River’s End ch 39: In the Mists of My Mind

‘Can you hear me?’

Fredo’s voice rang in my head, a symphony filling every void with sound. It was a torch illuminating every corner, chasing away the dark screams of pain. The agony in my side was still very present, but it ebbed, receding, there yet no longer in the front of my mind.

‘Fredo? Where are you?’

I thrashed, whirling until I saw him. My heart overflowed with burning emotions. He was a specter in the mists of my mind, translucent and weightless. Yet, unlike the vedia, he was complete, stance unyielding as if he could carry the entire world.

I flung my arms around him, but they passed through his chest as if I tried to hug a waterfall. He cringed and faded further into transparency.

‘No, Fredo, don’t leave me,’ I begged, immediately rewarded with the solid feel of hands on mine. I couldn’t see them, but warmth and safety encased my palms.

This was only in my mind. Beyond the world constructed by my thoughts, my real body drowned and a beast gnawed on my side. Through barely open eyes, I saw my purple blood stain the water.

It didn’t hurt as much as it should. Fredo’s touch staved off the ache in my lungs and the agony in my torso like a coat keeping out the cold. More than that, crackling energy poured into me, bubbling through him and pooling in my core.

It opened my eyes. My fingers twitched.

You must survive, it seemed to say, guiding my hand to the source of my pain. The heel of my palm struck the creature’s gum, and the tooth snapped at its root, coming free in my grasp. My weapon now.

I slashed and stabbed it into the tentacle, kicking furiously in retreat. The reef shriveled and crumbled at the prevalence of my blood. Rainbow smoke surrounded me.

Lightheaded, I knew I moved, swam, sliced and impaled anything that came near, but I felt as if Fredo carried me. I was oblivious to the scrapes appearing on my skin and the blood racing out of my body.

‘Let go of me.’

I couldn’t. I’d die if I did.

‘I need you, Fredo.’ I gripped him tighter.

‘I think…you’re killing me.’

The words burned, and I dropped his embrace like a hot coal. My hands shook. The shallow sea within my mind became intangible beneath my feet, and I fell, curled with my face to my knees.

Why say it like that, Fredo? Not that this…whatever this exchange of energy was hurt you. No, that I am killing you, as if I do it on purpose. Is that how you really see it? See me?

Both in my mind and in reality, I floated in an open expanse. A current pushed me through the water, but where inner me sunk, my limp, real body was dragged to the surface.

Air brushed my face. Good air, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. Racing thoughts sewed them shut and sealed my attention within myself.

The Shlykrii-na king said a Seallaii-na brought a tracer to Grenswa’s capital. He said there were only two Seallaii-nas there. If I didn’t bring it, did Fredo? The attack happened less than a day after he arrived. During the battle, he shoved me from his mind. Because he was guilty?

No, he wouldn’t have put me in danger like that. Maybe Yol put the tracer on him.

Yol wanted Niiq to be queen. He didn’t know anything about the impending attack until I told him.

The Shlykrii-na king thought he was in a position to punish Fredo, as if Fredo answered to him.

The burning island floated over my sea of thoughts, and flames replaced the mists of my mind. Fredo was the lone survivor of an incident that killed the ruler of our world.

That was all I knew of his origins. Was this where he belonged?

No Seallaii-na belonged here, but was this where he believed he belonged? Had he done their bidding so he could return to them and bring me here as well?

Pain writhed in my side, and I squirmed. Rough sand grated my cheek, and gentle hands stilled me before returning to probe my wound. Something cold sprinkled on it, and I rolled, stopped again by those quick, light hands. They pressed a bandage to my side, moving me minimally as they wrapped it.

I peeked at my savior, seeing only a blurry silhouette before my head fell to the side. There, right in front of my face, was my bag, the one I had brought with me to Grenswa, lost in the river, recovered in the king’s council chamber, and left in the room Niiq let me borrow beneath the Onyx tower.

How in the world did it get here?

Not that I wasn’t grateful. It had food, medicines, tools.

I couldn’t lift my hand to reach for it.

The ground shook, and I used my last smidgen of energy to fully open my eyes in time to see a new silhouette. My savior darted off, a blur I didn’t get to thank before the huge newcomer’s jaws parted. Drool dripped from its wide jowls, a bucketful of it plopping on my face.

Move! inner me urged. Don’t you want to survive to figure all of this out?

No, I didn’t want to know, not if it meant learning Fredo was evil.

The monster’s tongue—a large, gray, spoon-like muscle—scooped me into its gaping maw.

Isn’t getting eaten twice in one day a bit much?

Was it even still the same day? If not, it didn’t make me feel any better to think me becoming a meal was a daily thing.

“[Out! Out! Out! She’s not for chewing on.]”

At least someone agreed with me on that.

The tongue unfurled and released me in a roll across the coarse sand. This stuck to my slobber-covered self in patches of lumpy tan paler than my skin. I didn’t have the energy to dust it off or get up, arm shaking as I rubbed it beneath my nose. I hoped not to breathe in anything gross as I coughed.

My side protested all this movement. If pain were a sound, this would have been a room full of me-sized bells all upset because their building fell over.

Tears blurred my eyes. The dark form of the creature that loomed over me was huge and of the shape commonly held by those of the Proboscidea order, like elephants and mammoths. Its mouth was much broader, though, and it had a trunk for either nostril, both currently tucked at the corner of its lips. Its tusks curved over its fan-like ears and would have made great handrails if the one sitting atop its massive head had been equipped with hands.

The canine Dossie known as Togdy didn’t need them anyway.

I tried to come up with something intelligent to say, but my brain was half a jumble of insanity and half non-motivated mush.

Then, to make everything perfect, Paqo showed up. “What great blessings, a familiar face!”

My heart nearly leapt out of my body, but it was blocked by the million questions that popped into existence.

The one that made it out was: “What are you doing here?”

The skull-shaped silhouette with glowing eyes appearing less than a handspan from my face should have been ten times more terrifying than anything I’d encountered that day. Annoyance filled me instead as the machine’s head oscillated.

“Oh dear, that is not at all a proper greeting.”

“Hello, Paqo,” I deadpanned. “Isn’t the sky just a lovely shade of…” I paused as the machine moved and I actually saw the sky. Or what should have been the sky.

Land—squares of cultivated fields and orchards—painted the distance beyond a swirling sheen of thin clouds. The ground felt flat enough beneath me, but far to either side, its curve became apparent. This was the inside of a cylinder. Along its central axis, a string of star-like spheres hovered.

I sat up, arm pressed against my side to shove back the wave of nausea that threatened to drown me. My view rocked and churned, but I refused to give in to the blackness crawling from the edges of my vision. Instead, I focused on the details of my surroundings.

A lake shivered at my feet, trees behind me whispering to a breeze. The air was thick, warm, and smelled of sweet fruit and rich soil.

New tears gathered, nostalgic for home.

Blinking them away, I looked further. The cylinder twisted like a helix. The smallest refraction hinted at a window separating this segment from the next—likely another environ.

“A lovely shade of amazing engineering,” I breathed.

“Is engineering properly categorized in shades?” The Sentinel’s query shattered any lingering hope that its presence had been a hallucination.

“I’ll only answer that if you answer my earlier question about why and how you are here.”

“I followed a suspicious someone with the intent of questioning his intentions.”

My gaze swiveled to the machine. “The world was on fire and under attack, invading soldiers crawling everywhere, and you found someone even more suspicious to follow?”

“Keeping your word is proper propriety. I answered your question. Now answer mine about the shades of engineering.”

“Yes, of course engineering has shades. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it like that.” I waved a hand, regretting it when the pain bells of my side went off again.

Paqo’s legs unfolded in a standing position. “Forgive me for assuming otherwise, but I have found organic beings err in their speech as often as they spout anything true or relevant. Now forgive me again, but I must follow the Dossea-na who is helping me track the suspicious person.”

“The Dossie is not helping you with anything,” Togdy called, he and his ride already several body lengths down shore.

“Togdy, you speak Sishgil?” The latter half of that sentence became a hiss through my teeth as I forced myself up and lightless heat covered my body. I breathed out slowly, arms reaching for balance as the world trickled back to me.

Togdy huffed. “It wasn’t Surra-nas who brought Dossies to space, you know.”

He was brought here by Seallaii-nas, I realized with a twinge of guilt.

Was that something to feel guilt over? Wasn’t it right to help them advance and expand their horizons? Or were these Dossies victims of more experiments like those Hent told me about?

I wanted to ask, but it was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, eyes set on the creature lumbering away. Its azure, armadillo-like plating glistened in the light that reflected off the lake. A thick tail covered in wrinkled, green-gray skin gouged its footprints into a smooth plane.

“But you must help.” Paqo marched along at the animal’s shoulder. “You are such a marvelous guide.”

“Yeah, of course Togdy is, but Togdy also wants you to go away. Togdy thought an ancient war machine might be cool, but now Togdy regrets speaking to you because you’re super annoying.”

Paqo balked, and daresay I hoped it would fall over?

But no, it ranted instead, marching faster so it could walk backward in front of Togdy’s ride. “What a rude thing to say. If one does not desire another’s company, the proper thing to do is try to rid yourself of their presence subtly.”

“Togdy already tried that, and you didn’t get the hint.”

“The suspiciousness of that bush is overflowing!” the machine exclaimed and took off.

I stood with my mouth open, blinking in Paqo’s wake as it disappeared into the orchard.

Something brushed the back of my thighs. I squealed as it curved around my side and tucked me into what felt much like a swing—a wet swing that stunk like feet trapped in shoes all day.

Bells clanged in my side again at the new movement, and I slipped into a blank void, the mists of my mind slowly seeping in.

This place was several layers beneath the rippling pond where I had been before as if I had dropped out of the bottom of the ocean and could peer up through its undulating waves. Two large figures—distorted, constantly evaporating and reforming—waited at opposite sides of the sky.

Fredo and the vedia.

I flinched from them and plopped back into reality with a gasp.

Toes dangling half my own height off the ground, I sat in the curve of a trunk, one end attached to a face and the other hooked around a tusk. I straightened quickly, cheek abandoning rough, warm skin dotted sparsely with hairs that felt like a wire brush. The trunk was also damp because, like a baby sucking its thumb, the young norahn kept these appendages in its mouth when not in use.

“You don’t look so good.”

“Thank you, Togdy, I’ll cherish the compliment,” I grumbled. “I’ll be doubly grateful that I don’t resemble monster feces, because that nearly happened.”

“That statement sounds like there’s a story behind it.” Togdy leaned further over the norahn’s forehead, front paws casually crossed. “Do tell.”

“Nothing big. I merely met the king and was almost devoured by some monster with tentacles and rodent teeth.”

“They fed you to the Napix rebalo?”

So, he knew of the monster. Napix was a faraway world I knew little about, but if that beast was any indication of what the rest of its denizens were like, I wanted to stay as far from it as possible.

“Cool! Togdy would’ve liked to see that. Did you fight well?”

I glared at him.

The Dossie’s ears pulled back. “What? It sounds exciting. Togdy’s day has been boring, though it was cool when Togdy snatched Baby Norahn here from the shepherdess. He’s a friend, and we adventure together, even if he does have a bad habit of chewing on random things.”

Could one really blame an infantile creature, one that was supposed chew the sap out of fallen logs, for testing the world against its developing teeth?

Togdy chattered on about some story involving electrical wires and a lot of bad decisions. While I attempted to giggle at the appropriate pauses, I was too tired to pay attention. My cheek returned to resting on the norahn’s trunk.

The creature’s gait was smooth and swaying, rocking me like a nanny’s arms. Despite its undesired stench and humongous size, the animal was gentle, and I was grateful for it carrying me.

Do you ride?

Wae’s question echoed to the surface of my thoughts, trailed by all the possible rides I had pictured. A Shlykrii-na norahn hadn’t been one of them, but it wasn’t a bad option as long as you didn’t mind how long it took to get somewhere.

Thoughts of Wae called up the memory of her broken body in my arms. Of the many slain on the island. Of King Ranjial bloody and motionless in the mud. Of Hent unconscious and carried off. Of the promise I had made to the dying, love-struck Pearl ladyling.

Fight for him. Bring him home.

I shoved the memory away, wide eyes looking for any distraction. We ambled through the orchard, trees laden with thuan fruit—of Shlykrii but not too nutritionally different from my favorite datto berries back home and approved for Seallaii-na consumption.

I grabbed one of the lumpy, yellow ovoids. My thumbnails slid through its grassy flesh, and I pulled the fruit in half to reveal a cache of small, gel-filled pods. They burst in my mouth, tart and sweet as a green grape.

They didn’t erase my unease.

The emotion felt odd, like wearing gloves broken in by someone else, and I took too long to realize that not all of this unease was mine.

I reached out to Fredo, hand extended toward where he loomed. Then the fingers on that hand curled in. Elbow sagging, my arm dropped.

He didn’t want me in his mind. He said I was killing him. Was that how he viewed this bond? Was he still dying even though I pulled away? Would reaching out to him only hurt him further?

What if he really was involved in the Shlykrii-na attack and in bringing the tracer to Grenswa? Should I have asked him about that directly? Could he have lied to me in my own mind?

Ug, just contact him already!

I meant to shout, but all that rendered aloud was a flustered jumble of syllables that had a lot of ah.

Togdy looked down at me with a questioning tilt of his head, and I waved with a forced grin.

“You’re weird.” He rolled over and rested his chin on the norahn’s tusk where it curled behind the creature’s ear.

With a deep sigh, I concentrated and drew in my next breath slowly. Water rippled beneath my feet again, mist swirling and thick. Fredo’s silhouette wavered to my right.

‘Fredo, what’s wrong?’

‘I’m busy.’ It hit like a slap. ‘Don’t distract me.’

I walked toward him anyway, swatting at the mist. He was just as far away as before, but with each step, I felt more from him: heart pounding, something small and precious held in one arm. He was in danger, moving, surrounded by shouts and whispers, but I couldn’t make out what any of them said. Pain, skin splitting. A wail unlike any I had ever heard.

‘What’s going on? Are the Grenswa-nas attacking you?’

‘I kidnapped a baby.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I needed them to listen to me. The Lord of Ruby insists Grenswa is fine on its own. That Seallaii doesn’t need to be told what happened. I wouldn’t risk the prince telling me the same.’

The prince. Timqé. He took Timqé’s and Niiq’s baby to get their attention.

Timqé would kill him for that. Fury had been a maelstrom in the first prince’s sapphire eyes after the incident with the Onyx. I saw the guards he trusted to accompany Niiq and I to the Harvest Festival, their wary glances at me and the weapons sheathed all over their bodies.

If Fredo had stolen Timqé’s baby, those weapons were naked now, gleaming edges aimed at my mykta.

‘Timqé would have helped you.’

Fredo shared a sense of understanding. ‘I should trust him, Rosa?’

I wanted to say yes, but a glimmer of guilt simmering in his silhouette held me back. Was that connected with the attack? Had he been involved after all?

‘I hurt him, Rosa. He could barely speak to call the others off.’

‘And Niiq? The baby? Are they okay?’

Fear blossomed in my throat. What if that baby was a Titanium as Niiq had worried? Or worse, Silver?

‘Fredo, what does the baby look like? Show me.’

I received no picture, not of the baby, nothing of his surroundings. Instead, he recoiled, lament seeping into the place where he had been.

‘Fredo?’

‘Do you know what a keilan is?’

He should have known that word.

‘Rain in Menyazé?’

‘Like mykta means tempest and vedia means wind, but they’re also people capable of forming bonds. Does keilan mean something like that?’

Not that I knew, but I hadn’t known of the awful experiments Hent mentioned either. The universe was a vast place, and for all my mentors professed to have taught me, I saw it through a peephole.

‘I’ve only been taught of mykta and vedia, but I think there is much no one bothered to show me.’

‘If you knew, you’d tell me, right?’ He sounded so small, so in need of reassurance.

Of course I would tell him. I told him everything, didn’t I? But what if…

I saw his four-year-old self from his nightmare, covered in wounds. His short, flame-colored hair waved wildly in an updraft. Did he really not remember anything from before that? Had he been on this ship?

I swallowed, answering too late. ‘Just like you’d tell me if…’

Fredo spoke at the same time, and I didn’t finish the thought. ‘Ask Alqysq, the vedia near you, what a keilan is.’

‘You know her?’ A chill spread across my back, squeezing my words to a shrill octave. I glanced over my shoulder and wished I hadn’t, that I had run instead.

‘You should not venture so close to him,’ the evil vedia warned, mist embracing me like arms. The fog grew thicker, and Fredo’s silhouette faded until I lost sight of it.

Continued in chapter 40: A Creature of Destruction

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