Part Seventeen
A Witch of White Mountain
It didn’t take long for the Boy to catch up with Enin. For a time the two rode beside one another in silence. Most of the refugees abandoned the road and started collecting in camps along the side of it. Some even began to pitch tents and settle down as the sky grew black.
The Boy gazed up at the starless sky as his paksi’s taloned feet crunched through the patches of dried grass that dotted the road.
As they approached the tree line, Enin spoke.
“That night was starless too,” he said.
“What night?” the Boy asked, his voice soft and tired.
“The night they burned my mother.”
The Boy’s eyes widened. He’d never known his own mother. They said she’d died giving birth to him and his father went soon after. Stabbed in prison. Saiku Lin was the closest thing he’d ever had to real family.
“Why would they do such a thing to her?”
“She was a witch of White Mountain.” said Enin.
“I’ve never heard of that place.”
“It no longer exists.”
“How?” asked the boy, “How can a mountain cease to be?”
“It happens slowly at first,” said the sorcerer. “The weather gets warmer. The storms come more frequently. Then over time the sea levels rise...little by little. After many many years it becomes more sudden. Floods, devastation. Whole cities wiped away from the world.”
“How old ARE you?”
“Older than any place or person you have ever read of in your history books,” said Enin.
“How do you know I liked to read?”
“Lin told me. That is why I requested you be the one. All of the other children in her...service were incurious. I needed someone I could...see myself in.”
“Why? All you needed me to do was drive a cart and move some barrels. That’s not exactly the work of a scholar.”
“I wanted someone I could talk to. At the end. I need to tell my story. Some of it at least. Tell it to someone with the capability to understand.”
“Why a child? If you want someone to talk to, there are plenty of adults who read.”
“But there are precious few who listen.”
They rode along in silence for a while until the boy said, “Tell me more about your mother.”
“Her name was Pavitra. Her hair and skin were as white as snow. Her eyes the color of amaranth. She taught me to ride the giant white elk which roamed the forest. Like her, they are long gone from this world.”
“Who burned her?”
“They came in boats, up the Bear River.”
“The Bear River?”
“It was a river, and many bears lived near it. Names were simpler in those days. We called things what they were. But that river is gone too. Lost in the floods that created what is now called the Bay of White Whales. The floods that drowned the White Mountain, and many other places.”
“So someone came up the river into your home in the mountains?”
“Yes. Black riverboats with red sails. Raiders from the south. They slaughtered our village in the night and set fire to our houses.”
“That’s terrible.”
“We were a village of maybe one hundred people. The raiders were twenty and seven. My mother fought against them with her spears and her wicked eye.”
“Wicked eye?”
“She could look at a man and send him to his doom. Many who faced her took their own lives. But on that day, she was captured and blindfolded before she could slay any of the marauders. With her strapped to a pyre in the center of the village, the rest of my people lost their strength, their will to fight.”
“What did you do?” asked the Boy.
“I hid. I was a child. Half as small as you are now. I couldn’t wield a spear or work spells. So I covered myself inside a broken old cart. I heard her scream out my name on that starless night when the only light came from the fire that burned my mother to death.”
“How did you survive?”
“The raiders took all of our animals and children. They murdered every man and woman. The cart in which I hid had two busted wheels. It was no use to anyone, so they ignored it. Into the night the screams rang out until finally all was silent. I stayed hidden, quietly weeping under a pile of sacks and tattered furs. When the sun finally rose, and my tears had run out, I dared to venture into the center of the village. There I saw my mother, burned beyond recognition, but I knew it was her. Painted on her charred remains was a mark, a handprint of red ochre. I saw the same red hand painted throughout the village.”
“Her killers left a message.” said the boy.
“They pillaged the countryside. My home was one of many destroyed by the Red Hand. I wandered along the river for days before coming to another village that had already been ravaged. Unlike my home, an entire family had survived the attack there. They took me into their home and fed me. I stayed with them for ten years as they rebuilt what the marauders had taken away.”
“So you found a new family?”
“I suppose I did. But I never truly felt at home. My caretakers were pleasant enough and kept me clothed and fed in exchange for my labor. But I never let go of the rage at the loss of my mother. One day I journeyed down the Bear River to sell some grain at the market in a larger town. At the boathouse I saw it.”
“A black riverboat with red sails?” asked the Boy.
“Indeed. I lost my head in that moment. I took the oar of my boat and found three men in black tunics with red handprints on the back, arguing with the keeper over the price to dock there. My face not my own, I brought the blade of the oar down. Three times I struck. Each blow split a man to the bone with wounds deep and neat.”
The boy looked at Enin with eyes the size of wagon wheels as the man concluded his tale.
“I fell to the dock crying my mother’s name. When I came back to my own mind, I found myself in a prison cell.”
Part Eighteen
The Wolf of the Woods
Tula strode confidently down the dark path. The canopy of branches blocked out the dim light of the burning city. Before long she could not even see the shapes of the trees that loomed around her.
Still, she continued one step at a time, trusting the path beneath her feet would continue to support her.
Step by step she plodded into the black night, her arms raised in front of her to prevent walking directly into a tree.
Unfortunately, this did not help when her foot caught on a protruding tree root.
Tula tumbled face first into the ground, landing hard on her arms, spraining one of her wrists.
“Stupid.” she whispered to herself, “Stumbling blind through pitch darkness and for what? Your pride?”
She sat in the dark for a long while, nursing her wrist. The hard ground grew cold. Tula began to sob uncontrollably.
“Why?” she asked no one. “Why is life like this? What kind of world is this where a man can take what he wants from me? From everyone? Take my heart? Demolish a city in an instant? Why is no one able to stop this? How can one man destroy everything so easily and callously?”
“Men are always like that.” said a voice resonating from within her chest.
“What?” Tula gasped.
“I said men are always like that. Doing what they want. Taking what they like.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Tula asked, “The little bird...the bird he put there. You spoke to me before. In the firestorm.”
“Yeah, it’s me. How many other talking birds do you know?”
“I-I..It’s just...how? How are you talking? How am I hearing you?”
“Look kid. I don’t understand it any better than you do. One minute I was sleeping in my nest. The next thing I know I’m stuck in a cage and my head is full of thoughts and words and...feelings.”
“When did this start?”
“Well, I woke up and little by little the words started to come to me. And the feelings...I think they’re your feelings.” said the Bird.
“Mine?”
“Yeah. I think I feel your feelings.”
“But what does-” the girl began, but stopped short as she saw a light within the wood.
A reddish glow flickered and moved in the distance between the trees. At first she thought it was fire, but it meandered and bobbed around the forest like a living thing.
Tula and the Bird stood in silent shock as the source of the light approached.
It loomed in the periphery of her vision, a shape that she could not quite perceive, as if her mind rejected it.
At first glance she mistook it for a mere beast, but its form was wrong—its limbs bent too many ways, its spine coiled unnaturally, and its silhouette never quite held steady.
It appeared to be wrapped in red, sinewy strands, like exposed muscle, but the texture was all wrong, pulsing and shifting as though it were woven from liquid hunger and old blood.
Where its head should be, there was only a vast, tooth-ringed maw, gaping and yawning like an open wound. No eyes, no snout, just a void lined with razor fangs, stretching far deeper than its form should allow.
“Does it see us?” asked the Bird.
The thing’s forequarter spun around toward Tula.
The thing twitched, lurched, and snapped forward in an unnatural way.
“I think it does now, thanks to you.” scolded the girl.
“No-no-nooo.” said the Bird. “No one can hear me but you! I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure this beast can hear you too.” said Tula, stepping away as far as she could, until her back pressed against a tree.
“I am no beast.” a voice leaked out of the maw, “I am hunger given form. I hunt without need. Without mercy.”
The red glow that surrounded the monster lit the forest path around Tula as the thing lunged for her.
It closed the distance between them in an instant. Tula flinched, but the thing did not strike. Instead, it stopped abruptly and tilted its neck, like a dog does when confused, except without a head the expression was terrifying.
Leaning close over Tula, drool oozing out of a gullet large enough to swallow her, the thing spoke “You...hollow child! I come to devour, but find the cupboard is bare!”
She shrunk away from the creature, eyes clamped shut. The bark of the tree, digging into her back as she cried, “No. Whatever you are, I don’t want this. Please. Stop.”
“I cannot stop.” seethed the voice from within the unholy thing. “I will not stop. I do not wish to stop.”
An appendage of meat poked its iron claw at the Bird.
“If I cannot eat your heart, I will eat this...morsel.”
The Bird fluttered in her chest, trapped against the metal bars.
In a flash the creature cut open the cage with its sharp talon. A wet tongue extruded from the maw, licking at the hole in Tula’s chest.
Tula felt the life pop out of her as the thing pulled the bird into its black hole of a mouth.
As her breath drained away, she spoke the only name she could think of.
“Kokaibel.”
Part Nineteen
A Light in the Forest
The Boy listened to Enin’s story of his youth. He’d never had a family to lose. Not that he could remember, anyway. All he’d ever known was the streets of Aurelia. Paol and Stik, and Saiku Lin were not particularly kind to him, but they taught him how to survive. He thought about Lin for a while. What had become of her in the burning city? She was a smart and resourceful woman, who controlled half of the crime in the city. Surely she would have managed to escape and find shelter. Perhaps when this was over he could return to Aurelia. Perhaps she would take him in once more. Assuming that the city still existed when this was over. Assuming the world did.
As the pair reached the point where the road met the forest, they saw the light of a bonfire burning off in the wood. A narrow footpath separate from the main road veered in the direction of the fire light.
“Looks as if someone is making camp there,” said the Boy.
Enin squinted his eyes in the direction of the glow. For a brief moment the Boy thought he saw an expression of recognition, perhaps even fear in the old man’s eyes.
“No.” said Enin, “It is...something else.”
“Should we investigate it? Someone may be in need of assistance.”
“Our path is this way,” said Enin as he continued along the main road. “We are to go through the forest and into the swamp to find the second pillar.”
“Second pillar?” asked the Boy. “What is that? Why are we seeking it?”
“There are four...or rather three pillars that keep the world intact. Without them, the great dark will swallow all.”
“And you wish to do away with them, then. Is that it?”
“Yes. That is my purpose. To end all things.”
“Why?” asked the boy.
“Why?” Enin repeated. “Why?” he said as if it were the silliest question in the world. “It is the only way.”
“The only way to do what?”
“The only way for me to die.”
“That can’t be true.” the Boy said. “Are you really that powerful? The only thing that can kill you is the end of all the world? Do you truly believe that?”
“It is not a matter of belief, child.” said Enin. “I am deathless. I made sure of it long ago. Deals were made. Tears were sold. Blood was spilled. I have watched mountains drown, and continents grow. I have seen history unfold time and time again. It always ends the same way. And I am sick of it.”
“Don’t we get any say in all of this?” the Boy rebuked him. “Don’t I get any say? I am part of this world. If you truly mean to end it all...just for your own sake, then you need to defend your reasoning better than ‘I am sick of it.’”
“I do not sound like that,” said Enin.
“That is what I said.” came a dreadful voice from the woods.
Enin spun around at the sound of that voice. That buzzing, whining, scratching voice.
“Shade!” spoke the sorcerer, “Show yourself!”
Kokaibel the cacodaemon slipped silently forward, his feet not moving, like a floating shadow filled with glittering lights.
“Fallen one,” said Enin, “I am graced by your presence.”
“Yes.” Kokaibel said, “Yes you are.”
“What brings you here to this wood on this dying world?”
“My reasons for being here are my own, mage. It seems that you and I have something in common, though. We both seem to have a habit of attracting rude children.”
“What are you?” asked the Boy, in awe of the demon before him, shocked by the very shape of Kokaibel, the confusion of the demon’s existence, like a void on legs.
“Boy!” commanded Enin, “This is Kokaibel of the Stars, Fourth Watcher, Jewel of the Sky, a direct creation of the undivided wholeness.”
“If you seek to curry my favor with regal epithets, sorcerer, save your breath. I am not one to be charmed. And as for the undivided wholeness...let us say that we parted ways long long ago.”
“Are you some sort of angel, then?” asked the Boy.
“Oh I like this one!” said Kokaibel, “I feel as if he truly SEES me. Yes child. I am...or rather was, an angel. But now I am between positions as it were.”
“Pay no attention to the Boy.” said Enin, “Have you come to guide the way? Are you sent by the dark to lead me to the second pillar?”
“Oh dear me.” Kokaibel chortled. “I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. The old messenger job didn’t suit me. But the second pillar is your destination, you say? That explains everything. The firestorm that released me...you have already broken the pillar of the firmament, haven’t you?”
Enin brandished the black blade and said, “Yes. I destroyed it with this.”
“Oh that is unsettling.” said Kokaibel, “You carry a piece of...him.”
“Him?” said the Boy.
“Yes. My...uncle is perhaps the best word to describe it. Your master wields a sliver of his...essence.”
“He’s not my master!”
Enin grew visibly angered. “If you’re not here for me, then why are you here? Do you mean to thwart my desire in some way?”
“Oh dear little immortal.” said Kokaibel, “Not everything is about you. Go on. March toward the pillar of the Earth. Play your little game. I am not concerned with that. I walk this plane in search of my own desires.”
“I find it a strange coincidence,” said Enin, “that an Archon of the heavens crosses my path not minutes after I spy the Crimson Wolf burning off in the woods.”
“Crimson Wolf? That wretched thing?” said the demon, turning his gaze toward the glow the boy had mistaken for a bonfire.
“Oh my.” Kokaibel said, “Well isn’t that a treat? She’s about to be gobbled up. Just like I said.”
“Who? What?” said the Boy, trying to see what the demon described, but his mortal eyes could not pierce the forest.
“My little friend.” said Kokaibel, “She seems to have gotten herself into a bit of trouble.”
“Your little friend?” asked Enin, truly perplexed for the first time in quite a while.
“The girl with a bird for a heart.” the demon said. “She’s calling my name now. Isn’t that rich?”
