vigil on these heights, but had neither strength nor arms to defend themselves when the Ungulion came. This was the first place laid waste, ages ago before the Ungulion began their true assault on our lands. It was a great hall, once, and now it has all but disappeared.”

“The whole place feels sad,” I murmured. I lifted my face to the wind, but it was harsh and unforgiving. “Like a monument to someone who died, but who no one remembers. It’s just…all alone, out here in the middle of this emptiness.” I glanced at my hand, chalky from the stone. “I hate it.”

Yatol said nothing, just stood gazing out over the emptiness below. I turned to find Akhmar and drew up in horror.

“Yatol! That light!”

Yatol spun around, staring toward the hills we had just left. A low light gleamed on the horizon, copper-gold against the tarry sky. It was faint, a mere streak of color that backlit the hills. Yatol’s face went white with fury, then he dropped to his knees in anguish.

“Why would he burn it?”

“Who is burning what? Is it him? Is he still following us?”

“Who else could it be?” Yatol said bitterly.

“No time,” Akhmar said, coming alongside me. “We must keep on.”

Yatol sprang to his feet and jerked away, pacing three long strides and back again with his hands knotted in fists. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to console him, but how could I? It was my fault the Branhau burned.

I turned away to avoid seeing his face, and Akhmar lowered himself to help me get astride. Finally Yatol sprang up behind me.

“Let’s finish what they started,” he said in my ear, voice dangerously low.

I shuddered.

Akhmar turned to follow the edge of the plateau. I couldn’t look back at the streak of fire, or the skeletal remains of Lathelin. I watched the ground beneath Akhmar’s paws. It was all the same under the heavy shadows – barren, cold, grey. If Akhmar hadn’t been carrying us, I would have laid down. Just laid down, nothing more. Even with Yatol’s fury spurring us, I couldn’t summon the desire to go on.

Akhmar pitched forward, lurching down the slope to the base of the bluffs. Then he slowed a step as the land changed abruptly. The rough and chalky ground vanished, giving way to a dark green surface, almost glassy but far from beautiful. In the darkness I couldn’t figure out what it was. Behind us, I couldn’t see anything but the base of the plateau cast in greenish hues. The wind swished sluggishly in the night, carrying a bitter smell.

I wondered if Yatol sensed the change. I glanced back at him, but his eyes were downcast. Maybe he was still gripped by that blind rage, oblivious to everything else.

My gaze drooped, lost in the semi-opaque mounds and dells.

“Yatol, are you awake?” I murmured into the gloom.

Odd. I couldn’t even hear the wind anymore. The strange ground slipped away dizzily, but only silence surrounded us.

“Can you hear me? Where are we?”

His hand loosened on my waist, just barely, then dropped away as if he had fallen asleep. Presently the hills began to shine with a slight translucence, sickly green. They seemed to be moving against the pace of Akhmar’s paws, rolling in their own rhythm. Noisome. Hypnotic. I leaned as far as I could to the side and reached down. My fingers looked thin, bone-white. Then they disappeared, from the tips to the knuckles, up to the wrists, lost in clinging viridian light. Cold.

The ground rose, opening to receive me. It swallowed my back and oozed over my arms, bathed my hair and slipped down over my brow. I opened my mouth to scream, but it streamed over my lips and I tasted brine. I sank slowly…numb. So cold. Akhmar’s radiance blurred, brown through the filtering green, receding…

Couldn’t move…couldn’t struggle…

Someone grabbed me. A painful grip on my wrist, jerking my shoulder. Then I was lying on Akhmar’s mane, my arms dangling limp around his neck. My muscles were still frozen, but some strange heat seeped from Akhmar, banishing the frigid chill. I felt Yatol’s cloak draped over me, warmer than I had imagined. I racked my chest with coughing, spat to banish the bitter taste in my mouth. Tried to push myself up but slumped backwards. Yatol caught me and cradled me like Damian always did, like Father always had.

“Not long now,” he murmured, brushing the sodden hair from my face. “We’re almost there.”

My heart ached hearing his voice so lost and dreamlike. I tilted my head back to stare at the dark sky, and caught my breath. Millions of stars shone down on us, scattering beloved light on the little world below.

“Look, Yatol,” I said suddenly, finding my voice in my surprise. “Look at the stars. It’s night.”

Days or hours passed. I began to despair of ever seeing land again. Rocky pillars like icebergs jutted from the sea, a mockery of land that only fueled my discouragement. Even the stars no longer impressed me – the sky seemed bare and empty, void without the light of Mekaema. I tried to ask Akhmar about the voyage, about my purpose and Pyelthan’s, but my voice died on the thick air even as it left my lips. For a while I was content with my failure, then I tried again, louder.

“Akhmar, I need help.”

I thought that would be enough, but nothing happened. I sighed and pressed on.

“What am I supposed to do? We’re almost there and I still don’t know anything. Can’t you tell me anything at all? Did they really bring my father here?”

Akhmar finally turned to gaze back at me, and his eyes were fire. His whole face seemed to flame with light.

“The day of doom is at hand. The judgment is come.”

That was all he would say. I glanced back at Yatol helplessly.

“Didn’t my father ever explain it to you? Wouldn’t he have told you about what he had to do, or what I would have to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if we can survive. If we can come to him alive.”

“I don’t care about that right now!” I cried, angry. “I want to know what he told you.”

“Nothing I understood at the time. He spoke of a war and a tempest – now I know he meant the siege of n’Talanthis and the drowning of Andenor. He said many years of peace followed, but we were foolish because we were never far from our ancient enemy. But what that has to do with him, and you and me, and Pyelthan…I don’t know.”

I ground my teeth. Secrets. Why did my dad have to keep secrets? Maybe he’d meant to tell Yatol more, but never had the chance. I thought about how my father had returned to Arah Byen empty-handed, having just left Pyelthan in Kurtis’s guardianship. He knew he was being pursued, that the Ungulion had nearly caught him. He returned here, knowing they would follow him. Knowing he would be too weak to defend himself, or to fight. And Yatol? Would he have been able to prevent their coming, even if he hadn’t left the portal? But it didn’t matter. They had captured my dad. And after the Gorhiem Bolstoed…had they killed him?

I choked back tears. No, of course they hadn’t. And what was more, I had done everything so far exactly as they wanted. Tracing each step they had prepared for me, as perfectly as if it had been choreographed. They were driving me, luring me, and had known all along that I would senselessly obey.

I took Pyelthan out of my pouch, rubbing it between my fingers. God, I hated it. As if a bit of metal could be worth more than the life of a man. How could my father have thought that? I stared down at the sickly sea. More than anything I wanted to throw the cursed thing into the heaving liquid. I clenched my hand, drew it back to my shoulder.

Yatol grabbed my hand. I crumpled in his grasp.

“Merelin!” he cried. “Have faith!”

“I hate it! It’s death…it’s all death! It stole my father from me and now it’s going to kill him too!”

“No! This thing is what has kept your father alive. It isn’t death for us, but life. You asked me to trust him. You said you would trust him!”

I fought for a moment against his grip on my hand, then finally shoved Pyelthan back into the pouch with a shuddering sigh. Yatol wrapped his arms around me, so strong and so vulnerable, comforting and seeking comfort. I felt his head resting against mine. Sleeping. Presently I felt myself drifting too, falling into dreams.

A fleet of ships on a churning, troubled sea. A man in a desert, setting crude wooden pegs into planks. An island city, white-walled, gleaming as the last rays of sun filtered through a bank of black cloud. Then the fleet appeared on the horizon, breasting unimaginable swells. Darkness swallowed the sky. The clouds unleashed their storm. The people of the gleaming city fled to the tower. And the earth shook.

It shook so violently that I jolted and woke. I caught my breath and steadied myself, taking a moment to regain my bearings. I stared at the sea. The water was shuddering, bouncing off the rocks in thick ripples. My heart plunged. It was going to swallow us. We would be drowned, like the ships. Like the island. But then the sea heaved back and oozed forward again, and we were bathed in green light.

“Hail, Farseer and Daughter of the Exiles! Akhmar, I bring word.”

Even Yatol flinched at the sight of the figure looming above us – green skin like beryl crystal, hair like seaweed streaming in liquid array around a turbulent face. At every moment he seemed ready to recede into the waves, and with his hands he held back the sea. I wondered how I could be so terrified of him, and at the same time so glad to see him. Some captivating power and radiant beauty just flowed from his wild appearance.

“Arwaya, hail!” Akhmar said.

“What word do you bring?” Yatol asked.

“The Ungulion encircle Alcalon,” he said. “They are yet several days from its walls, but they draw nearer with each hour. The Lord of K’hama hounds you yet, and has burned the Branhau to clear his way.”

I winced, more with regret than anxiety.

“Our army?” said Yatol.

“Driven back to the walls. They will likely retreat within, and try to withstand the siege.”

“No!” I cried, clenching my fists. “We’ll never make it now. We’re still in the middle of this…place. And once we get to land, we still have to walk without any help to the Citadel. And we don’t even know where it is.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“Take heart, daughter,” Arwaya told me gently. “Nothing is done to no purpose.”

“But Damian and Tyhlaur, and the others…what will become of them?”

“Take heart…”

His words drowned in the churning sea.

My hands shook. I felt so ill. If Yatol hadn’t been holding me, I would have fallen when Akhmar stirred again. The pace picked up, too dizzyingly fast. I closed my eyes, praying for an end. Maybe I slept. I don’t know how long. But slowly, through numbed senses, I felt Yatol shaking my shoulder, and I forced my eyes open.

Land.

It appeared fuzzy at first in the darkness, but soon I realized there was nothing to focus on. The whole place was grey and wretched, rocky slopes that had never seen the birth of a blade of grass. It was little better than a moonscape. Maybe worse. More terrifying and ominous – less empty but somehow more. Even from our distance I could feel the air seething with despair.

The slopes loomed larger, then Akhmar stopped so abruptly that it nearly threw me from his back.

“Here I must leave you.”

Somehow I had known he would say that. I flung my arms around his neck.

“Don’t go, Akhmar! How can we go on?”

“Take the straight road. You will find your way.”

His words didn’t console me. I wanted to cling to him and prevent him from going, but I knew there was nothing I could do that could hold him there. Even now I could feel him withdrawing. I bowed my head in resignation and shifted one leg over his neck to sit sideways. The cold of the sea seeped over me even from where I sat. I knew I couldn’t risk touching the water. I’d barely survived before. So I pushed myself away from Akhmar, leaping to the jut of land. As soon as my feet touched the stone, panic seized me.

“Akhmar!”

His eyes met mine, silent, needing no words. I shifted my gaze to Yatol still on his back, watching the sickly sea slip against the rocks, lost in thought. Tears stung my eyes.

Damian, I called in my mind, you have the gift. Call it open.

I turned my gaze back to Yatol, throat thick.

“Goodbye, Yatol,” I whispered. “Please, understand…”

To Akhmar, “Go.”

Yatol turned to me, stricken. His face was the last thing I saw before a blinding light fractured the murk, and then I was alone.