Wanderers of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 2) Read online

  Anah smiled, and the nervous laughter faded from her voice. “You don’t get it because you’re still thinking like a mortal, but how can you still think that way?” She guided his hand onto the orbed world. “We are not your masters or your judges. This is what guides you, empowers you, what shapes you, not any of us. We can only walk with you.”

  “The world is no totem for humans, but then . . . ” Wolf’s jagged teeth flowed from the shaman’s guise and over Kechua’s body. “Then you are not human, are you?”

  “Then that’s it? I’m alone after all of this?”

  “It’s time for you to make your own dances, Ke’.” She smiled. “It’s time for me to go.”

  She leaned in for a kiss, her form shimmering into reddened jewels. “Don’t forget any of us, no matter what, and don’t forget what I said. If you find a better place, promise you won’t come back.” Her form disintegrated, her hand lingering one moment more, giving a parting squeeze.

  ***

  He woke upon his feet, reaching out for the withdrawing hand. The quiet ashes smoldered obediently in the burned-out blaze before him. Not one of his creatures approached him or moved as he staggered to the lake for a drink and to wash himself, wringing out his wild hair before retying it.

  The blue of morning crept up as he lay in his lake, the water tickling at his ears. Chill steam rose from the water, and he stared at the retreating stars, a black and white butterfly fluttering across his vision.

  “I still don’t have an answer, didn’t have one to give. Is she really gone?” he asked, glancing to where Wolf had been the night before.

  “Not one answer, but several.” A growling chuckle came from the shadows above.

  “Unity?” He shrugged, the water lapping at his shoulders. “Allowing others to help, so that they’re helped too?” He crawled onto the sandy banks. “If it were that easy, Mana would’ve been able to do that. Isolation then? Lock ourselves behind an invincible wall of our own creation? Simply accepting death because we have no hope left, and we’re relying on poison to sustain us?” He shook the sand from his clothes and slipped into them. “To wrap ourselves in that which we fear, hoping for some kind of compromise? Or to simply continue as we have, cherishing the values that we do?” He shook his head and glanced around, not finding a single trace of either Rutger or the carved staff.

  They had both dissolved into the stuff of dreams, it seemed. Not even the man’s footprints remained.

  “You want a convenient metaphor then?” The warm rumbling tones drifted down.

  “Convenience is the stink of a wrong choice.” Kechua glanced down at the emblem on his shirt as he tethered the leather around his ankles.

  “Perhaps not every challenge you meet must be your burden?” offered the soft humming voice.

  “Why is it that you change so readily today?” Kechua shifted the idea.

  “We have all watched and tested in our ways, and there is little left for us now.” Wolf strode out from the shadows, his fur gleaming white, his eyes glimmering ruby, and his maw closed and almost thoughtful. “You may not see it or feel it, but you are not quite the boy you were a mere pair of weeks ago. I can sense you understand the need for harshness; the darker side of mercy, perhaps not enough to serve you when the time comes, but the lesson is upon you nonetheless.” The noble wolf paced around Kechua and leapt gingerly, back into the shadow of the trees.

  “I wonder if I can even make it back in time now.” He sighed, taking the weight of his pack again. He only stopped again at the tip of the waterfall, filling his skinand wondering exactly where the people were down below. The brown and tendrilous boil struck him as he scanned the sea of blue and green.

  “If nothing else, I think that deserves a visit,” he muttered, glancing to make sure Wolf followed before he descended onto the river’s path.

  The walk proved to be nothing, as the thorny brush was entirely within the reach of his spreading domain. He stood before the edge of the memorial, wondering if it would even allow him in.

  His living forest recoiled from the sleeping skeletal trees, but the shade hung just as thick under them. A crawling bush embraced the pale woods, and pointed leaves upon long stems decorated the clinging vines.

  They stood, stark and tiny against the stems, giving little more than the notion of tiny green bugs upon ragged and withered branches. The thorns jutting out were larger and more insistent, and the leaves themselves each ended with a dark green stinger.

  The foliage walled itself off entirely from Kechua’s forest, save for a single archway where thick limbs of the sleeping trees wound into one another’s absent hands, and the corridor continued through the thorns.

  He followed, Wolf loitering at the entrance. Moments into the path, Kechua was forced to twist sideways to avoid being stung. Even as he was forced into a prone crawl, abandoning his pack out of necessity, the bushes became more lively.

  Insects crawled, falling and tickling at his back, and bees or wasps buzzed out of sight. As he pushed into the centre, he found himself inside a domed clearing in full bloom. The flowers faced inwards, giving a sweet mesquite sort of pollen in the air, their centres a white-rimmed black, with petals fading into a deep red.

  Each of the three graves housed intertwined trunk clusters of the brambles, all of them mixing together to form the canopy above and reaching outwards, their growths an indistinct mish-mash.

  In the centre, the wellspring flowed; a lean thing, just short of being able to gulp him down. Charred black rock rounded it like a headless fountain, and the water trickled into a stream, wandering to some unknown path towards the west. The water smelled faintly sour, and the bed beneath it shone like slickened oil.

  The bushes didn’t stir in the wind, the smoky pollen hung in the air, and the light from above filtered into a red-hued blur. For whatever it was worth, he sat there a moment, soaking in the peace.

  Peace, even in death; even with his failure. Bitter enough to be avoided, but not the end of his journey by any means. A tragedy to bear with him forever, but not to be crippled by.

  He emerged from the thorny arch, his pack returned to his back.

  “I thought you were lost,” Wolf grumbled.

  “Not lost, no.” Kechua smiled softly. “Not quite a mountain, but a respectable memorial.” He then moved on.

  The last of his forest shrunk into the less eager grassland, and he felt the need to push his legs to proceed. The grasses seemed disinterested in biting at him, and they respectfully parted as he waded through in his moderate rhythm. He could sense eyes watching from afar, and the witch’s hum greeted him as he crossed to the lakeside.

  It was the swamp that truly stopped his progress, but to his astonishment, the orb seemed to approach him as he crossed into the slogged water. He jogged along the winding dry paths of the fat-bodied tree roots, snakes writhing in the trees and bobbing down with curiously flecking tongues as he passed. The turtles and gator-like creatures moved respectfully from his progress, abandoning their sunlit spots on the earthen banks and fleeing into the water.

  The orb’s darkness swallowed the sky before him until it grew into a wall within his reach. It stood there in silence, a halo of earth wound with the lichens in a warm blanket under Kechua’s feet. It glistened in the sun like polished obsidian. Around it, the swampy earth hardened into a jagged, white calcified moat, a barnacled extra layer outside of it chewing at his hand, testing the sharpness.

  “Nothing?” He shrugged at the orb, and glancing back, he caught sight of one of the stark black butterflies, sitting pensively on a jutting rock in the rocky halo. “Has she spoken to . . . ” Kechua began, but it fluttered away with disinterest. “Okay.”

  And with no further answer, he left the swamp, continuing to the west and finding it as accommodating as before. The creatures no longer watched as he passed through, and he emerged into the familiar grip of the sleeping sand.

  He ran the sun down until the stars prickled above, and through the nig
ht, the dogs ran beside him in some arcane kinship, no longer snapping at his heels. He ran with the tapping hail rhythm of their paws against the soil and flowed through the night in that song. The magic only broke when they left him, the pack peeling off as the sharp white teeth jutted above the soil.

  He broke his pace and followed the trodden road of the wanderers, echoes of footfalls fresher than his resonating underfoot. He passed through the first of the tall white teeth, and the flow of the tugging void was upon his feet. This time would be different, he resolved. There was no more violence in his heart for the place. He would speak clearly and with civility, accepting a meal in the shade of the trees if offered.

  In his enforced clarity, something else tickled at the back of his skull. The bejeweled cyclops ahead, shrouded in black ribbons, seemed hushed as a geyser preparing to explode.

  As he grew closer to the professor’s tower, he realized the shrill buzz saw of the machine had been taken out of the gnawing symphony. After reaching the base of the tower, he found the repulsing feeling was tinged more with sadness than a drowning urgency. A chorus sang in hushed unison, stinking of death and nipping at the bottom of his stomach, but it didn’t rub him like a razor-sharp grater.

  The school erupted in an explosion of white light, filtered through the glass in a blazing rainbow mosaic and forcing him to stumble away from the tower. Wolf’s form leapt from where he had been hidden and stalked behind the shattered clay, landing with a snarl and snapping frustratedly at the air itself. The creature shook himself with a dismissive snort.

  The burst ended, but the whole school shone against the night, chasing it away. The professor’s tower sliced against the darkness like an immobile lighthouse and hoisted the dawn with raw and unchecked might.

  The cloud of crows shifted from their monotonous orbit around the school, veering over and giving a unanimous, concerting shriek he could hear from far away.

  They hovered a moment, forming into a body. As though tugged by a string, they tore into the sky, a single pointed fang at its tip.

  “Is . . . is that her?” He squinted against the growing blue above, seeing a tiny white speck leading the black procession.

  CHAPTER 17:

  Merging Paths

  The snake’s path twisted upon itself, folding only to fly upwards once again. The white fleck, an undeniable leading lure, drifted around and darted with an agility that would frustrate a hawk.

  The struggle stretched parallel to him and left him behind.

  “That . . . that must be her,” he resolved, glancing back at the glowing tower of the professor. For a single moment, he thought of returning there. Whatever faced the man might be worse—the darting white fleck had things in hand.

  His feet turned and he pumped his arms and legs against the rhythm of the stilled sands. He doubled it, then tripled it, until the world almost moved with an enthusiastic blur.

  The snake writhed, and the little fleck shrunk and grew, swaying in the winds. It rose and fell towards the ground, only to shoot upwards again, leading the collected creature on its path.

  He pushed his feet against the pulsing of the soil, the world smearing around him, but his breath and heart were beyond their limit. The school was a distant memory. He could never catch up to her; couldn’t hope to catch her should she fall.

  The only indication of the girl’s safety and continued struggle was through the actions of the snaking blackness. As long as the strange black ribbon in the sky continued to move erratically, he felt safe assuming she continued to fight.

  His heart shuddered and faltered a moment, his breath catching within his lungs as the blackened form pulsed, only to reform itself again. Even the trail of the thing shrunk into a sharpened worm in the ocean of blue, darting downwards as his feet tripped over one another at his distraction. His head slammed into the earth, ear first, and he stumbled to sit; to squint against the distance.

  The worm plunged into the ground, seemingly stunned, the creatures composing the tail attempted to stop their momentum, but only ended up balling themselves up and slamming into the head. It composed itself again, rising upwards and disappearing into a dot upon the horizon.

  “No!” He gasped for air, fighting to catch his lungs and steady his heart. He sputtered and coughed, a cloud of dirt gulped inside with the air.

  Gritting his teeth and allowing rage to drive him, he slammed his hands into the earth, plunging them to his shoulders, and forced his other ear against the earth to work in concert. He rode the pulsing heartbeat outwards, feeling the faint call of the school behind him and where the darkened birds had burrowed into the earth before him. A quiet rising tingle rang from ahead.

  He stumbled to his feet, his lungs stretched and gritted, but he ran towards the blank blue horizon; towards the ringing.

  He fell to the ground again and immediately disappeared into a miasma of loosened earth. He choked further, coughing blood, which the soil lapped hungrily. His footsteps remained uncounted, the progress unsure, but the closeness of the ringing was consolation against the burning sand in his eyes and another bloody cough.

  He heard a heaving breath beside him, and then a deep and long exhale. The dust obediently parted, revealing Wolf’s yawning fangs and soil-coated fur.

  The creature before him was such a foolish departure that Kechua couldn’t help but laugh. “You are covered in dirt, Old Man.”

  Wolf shook himself off, shuffling most of the dust away. The soil obediently fell downwards, settling upon its kin on the ground below.

  “I’m not . . . ” Kechua panted, gasping and tasting bitter blood. “I’m not sure I can run anymore.”

  “Then walk, fool boy.” Wolf chuckled. “You cannot hope to catch the leaf while it rides the wind. Only wait for when it is at rest.”

  Kechua felt the earth, hearing nothing but the rush of blood in his ears and his gasping heartbeat.

  He sighed and walked, his legs burning and reluctant.

  “Hold, boy. I think . . . ” Wolf stopped, and the dust cloud lazily overtook them once more. “Yes, I think it is coming to an end.”

  Kechua scanned the horizon and fell to his knees, feeling the earth once more, frantically searching beyond the rhythm; beyond the nothingness for what he meant.

  There was that energy, but it exploded into the earth. It moved in a line. He wanted to run once more, towards the feeling, but his legs forced him to wait and continue to feel it.

  He held his breath with the anticipation of what was to come. The trail continued to form, the buzzing energy becoming more tangible, though so far away.

  The result was like a scream into a bullhorn, with one’s ear straining to hear. There was a shockwave of force upon the earth, so overwhelming that it knocked Kechua backwards. The energy surrounded it, buzzing with excited resolution.

  “There you have it. The leaf has left the wind for the time being.” Wolf chuckled in the dusted cloud.

  “But did she win?” He struggled to his feet, failing twice, and forced his legs forward.

  ***

  The sun shifted forward, but the rhythm of the clock passed by without his notice. With every few steps, he focused downwards and reconfirmed the nearing goal, pleading with his legs to stumble just a bit further.

  He felt the closeness but saw no visual indicators glaring at him. A grey and black smudge tempted him away from his path, and some structures made less tantalizing cases, but he passed all of them by. He continued the stumbling shuffle, a thick cloud of dust in his wake, correcting himself every few steps as he narrowed in on the disturbance.

  He neared it well enough that the ringing tingled in his sluggish legs, tickling at his dirt-soiled pants. He yearned to run, to dance above the sands again; to tear forward and have the conclusion revealed, but he could only beg his creaking knees to lift as they strode.

  Wolf shifted into a prowl, hanging low, his tail straight and outwards. He let out a rumbling growl, head bobbing low to the earth.

 
“What?” He stumbled as Wolf broke into a run. “Wait! Stop!” he screamed, trying to make a large stride to grasp at the tail, but he missed and tripped over his own leg. “What are you doing, Old Man?”

  What you will not. Wolf’s sentiment rolled in his head, sparking his eyes back into focus.

  He cut into a clumsy gallop, screaming in rage and ending with a desperate plea. “Stop, don’t hurt them!”

  No. Again Wolf’s sentiment projected itself.

  He wobbled a moment, forcing the rhythm into his legs. They groaned, ached, and creaked, but he wasn’t going to run. He only needed to feel it, to focus.

  The little club spun into the air with all Kechua’s might, just as the pounding earth dictated, driving the force through him and into it. It tore through the air hard enough to let out a tonal shriek; hard enough that a line of the stilled earth coughed up below and behind it.

  He sputtered, the dust in his face again. When it cleared, the grey lump lay still, so close to the white shapes presenting themselves.

  He stumbled forth, his legs ignited by the taste of the pulsing strength. He forced them forward and came to a kneeling end by her side. It was the girl, Amelie, a tiny creature in a beautiful, shimmering white dress that lay cut and bloodied, but whole. He winced at the sight of her. Both her arms lay twisted, blood dripping from the sleeves, and no cohesive shape to her legs remained.

  “You killed”—the girl gasped, finishing with a weakened—”him?”

  “Him? Sadly no.” Kechua glanced over to ensure Wolf’s state. The beast lay motionless; still. Kechua dug through his pack with trembling and burning arms to produce his jacket, folding and slipping it under her head. The dirt clung around her, but it shuffled off with little resistance of her weak movements. “Rest for now. We can speak when you have healed.” He smiled. The ugly ogre-faced cat glared at him, eyes narrowed and tail flicking.

  “You aren’t . . . going to kill . . . ” The girl’s air failed her, and her eyes closed with a dwindling gasp. The form of the cat shivered a little, loose bone re-arranging within. Its teeth grew into rounded daggers, and it lowered itself as if ready to strike.