Dreams and Shadows (The Aylosian Chronicles Book 1) (30 page)

She had misread his hesitancy, though, saying, “You should not be shy, my son. Goodness, you have grown into a handsome young man, and there will be many fine women who would Join with you.”
 

They talked, and laughed, and wept. In many ways, it was everything and more that Michael had dreamed of. He had found his mother, and it seemed she loved him dearly.

“Please,” she said, “you must come and live with me.”

Michael could see in her eyes not just a loving invitation, but a pleading, as if his acceptance of her offer would somehow represent his forgiveness for her imagined transgression all those summers before. His grin was huge as he replied, “I would love to. Yes, please.”

Her quick smile was immediately replaced with worry, however, “Not straight away, though. My home is not ready, and there is so much to do. But I will work hard to prepare it. Maybe half a moon.” The lines on her face creased as more guilt appeared on her forehead. “I should have kept your room ready. I am so sorry, can you forgive me?”

“It’s okay, mum,” he said. “We’ve got summers and summers, so it doesn’t matter if it takes a little while.”

She relaxed at his words, and smiled again. She had found his use of “mum” strange at first, but had grown accustomed to it already. It made him wonder whether she had a pet name for him when he was little. “Mum, my name is Ramical, right?”

Again, she smiled, “Yes. People thought we were strange to give you such a name rather than use a part of your father’s, but somehow we knew it was right.”

“It will take me a long time to get used to it,” Michael said. “I’m sorry, but Michael has been my name ever since I can remember, so it might be hard.”

“It does not matter,” she replied, taking his hand in hers to reassure him. “All that matters is that you are safe, and you are here.”

“But there is something else I was wondering,” he continued. “Although my name was… is… Ramical, what did you call me? You know, when you would speak to me as mothers do, what did you say?”

She smiled again as she closed her eyes for a moment, remembering her time as a young mother, with her baby next to her. “I called you Rami,” she said softly.

It took only a second for the words to sink in: for the full import to be felt. In his dream, he had heard a woman calling. He had thought she had been calling to him, but she hadn’t used his name. She hadn’t said Michael.
Trust yourself, Ami
she had said. He smiled now as he realised that even in a dream he could mishear, as he understood that the words really must have been
Trust yourself, Rami
. He would ask about it another time, but for now it was another boon to his soul to know that even in the other world – the one he now knew was the one foreign to him – even there his mother had somehow reached out to him.

***

They made plans to see each other every couple of dawns until her home was ready for Michael to move in, and then said their goodbyes. Michael was emotionally exhausted from the two dawns and slept soundly, awaking late the following morning. But he felt as happy as he ever had done, and joyfully told Samo and Pava of his reunion when they met just before lunchtime.

It took longer than Eramica had thought for her to feel that her home was ready for Michael, and half a moon later she was still apologising for another delay when they met, but he didn’t mind. He had waited eighteen winters to find his mother, so waiting an extra moon, or two, or five, to move back into his home didn’t matter to him.

But alongside the joy at seeing his mother, there arose within him an increasing discomfort with… something. The weather had started to warm again. The snow was gone from the ground and had begun its retreat up the faces of the nearby mountains, and when the clouds released their moisture it was rain. As the people of the city once again made their way outdoors to enjoy the improving weather, he noticed anew their happy sociality and their bright clothing. Now, however, there was something that didn’t seem quite right as he observed them.

He asked Samo and Pava if there was anything different, but they had given him funny looks and told him that he was imagining things, putting it down to the excitement of meeting his mother.

But Michael knew that wasn’t it. Although as he thought about it, he realised that the discussion he had with his mother may have contributed to his feelings. When he had first arrived in Aperocalsa, he was surprised at how perfect everything had seemed to be. Thinking it looked too good to be true, he had asked Samo where the poor lived, and Samo had replied saying that there weren’t any. Although he hadn’t seen anything in his moons amongst the people to contradict Samo’s claim, his mother had told him that her search of the city when he had first been lost had lead to finding hidden places where the outcast lived.

When he had told Pava of what his mother had said, Pava had insisted that there were no poor, and that his mother must have become confused in her despair. But that didn’t feel right to Michael. There
had
to be poor. Every society had the poor. It’s just that some were better at hiding them; at
pretending
they didn’t exist.

Then there was also the Guardian. It was certainly true that he had been benevolent: he had even found Michael’s mother and reunited them. But the story that Pava had told about Jashmarael and the subsequent Guardians perplexed him. Even if Jashmarael had saved their entire city as their story was told, was it credible for him to simply leave after two hundred summers, and then for the entire city to accept without question a stranger turning up and declaring that he was now their Guardian? And he still didn’t know why the Guardian had taken him under his protective care in the first place.

Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more confused he became. The Elahish Bow and Sword Weavers genuinely appeared to attack the city’s soldiers. Even in his time in the city, he had seen Rists return, depleted from bloody encounters. He had been threatened himself by a Sword Weaver, and that was with evidence of a Sooth Weaver that he wasn’t a threat to them. He was certain they would kill him if he returned to them now. Their Lora also seemed to think quite highly of themselves and he could imagine them imposing their will on the people of the city just as the Guardian claimed had happened a thousand summers past. So on the one hand it seemed legitimate for the people of Aperocalsa to fear the Weavers.

On the other hand, the Elahish lived a simple life. They didn’t pursue fashion or vanity. Their artwork by Weavers inspired others, granting new perspectives in ways that transcended mere talent. And most of the Weavers had nothing to do with power or influence – there was no reason to fear them. On the whole, their people seemed to be more… innocent? Pure?

Everything about both the Elahish and Aperocalsa felt incongruent and ultimately, that is what Michael decided was making him feel uneasy.

And so, as the weather cheered up, Michael retreated more into the library. Though he ensured that he saw his mother as often as he could, he met with his friends less frequently, a hunger for understanding building within him.

He decided that he needed to learn more about Jashmarael and the Guardians of the city, so started his research there. Over the course of several dawns, he found a number of tomes that related to the time of the city a thousand or so summers past, but most were of no use, some speaking of Jashmarael, but only in passing, or proclaiming his greatness.

It was on the fourth dawn of searching that he finally found something useful. He had been just about to finish in the late afternoon, his eyes stinging from having been staring at tiny words for marks on end. But as he turned to the page that he decided would be his last, he read the words, “White Messenger”, and his eyes’ ache suddenly departed.

The text was difficult to read, with some words erased, and pages torn, but he pulled the book closer to his eyes to aid his study of the faint writing.

The winter had been heavy, and the snow remained piled against walls and buildings, holding their occupants in their warm abodes to await the first glimpse of spring. It was for this reason that the White Messenger was not quickly seen; his snow-white body invisible against winter’s plains.

The guards affrighted, though they held their ground, keeping the terrifying creature at bay until word reached………
 

The page had been torn here, and he turned the book’s broken leaf to pick up the tale.

….within the walls of the Talleth. Here, he grew in stature, and finally spoke. Standing under the Erallis Flower, his voice was magnified, its deep rumbles sounding like the dark caverns of the earth itself calling forth Aylosia’s salvation or doom. All present trembled; even… looked uncertain, though she alone did not fear the white prophet.

A crossroad approaches

The path divides

The child born

Will choose the side

Heed his call

Spare the pain

Aylosia’s glory

To see again

Seed of love

Saviour born

Healing rifts

‘Til time’s last morn

After concluding his curious message, the strange being departed, disappearing again into the snowy plains… declared it a prophecy… face lit with… anticipation.

Michael studied the words on the following pages. Large passages continued to have been removed, and Michael wondered whether it had been acts of carelessness, or whether a deliberate violence had been enacted upon the book: offending words torn in purposeful rage. Considering how precious books were and that he had seen no similar excisions in the other volumes he had studied, he considered the latter more likely, and he couldn’t help but wonder what messages were now forever hidden from view.

A compulsion tugged at him to transcribe the prophecy, and so he collected some parchment from a nearby shelf and using the quill and ink that were available within the library carefully wrote down the words. After waiting for it to dry, he folded the paper and tucked it into an inner jacket pocket before heading back to his quarters.

He continued to ponder the strange prophecy as he lay in bed that night, having memorised it by the time he fell into slumber. Arising early again the next morning, he returned to his studies, searching for a later period, when Jashmarael had departed the city. But it was another two dawns before he found what he was looking for. He had removed another two thick books from a low shelf, and his eye had caught something, partially hidden behind the wooden plank. Reaching in through the cobwebs and dust, his hand grabbed hold of a leather spine. As he pulled the secret book from its position, he found it covered in dust, and realised that it must have lain there for countless summers, its dry hiding place keeping it preserved.

He scanned the pages until he came to a part that spoke of Jashmarael’s ageing, and he carefully read.

The master had led the land in peace for nigh two hundred summers, the Weavers having been driven safely to the edge of oblivion. Only his mother had escaped his wrath, banishing herself from the land forever to hide from his fury. But though he was offspring of the immortal Ashael, his own span of life was not so generous: his face now showing time’s ceaseless march. His body too now moved with the careful steps of old age. But while men may accept their fate after so long a life, and one filled too with great accomplishments, not so Jashmarael. His ambition to climb ever higher and topple even the Seer remained, and he grew furious at those who questioned the wisdom of his purpose in a mortal frame that grew frail.

And so it was that his closest advisors were astonished and delighted in equal measure when his aura changed, of a sudden. His bitter and dangerous melancholy had turned to gracious joy in a single dawn. Their wonder was only matched with the surprise they felt when he announced one dawn that he was leaving Aperocalsa for the deep caverns of the northern mountains. Those who gave him counsel advised against his journey, travelling frail and alone into the dangerous tunnels, but he was not dissuaded, promising that he would return in a handful of moons.

Indeed, barely a season had passed when the object of the White Messenger’s prophecy returned from his secret quest, appearing suddenly seated upon his throne within the walls of the great palace. All who witnessed bowed in newfound adoration, for the summers that had lined his face were gone, his youthful appearance having miraculously returned.

Only those who had been his closest aides were permitted to know his secret, however; that it was Jashmarael himself who still ruled the land. For he commanded that all the world now know him only as the Guardian, and that such should be the case until the end of time.

And so it is to this dawn, that a Guardian remains on the throne of Aperocalsa; time’s march being secretly reversed each generation by quests to the darkness that lies beneath the northern peaks. His quest to surpass even the Seer remains, though few now know of it. And how tangled his plans, or when they will come to fruition, none can tell.

Only this can those even closest to him know with certainty: the kind and benevolent exterior that is seen by the adoring crowds of Aperocalsa masks a purpose that is singular, and deadly to those who would oppose him. Those whose acts support his ambition will receive reward beyond their most bounteous dreams, while those who would hinder his careful steps will know a wrath that will empty their hearts of tears. Such is the wonder of Jashmarael.

As Michael finished reading the passage, many of his doubts vanished, though other questions arose. If true, the story explained why a stranger could appear every few decades and claim leadership of the city. The senior officials of the city would know who it was who arrived, physically renewed, and would ensure that nothing impeded his on-going rule.

But Michael still didn’t know why the Guardian – or Jashmarael himself if the text were true – would want to hide his identity, or why he had taken such a benevolent interest in him. The words he had just read suggested that such kindness might be shown when an individual’s acts furthered Jashmarael’s own aims, but how could Michael be helping anyone? He had been useless to all since his arrival in the land.