Emeline did not wake the next day. A few hours passed, before Ketiya suggested they keep moving and create a lashwa to pull the child along on.
Brushä lit a torch and cleaned up the remains of the fire, and Avétk found some wood in the log store against the cave wall that might serve well as part of a lashwa. The most important elements were that they should not be too heavy or too thick, and that they should be flexible to an extent, but not so flexible that they would lose shape when weighted down. Linker Wood was perfect for it, but that tree did not grow in the North. The Greisboom, a common tree in these parts, was the closest match. It had a dark grey, thin bark, was light enough not to burden the bearer, and sturdy enough not to break. In fact, Greishout had a reputation for being the wood that could handle the most weight. To top it all off, Greishout was also flexible, but not half as flexible as the Willow's wood.
'Huh,' Ketiya said when Avétk dragged two lengths of Greishout over, and a few shorter lengths. 'Didn't think you'd find any up here.'
'What can I say,' Avétk wriggled his eyebrows, grinning, 'I am Avétk the great.'
She smiled in spite of herself. 'You mean the terrible.'
His smile fell flat and he glared at her, mouth open a sliver.
Without any further words between them, they went about making the lashwa. It was not a lengthy process, but took sturdy arms, firm grips, a good knowledge of how to tie proper knots, and some worldly wisdom.
'Hold it there,' Ketiya asked in that firm but familiar way that families often use when speaking to each other. 'Not that high, a bit lower.'
Avétk's hands moved down a thumb's breadth. 'Perfect.'
They looked each other in the eye, sharing a warm smile while their hands did the harder work. 'Oh, careful,' Ketiya said, 'that one isn't tied as well as the others.'
Avétk grunted, but crouched low, tugging at the lowest knot and looping the rope around one extra time for caution's sake.
He froze. Ketiya tensed. She knew that look he was giving her like she knew her palms. He looked at her pointedly, moving his eyes. They seemed to say, 'there's something in the darkness. Check the space behind me, but be subtle about it.' You could call it a sort of understanding that comes with shedding blood together. One develops an instinct, a sixth sense, if you will. Her eyes flicked about the cave, quick and-she hoped-subtle.
A slight sway of her chin meant she saw nothing. Avétk widened his eyes, his nostrils flaring a tad. It meant, 'look again. There's something, I know it.' He made a show of checking each of the other knots, as though they were still building the lashwa.
Though she squinted her eyes, she saw nothing but pure darkness and the torch on the cave floor flickering. Then it dawned on her. Where was Brushä? He had been right there a moment ago. She frowned, mouthing 'Brushä' to Avétk, hoping the distress in her eyes would be easy enough for him to pick up. Neither of them moved. Avétk stayed crouched as he was, listening, and Ketiya stood leaning forward a little and holding the top of the lashwa. Her eyes flew to the mound of furs on which Emeline lay fully clothed, gloves included. Relief bloomed in her chest. Emeline was not missing. Avétk had noticed her line of sight, and nodded a nod so slight none but the keenest observer would have noticed it. She waited three breaths, and together they slowly lowered the lashwa to the cave floor, careful not to bang it or make any sudden noise. Avétk's hand reached over his shoulder, grabbing the axe.
Ketiya took a step back without thinking, and her one footstep rang and echoed in the hollow space.
That had been stupid. She pulled her sword out of it's scabbard and it sang a scraping ring into the depths of the cave. They moved quick and silent to either side of Emeline and her mound of furs.
Obscurity surrounded them, its intense blackness choking and suffocating, except where Brushä's torch lay flicking. It lay on Ketiya's side, which was good, because she didn't fancy staring into the gloom like a blind dog. 'What is that?'
Tendrils of smoke, or a mist of some sort curled and swept out of the darkness, heading in their direction. Ketiya could only see it in the odd shape the torch cut into the darkness. They looked like vines, but moved as fast as snakes. She frowned, adjusting her hands' hold on the sword, tilting her head. 'Avétk,' she whispered. The unspoken rule had been broken.
Avétk was so surprised to hear her voice that he lowered his axe, frowning a lopsided frown at her. She pointed at the mist, her eyes saying, 'look there, what is that?' She watched realisation dawn on his face, then confusion settled, and he scratched his temple in thought.
Each smoky tendril swayed and curved, hypnotising them, mesmerising them. Their weapons lowered a tad while they watched, but a mere mist seemed peaceable enough. It approached and Ketiya found herself feeling calm. Her eyes fixed on its smoky tendrils with wonder, and her sword clanged to the cave floor. It was an arm's length away now, and a sweet smell filled her nostrils. If she had been lucid enough, she might have realised the sweetness smelled too sweet, pungent and foetid, like rotten flowers or honey that's been left in water too long.
Avétk coughed, spluttered, and fell like a conquered city with a sharp thud. Ketiya heard it, but concern didn't sprout in her like it should. The noises blended into a fuzzy, happy feeling which warmed her chest. The heat of it was comfortable, but it began to feel tight, scratchy, and dry. She breathed deeper, but the scratching pain of the air became more and more painful with each heave. It tore at the back of her throat and her lungs, and she coughed. The cave, its darkness, and the tendrils of mist blurred together, and her last spluttering coughs echoed into silence. Just before her eyes dropped closed, she spotted little Brushä's carrot top through the vapours. 'I'm glad he's okay,' she thought, and then the darkness strangled her into insentience.
*
Rotten things were the first thing she smelled. Emeline's eyes opened to chaotic semi darkness, floating red orbs of light in a mist quite similar to the one in her dreams, and a too sweet stench like old perfume. She coughed, lifting herself to a seated position. Furs warmed her buttocks, and she vaguely recalled being too cold to think. 'Where is Avétk?'
A sense of bé-da-ru tightened her chest, or maybe it was the smoky mist doing that. Emeline squinted into the haze and coughed again, holding a gloved hand over her nose and mouth. 'Oh,' she exclaimed with pleasure, inspecting the tight fit, snug gloves someone had put on her hands. The tips of her fingers felt tender, as though she'd sizzled them in boiling water or injured them in a struggle with a rooster. A cloudy, nubilous sense filtered into her brain as soon as she'd moved her hand away from her mouth, so she returned it, clasping her face.
'What's going on? Where am I?' For a second she thought it might've been another dream, but she was too familiar with Träumenil to think it long. Träumenil had an effect on a person. You could feel it, not on your skin, not in your belly, not even emotionally. Somewhere deeper than your skin and your heart, in the deepest part of you, a feeling lay. It was the feeling of being far from home. Her father had called it verlange. He said that when your body entered Träumenil, it yet lay aslumber on Erdil, and though your two bodies were connected, a subconscious longing filled you for the wholeness of the one left behind on Erdil. No, it was not only for your earthly body, but for being wholly present in it, for being tangible in one familiar place. That feeling was absent now.
With clarity of mind came panic. She was in an unfamiliar, dark place, with ominous lights flickering in obscurity-three, that she could count. Her friends and allies were nowhere to be seen. Her heart thumped in her chest, fingers numbing with adrenaline. One of the red lights moved, and reflected on a metallic surface near her. She leaned towards the object with careful precision. 'Oh no!' It was Avétk's axe. 'He is never without his axe' The panic burned in her chest, her breaths short and quick. The axe gleamed once more, threatening her like a bird's beak, telling her she was alone in this dark hole. Maybe she had died in the cold, and was now lost forever in darkness.
Then she heard laughter. Not a happy, frivolous laughter. A dry sarcastic, vindictive laugh, less booming, more sinister. The kind of laugh uncles told their kids about when the blood moon was high. A shiver travelled down her spine, and she reached for the talisman in her pocket. It's lumpy form gave her brief comfort, though she couldn't feel its rough carvings when she ran her gloved fingers over its surface. What had the Mage said about it? For some reason it felt important she recall.
'He'd said... speak to the Fathers. No, call on the Fathers...' Emeline wrapped her gloved fingers around the wooden statuette. 'While holding the talisman.'
'Call?' What did that mean. 'Should I declare their names and plea for help?' Like the spring owl's first hoot, a sudden understanding as crisp and clear as noon settled in Emeline's mind. It was a knowing, something she didn't recall having known before, but it was there now. A knowing as firm as her knowing that she had eyes. It came on so sudden that mentally, it felt as though she had struck a brick wall. It was a pattern, like the notes to a song, twining and oscillating. A deeper knowledge rested there too, more than the knowing of the strange dancing pattern, this spiritual formula. It was the knowledge of its purpose and origin, and the fact that she had always known it.
'A movement of The Way.' One that was used for travelling great distances, she knew, though she had no idea why she knew it. Another knowledge held the hand of this knowing, the knowledge that she couldn't use this hand movement without a mixture of sorts. A list of materials, herbs, flowers, liquids, ran through her mind, as though read from a recipe from a book. She had not even one of these ingredients.
Maybe this had been the help the Fathers extended her when she held the talisman and called on them... but she hoped not. It was no help at all. What did a movement help if one couldn't use it? Without the mixture she would die there; a feeling at the pit of her stomach affirmed this thought. Whispers echoed in the hollow of the dark musty place, mixing with other strange sounds that helped her identify this as a cave. Their soft rumblings sounded evil, and fear clenched her heart. She had to do something. Looking at the talisman in her hand, though she could barely see it in this gloom, she remembered the three faces. 'The Fathers.'
'Exalted,' she whispered, 'the Father of creation-' She paused, tapping her lip. 'Seated above Erdil.' Memories of the rhyme resurfaced. 'Exalted be the Father of time, seated above Träumenil.' Her breathy whisper steadied, flowing easily with the rhyming pattern she had repeated thousands of times before, every Father's Day in fact. 'Exalted be the great Father, seated above Götteril.'
The Talisman felt warmer, and it vibrated. 'Exalted forever,' she whispered in a fervent voice, 'The Merciful and just, the omni...omni something. Come on, the omni...' The lights had grown brighter, and her fear boiled over, bordering on hysterical. 'Potent,' she whispered, remembering. The vibrating crescendoed and ceased. Not knowing why, but feeling to do it anyway, she secured the geloë in her mind.
Geloë was a belief, a knowing coupled with a deep understanding of the way the spirit world worked. Something Emeline had never even imagined she could know or grasp. A crucial part of using The Way was understanding its language, and the Ruach-the breath or spirit-with which it moved. That word sounded so foreign, Emeline was surprised by her knowledge of it.
This knowledge, this geloë alone was not powerful enough to make a movement work, to cause a change on Erdilly plane, but it was vital. It was like understanding a foreign culture's practices, or having read about their belief system. Just because you knew the theoretical layout, or the standard lifestyle, or the mere facts about their belief system, does not mean you knew the culture, or the language, or the deep motives stored within that people group's hearts.
These you found by opening your heart to them, spending intimate time with them, even tasting their belief for a time to see if it fits your heart. In the same way, there was a belief, a nuance deeper that the knowledge of a thing, that accompanied any movement of The Way.
With this geloë firm in her mind, in her heart, in her spirit, she stretched her mind to encompass Ketiya, Brushä, Avétk, and Avétk's axe. A link between them all was there, by her sheer belief in the connection. It was crucial. She didn't have the mixture, or the fire, but she decided to draw the pattern, to dance the dance and shape the mists of time anyway. Anything was better than the death she felt approaching them from the gloom.
PS
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© Joy Cronjé 2015