Star of Silvaria: Chapter IV
Suicidal
“Lovely work, aspen, was it absolutely necessary to block the entire road?” Rolf grunted.
He had hitched his stallion, Ashtægo, to the offender. With Raphael’s assistance, they were heaving at the branches, endeavoring to shift it aside so we could pass. Mirala and I waited, mounted; I held the reins of Seidon, Raphael’s stallion, and was glad he was a calmer steed than Rolf’s.
It was early morning, with a clear glaucous sky and dew pearling everywhere; the kind of day storms always leave behind. It had also left behind a trail of debris, strewn all across the path, and a strange sense that there was something more real about Silvaria than my fears.
The storm had thundered all through the night, rattling the doors and windows, and anything lying loose about. I’d hardly slept, and when I did, there were nightmares of monster waves and suchides, and people I couldn’t find, with all my calls silenced before they left my mouth. I must have actually cried out at one point, because I remembered starting awake and seeing that the lights were still lit in the other room. I heard Raphael and Rolf’s voices stop.
Mirala had entered, her hair down, and dimly lit the lamp by the door.
“What’s wrong?” she’d whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling me closer. Raphael was standing in the doorway, now, too.
“I keep having so many nightmares, and they feel real,” I whispered back, pressing my hands against my eyes to try and erase those dreams. “This feels like a nightmare, it feels real, but I can’t wake up!”
“Why would you think you’re dreaming, dear?”
“Sometimes in dreams I can feel hugs, and I can hear things,” I trembled. “But…never this much.”
“Oh, sweetheart…” She hugged me. “I promise that you are awake, love. I’m sorry.”
Part of me had known that. I didn’t know if I wanted to believe it.
My head and neck had still been throbbing, and Mirala had placed her cold hands on the aching muscles, easing a little of the tension.
Raphael had knelt beside the bed. He gave me his hand.
“Take it,” he encouraged me quietly.
I did, and he carefully pressed my fingers, gradually tightening his grip, watching my eyes. I’d felt in dreams before. Yet, no matter how real nightmares seemed, none of them triggered my senses as much as reality.
“This can’t be real,” I’d insisted. “There must be something wrong with me…I can’t be-”
“No, sweetest, there’s nothing wrong,” Mirala murmured. “You’ve been through so much, I know it must be awful. Try to trust us, dear, please.”
I’d finally met her gaze.
“But what if it’s not okay?”
Raphael had put his arms around me.
“No matter what we go through, it will always be alright. There’s always healing after a storm, Essa.”
He’d started humming a melody I didn’t know, and I heard Rolf’s voice from the other room. They’d sung softly to me, a song I’d never heard.
Rest in God, Little Bright Star;
Trust will see all your fears
Fading among stars as dawn appears;
Blossoms light among the thorns.
The Kiss of God is in the dewfall;
One day you’ll hear His call.
Peace upon you, Little Bright Star;
The Lion breathes on you,
The Star e’er watches over you,
No wind-storm will hold sway,
For all heroes endure suff’ring,
And three archangels sing.
In that song, something had changed. I stopped praying that this was a nightmare; and I wouldn’t question it again.
I was here for a reason, for Mary had brought me there. All would be well, one way or another.
The weight was replaced with a waiting why, and a wondering when I’d hear that call.
“Star, Little Star!” Raphael was cocking his head and gently tapping the reins I still held. I shook my head quickly.
“I’m sorry! I zoned out.”
He smiled.
“I think I know what you mean, but it’s alright. We’re going to head on, now.”
“You mean, it’s okay,” Rolf teased, appearing remounted behind his brother. Ashtægo swished his tail and snorted as if in agreement. “By the time we reach Edessa, not only will you have all of us saying it, Essa, we’ll promptly set the new trend and it shall forever be enshrined in Westin’s dictionaries.”
I couldn’t help giggling at that. Rolf grinned.
“What do you know, she smiles.”
Raphael punched his brother’s knee and swung on behind me.
“I may be persuasive, but Rolf has all the infectiousness of a virus-”
“Thanks a lot,” Rolf grumbled, but only half-heartedly.
I tried not to feel guilty for smiling. I knew no one would want me to feel that way. I was still in turmoil on the inside, but I’d always been good at hiding that, and could enjoy most of the day as though I were well.
Mirala had said we’d reach Edessa by sunset, which meant a long ride on which to think, and try to pray. I always got pulled away by the thinking part.
While I no longer wavered over whether I was living a nightmare or reality, I still didn’t know how we’d get home. If we did make it, would I ever see Mirala, Raphael, or Rolf again? I pushed my vague fears aside, sensing that with Our Lady’s purpose, whatever that was, it wasn’t something I ought to worry over.
I’d waited for a purpose – this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but maybe it wasn’t for me. Maybe it would only be a test of me, for in a day I was learning things I hadn’t over years.
Hiding – I’d always hidden myself from everyone, even if I loved them. Trust was something I both overused and overlooked. I was too trusting, but when it came to telling anyone anything, I was a glacier that did all its crumbling from the other side.
Trusting God – well, I didn’t trust myself, either! All the times I’d set a goal and not met it, vowed to change a habit and not broken it, decided to mend my faults and couldn’t do anything but leave them open – if I couldn’t trust me, somehow, it followed that I couldn’t trust Him, since I always prayed for these things to end.
Now I was equally unsure how much to tell my protectors. Even the nightmares last night had been hard to release. But, there wasn’t that much to tell, and everything could stay inside. At least for now. That was alright, though. No matter the lurking clouds, I could still be distracted by how ethereally beautiful this country was.
Some Atlantis! It certainly wasn’t under the sea, and I hadn’t seen much technology, such as enthusiasts had often proposed. Aside from the threat of storm and suchides, it was lovely; we’d been passing through woodland and vale, so poetically hung with mist and rich greenery of varied kinds, and dripping boughs of flowers, that it was difficult to tear my eyes away. In the distance to the north, there were smooth green mountains, like tumbled seaglass, still catching the golden hour of the sun. There was birdsong, too, some familiar, and others I’d never heard – some like bells, piping flutes, or harps among trickling streams.
I’d been noticing, too, what must have been the “gate-marking” mentioned by Almer: slender posts marked by reflective crimson vials, set every five feet with thin copper chains strung between. The posts themselves were only four or so feet high, and certainly were no match for a suchide’s power. I mentioned it to Raphael.
“Those vials you see,” he assured me, “if there’s one thing suchides despise more than reflective red, its reflective red, strong floral scent, and aurical, the copper metal you see there.”
“I thought it was too fragrant to be the forest flowers, but still, can’t they get past? It’s awfully flimsy-looking.”
“Until the perfume fades, they won’t try,” Rolf replied. “Can’t say I blame them. They’re allergic to aurical, too. One touch, and their hide starts blistering. Another thing – suchides can’t jump! So they can’t pass underneath, can’t break it, and can’t come over it, either.”
I filed these facts away, sensing they would be of use if I ever had the misfortune to run into another suchide.
“This aurical, it’s what the legends called orichalcum?” I guessed.
“Mm, almost. Unlike the versions known in your world, aurical, while an alloy, is a natural one. Outside of the purification process, that is. At one time or another, and very unscientifically, the earth below Silvaria was so twisted up that a few veins of gold, copper, iron, and rosica, one of our own metals, were marbled together. Rosica, which gives it that pink shade you’re probably fond of, is weak on its own. Combined with the other three, the molecules stick together worse than glue. It’s one of the strongest alloys we know, and the most widely used.”
“Rolf?” Mirala reined her mare to a halt, peering down the road. “Someone is coming.”
Rolf gazed down to the horizon, where nothing was visible to me. It clearly wasn’t to Raphael either, as he waited patiently.
“Just a couple of men to the garrison, Mother,” he said at last. “Shall we avoid them?”
Mirala hesitated.
“Her clothing is obviously foreign,” she replied at last. “Anyone passing will know she’s an outsider, and we never know where Typhon has eyes.”
“She could wear one of our cloaks. We’d have to leave the road, otherwise,” Raphael reminded her.
“Wearing a cloak won’t change the fact that everyone knows I neither have a niece nor an older daughter,” Mirala returned. “It will still be of speculation that she’s an outsider. I think we should chance it.”
“As long as we’re within three yards of the markers, we’ll be safe enough,” Rolf put in.
“Besides, we have an early warning system,” Mirala said lightly, and sent her mare hopping over the fence.
Rolf shook his head, though at what, I wasn’t sure, and Ashtægo followed, trilling his relief that something was happening.
I tensed, wondering if I’d stay in the saddle or not.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall,” Raphael promised, and had me grasp the handrest of the saddle. He put one arm around me and taking the reins in the other hand, soon had us both in the woods. We proceeded through the brush, keeping near the road. In another ten minutes, the men had passed, leaving us to rejoin and silently wonder if we’d make it to Edessa at such a rate.
It was an easy guess that while debris and passerby would decrease, danger would increase with the onset of darkness.The day crept onwards, and as night began to hasten towards us, my suspicions proved correct.
Mirala was in the midst of a fascinating discourse on the true Atlantis tale when Rolf interrupted.
“Suchides, with riders!” he said sharply.
Instantly we halted and looked to him. There was nothing anywhere in sight.
“How far?”
I sensed the change in Raphael’s posture as he went on full alert.
Rolf closed his eyes to listen.
“I’d make it as a mile,” he answered, opening them again.
“We need to make haste,” Mirala declared, and might have led us in a gallop if Raphael hadn’t grasped her reins.
“If we stay on the road, they’ll see Essa for sure!”
“If we get off the road, we aren’t protected,” Rolf argued.
“This morning, you wanted to get off the road.”
Rolf admitted the point.
“But the Suchides can’t come over the markers,” I objected. “What’s the point of the markers if we leave the road?”
“The suchides can’t, but their riders can; they can also fire arrows and call into Typhon that we have you,” Raphael said gravely. “Traveling in a straight line, we’d be easy prey for any arrow. We need to get off the road and stay in the dense, where it’s harder for suchides to see or maneuver.”
“But then we won’t have anything but trees and speed between us and those jaws,” Mirala murmured.
“And, we can’t do anything to the riders. Their weapons can poison us like themselves, but we can’t kill them because to our knowledge, they’re only tainted by Typhon, and aren’t in control,” Rolf added shortly. “Decide, Raph’! They’ll sense us soon.”
The matter being once again left in his hands by the rest of the party, Raphael squared his shoulders and pulled his stallion to the wall.
“I know these lands better than anyone. There’s a hidden way, cutting through the ridge, if we can reach it ahead of them.”
“Anyone?” Rolf muttered. “Raphael, you’ve never been off this road. Keep it to ‘as well as anyone,’ will you?”
“I know everything that’s ever been mapped, Rolf! You know that,” Raphael snapped.
He spurred Seidon on and we jumped the fence.
“That’s done it!” Rolf exclaimed as we galloped, ducking, through the maze of briars and oaks. “They’ve heard us!”
I couldn’t begin to guess how he knew that, much less how he’d heard them a mile away, but he must have been the “early warning system” Mirala had mentioned.
I tried to look up at Raphael to see whether he was concerned; but unlike Rolf’s fiery state, Raphael’s face betrayed nothing but focus.
The ridge was looming closer now, to our relief, but according to Rolf, something else was too.
“Half mile, and closing!”
“Then it’s a good thing we know where we’re going, and they don’t!”
We sped onwards. As though he had every degree of the area outlined in his mind, Raphael led us across shallow streams, under massive twisting tree roots, and through the brush.
“Raphael!”
I knew a warning tone when I heard one. Raphael knew what it meant.
“Five seconds!”
There was a sound I recognized, a heavy, hissing breath, and weight crashing through the trees. They were almost upon us!
A moment later we were crashing down a slope towards a veritable living net covering a deep ravine.
“Down!” Raphael breathed, and pulled us all into the ravine, sliding painfully through the brambled branches that wove so thickly overhead. Fragmented patterns of light scattered across the leaves, and petals, loosened from our drop, drifted over us. Even the horses managed to scramble through the larger branchen windows and knew to lay silently among the stones.
Raphael gripped me tightly, and it turned out to be well that he cupped one hand over my mouth, for we soon saw the shadows of suchides and riders on the brink.
The riders were black from head to foot, and it wasn’t just their clothing. Sickly inhuman, even their skin was blackened, as though by tar and fire, and rippled by crator-like marks. The whites of their eyes were stark in that blackness, glazed over by a green haze.
Sharp steel shrapnel was fused to their forearms, deadly weapons with the slightest movement, and the armor fitted to them was marked by cocentric rings, like a web or the outline of the fabled Atlantis. Only, it was as though a suchide had torn it with its teeth, and it bled.
The suchides, too, were gashed by steel, which winged their faces and sides, and they were mounted by chained leather bridle and saddle. Together, riders and mounts seemed to suck every bit of light out of the immediate area.
But the suchides soon revolted at the scent of floral branches, forcing themselves back against their riders’ hands. One of the riders spat something in a language I did not understand, and after a few moments of fruitless effort, took the beasts away from the edge.
“The riders can’t make it down here, either,” Raphael whispered to me. “Their armor is so heavy, they can scarcely walk more than a few feet unmounted.”
Rolf crouched beside us as Raphael released his hold on me.
“You okay?” Rolf asked me quietly. He made a little face when I hesitated between a nod and a shrug. “Yeah, kind of made me sick the first time I saw it.”
“Let’s get out, before they come back. I’m sure they can think of burning these branches in less than two minutes,” Raphael said darkly, and led us to a narrow passageway through the rock, just wide enough for our horses.
Literally and figuratively, we weren’t out of the woods yet. The passage fell open into a staired and wooded glen, and some distance beyond that was the ridge.
“They’ll have another chance at us,” Raphael muttered. “Rolf, status?”
“They’re circling. Maybe thirty seconds.”
“Move! If we don’t make it to the passage well ahead of them, we’re out of shortcuts!”
Thirty seconds was enough to keep the suchides out of sight at our speed, but not enough to keep them from finding the path. There was a sheet of moss and fern, draping over a deep crevasse in the ridge that cut down to the glen.
Raphael pulled it aside and waved Mirala ahead.
Rolf dragged Ashtægo back, forcing the stallion into a rear.
“No! Raph, they’re too close. I’ll take them on a detour. Get moving!”
“Rolf, no! You can’t handle them!”
“Rolf, please -” His mother’s eyes were pleading as they darted helplessly from him to the growing sound in the trees beyond.
“Rolf- Rolf you said you couldn’t promise-” I was panicking, too, remembering what he’d said the day before. This wasn’t one suchide – it was two, with diabolized riders.
He looked at me with a slight grimace.
“Don’t worry, just get out of here!” With a smirk, he added, “If anything can outrun a suchide, its Ashtægo.”
He seemed more exhilarated than concerned, and Raphael impatiently snapped the reins against Seidon’s neck. Rolf cut him off before he could speak.
“Don’t make me argue with you again, just keep them safe!”
With an apologetic flinch at his mother’s fear, he whipped the stallion around and sent him leaping up the slope.
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