Nevermor (29 page)

Wren thought it
sounded like a tale used to terrify children, but she supposed that was what it
really was.  Were the things they'd said accurate, or simply like a wicked
fairytale?

“Why is this the
first time I’ve heard of him if he’s so terrifying?”

“Rifter didn’t
mention him to you?”  Mach asked.  He was munching away at some nuts that he’d
picked up along the way, sharing them with his twin.

“That’s kind of
strange, isn’t it?” Mech seconded.

“He probably
didn’t want to scare her,” Finn guessed.  “Or else he really believes that the
man isn’t coming back.”

“Rifter’s main
rule,” Sly disclosed, “is that we are not ever, under any circumstances,
supposed to approach that man to take him on.  Only Rifter can stand against
him.”

“But there have
been some of us in the past who have decided to be brave,” Nix said with a
sigh, looking up at the wall.  “It always ends the same way.”

Wren knew what
that meant.  It was clear enough in the names that were chiseled over her head.

“He hasn’t been
around for a while though,” Mach said, breaking through.  “Not after the last
time.”

Their heads
snapped up so fast to glare at him that Wren was startled.

“Shut-up,
dumbass,” Mech scolded, slugging his brother in the shoulder and glowering at
him, which proved to Wren that they were once again holding something back. 
She had to jump on it now if she wanted to get anything out of them.

“Where is he? 
Will he come back again?” she wanted to know.

“We’ll only know
when it happens,” Finn said with a shrug, as if it was not worth talking
about.  “Brr, it’s cold!  Let’s go back to the fire, Wren.  I know you must be
freezing!”

It was a clever
maneuver to change the subject, but she certainly
was
cold, even out of
the wind.  She silently agreed to go along with it and let him guide her back
out, away from the names of those who might have been forgotten – and away from
talk of the Scourge.

But before they
pulled her away, she was struck with an idea.  Wren looked back at the wall
once more, and there in the top area, she saw the object of her search etched
in large, bold letters.

CYPRUS… 
The truth was
clear then.  It was the Scourge that had gotten him.

1

Withdrawing from
the depth of the cave, they all came out to sit by the fire.  Wren was
surprised by how warm it was inside the cavern, but she was grateful for it. 
She finally felt she was beginning to thaw.

The subject of
conversation turned to things other than death, but Wren was alert through it
all, unwilling to let them get too far from what she wanted to know.  If she
was ever to get a time to ask them questions, this was it.  She wanted to ease
into it naturally, however, and so she let them go on for a while as they were.

Eventually, the
boys were led to speak of the ornaments that they adorned themselves with. 
They described the various trophies that were hanging from their belts.  She
learned about Sly’s gloves and Toss’s coat of many furs.  Then Finn had taken
to describing all the teeth on his necklace and where they had come from.

“This is a
lioness’ tooth,” he said, pointing it out.  “It’s a pretty funny story.  Nix
had been hunting it for a while, tracking it for weeks, but I happened to come
upon it one day when I was scavenging.  Killed it on the spot.  He was taking
forever to get it and it only took me one try!”

Nix was
obviously annoyed with that.  “And what is this I have here on
my
string? 
I do believe it’s one of
Finn’s
teeth!  Don’t you remember?  I knocked
it out of your head after you stole my kill.”

Finn touched the
side of his face as if recalling it.  “That was one of my best teeth,” he said
jokingly.

Wren laughed and
then scolded herself inwardly. 
Don’t encourage that.  It’s terrible.
 
But she smiled anyway.

“I wonder where
Rifter went,” Toss said thoughtfully, and Wren hoped they didn’t ask her.  She
sank down into her furs a bit as if she could hide from the question.

“I don’t care
where he went as long as he brings us something back,” Finn said, stretching. 
“Do you think he will?”

“Judging by the
way you annoyed him before he left?  Probably not,” Sly answered.

Wren sat there
by the crackling blaze, listening to them bicker and trying to look oblivious. 
She didn’t want them asking her if she knew where Rifter had gone because she
wouldn’t be able to tell them.  If it was a contest between the Pack and their
leader, they couldn’t possibly win.

“May I ask a
question?” she tried, as much to get information as to change the subject. 

They all got
quiet, and she could tell they were on guard for her inquiry – whatever it
would be.  They didn’t try to stop her, but she asked carefully.

“How did you all
get here?”

“Rifter brought
us here,” Toss said, though he seemed unsure why she didn’t know that already.

“Yes, but why? 
Where did you come from?”

“We’re not
allowed to talk about that, so we’ve forgotten it,” Mech said.

“Besides, we
don’t remember much anyway, whether we’ve talked about it or not,” Mach added. 
They both nodded as if that was a fine answer on all counts.

Was that true? 
Surely they remembered
something
.  She would help them along.

“I’ve noticed
that you all sound a bit different when you speak.  I assume you are from
different places in the world?  I mean, the world we all came from
first
.”

“Perhaps,” Sly
said.  “One of Rifter’s rules is that those he chooses must at least speak the
same language, but you might also consider that Rifter is unbound by
time
. 
Some of us have been here longer than others, therefore we have been lifted
from different years – different ages.  And who is to say that Rifter cannot
drift forward and backward in time?  The possibilities are endless when you
really start to think about it.  Perhaps some of us here now have been born
hundreds of years apart.”

That all nearly
blew Wren away.  She wasn’t sure how she might begin to fathom it.

“
Anyway
,”
Finn interrupted.  “Best not think too hard about the things Sly says, Wren. 
It’ll make your head hurt.  Rifter says we found this place because we were
seeking an escape.  That’s all I remember about when I was brought here.  I’m
happy to believe that this life is much better than the one I left.”

Rifter had said
that to her as well.  He’d said she was here because she was seeking an escape
from a life she hadn’t wanted anymore.

“You don’t have
any memories of your old life at all?”

“Why would we
want to remember?” Nix asked, jumping in before anyone else could.  “We came
here to get away from it.”

The rest of them
were quiet after that.  The disapproval in his tone had shut them down.  They
didn’t want to remember their pasts, and none of them even bothered to ask her
what her life had been just a few days ago.

But she wasn’t
done asking questions.

“Rifter said
some things to me that I didn’t quite understand,” she went on.  “He told me
that this was his world, and then he showed me that the wisps recognized him as
being part of it.  What does all that mean?  Is it true that he made this
place?”

“Sly holds that
tale,” Nix said, drawing out a pipe from his coat.  He lit it and began to
smoke, and though it was a bad habit for a boy to have, the smell reminded her
of her father’s house.

She looked at
Sly, who was staring at the fire.  She had already tried to ask him this
before, and he had denied her.  Would he be more willing now that the others
were there waiting for it as well?

“Rifter’s story
is complicated,” he began finally, “and
incomplete
.  I’ve always
believed that he made this place – dreamed it up out of his own head and then
came here to escape his other life.  Nevermor is affected by him in ways that
just can’t be explained.  It reacts to his moods; it becomes what he desires. 
This doesn’t happen directly, mind you.  He can’t just stand back and command
the mountains to move, but the land is affected by him nonetheless.  But there
are unending questions.  Such as: if it can be accepted that Rifter made this
world simply because he has power over it, then what of the Scourge?  Where did
he come from?”

There was that
name again.  They could not dodge it this time.  She needed to know.

“What do you
mean?”

Sly sighed, but
he wouldn’t look at her, instead looking at the flames.  “The Rifter and the
Scourge are very different, and yet they are the same.  The Scourge also has an
effect on the world, but in an opposite way.  Rifter—”

“Rifter makes
the world live, and the Scourge kills it,” Wren guessed.  She’d gathered that
from what Toss had said. 
Everywhere he steps, the land dies
.

Sly nodded,
pleased that she had deduced this.  “And so that is what they do.  Forever. 
They both expect certain things from the world, but Rifter has greater control
over it.”

“Because he
created it, like you said.”

“Perhaps,” he
agreed.  “The Scourge is constantly trying to take that away.  This is why they
fight, and when they come together…”

Sly hesitated,
perhaps unable to find words for what he was trying to say.

“It’s chaos,”
Mech finished for him.

“The world
doesn’t like it,” added Mach, shaking his head dramatically.

“And why?” Sly
picked up again.  “Is it because there must always be a balance?  Have the two
of them always existed?  Which was first?  If Rifter made this world, where did
the Scourge come from?”

“Stop saying his
name so much,” Toss said.  “It seems wrong.”

Sly shook his
head and looked at her.  “There are so many questions, Wren, and we just don’t
have the answers.  It’s like I told you before.  There are some things you have
to let go of because you’ll never be satisfied.”

She believed
him.  That wasn’t the issue.  She just wasn’t sure that was good enough for
her.  Was this to be an eternal mystery?  Sly may not have known and Rifter may
have forgotten, but there had to be a way to find out the truth.  She would not
give up until she saw it for herself.  The answers must have been somewhere.

But she left it
alone for now.

It wasn’t long
afterward that they decided to head back to the forest.  They would hunt on the
way back and then they could have a meal, settle in for the night and wait for
Rifter.  They did not know when he would return and wanted to be back before he
knew they’d been gone.

The Pack
traveled quietly across the snowy ground, and Wren smiled a little to herself
as she thought of seeing her brothers again.  Once they were here, she could
stop worrying and start to enjoy her new life.  Until then, she relished the
peaceful silence and the crunch of their footsteps, ready to believe that she
could close her eyes and walk in a line back to the underground – to rest while
she was walking and wake herself up when she got there because she knew the way
home – but it was in the midst of feeling so relaxed that she felt a vibration
in the ground beneath her feet.

She stopped on
instinct, looking down, wondering what the disturbance might have been, or if
she had even felt it at all.

“Did you feel
that?” she asked, but the Pack had all come to attention already, drawing their
weapons without waiting.

It wasn’t clear
where the source of the quake had come from, at least not to her, but the rest
of them turned around to look back toward the way they’d come.  She followed
their gaze, and though the falling snow was thicker in the distance, something
was there that hadn’t been before.

“Oh no…” one of
them uttered in a fearful whisper.

A creature was
there, pale in color, nearly blending with the snow.  It was a shade darker in
comparison, a gray shadow across the way, but it moved with serpent-like ease. 
There was no question that it was alive.  It was a thick-skinned, scaly beast
with a long snout full of razor teeth.  It had wings, folded against its back
now, and she wondered if the quake had come when the beast had touched down
from flight.

Wren was
reminded of a dragon, which had been a beast she’d always included in her tales
of knights and princesses until Max had told her that he’d had a nightmare
about an evil dragon.

A nightmare…

There was a
screeching roar, more piercing than the cry of any bird.  The shadow of the
thing moved about, swaying its head, and Wren could feel the tremors in the
ground as it took steps.

“What is it?”
she asked quietly, wondering why none of them were moving.  Shouldn’t they have
tried to hide?  They were out in the open!  Even though her first instinct was
to move away, she kept with them, trusting they knew best.