The Kallanon Scales (38 page)

She observed
him with an amused expression, but hers were not eyes; they were
dark pools of hate, despair and death. Little voids of terror in an
otherwise beautiful creature. She was naked, alluringly feminine
and he stirred at first before squashing arousal with
determination. Therein lay the path to madness.

He knew these
nightmares were real on some level, with incomprehensible rules he
needed to fathom to shake the yoke of oppression. To falter here,
to submit, to follow, was to be ensnared.

Tymall
, she whispered from the far
side of the clearing and it was a note of wondrous music. His feet
stepped towards it. Betrayal! The saner part of his mind screamed,
and he halted.

With every
visitation he either retreated unobtrusively, eyes on whichever
monster chose to haunt him, or he stumbled away and a chase ensued
through grabbing trees, clawing through old undergrowth.

More than
once, he jerked from the nightmare to discover huge welts, bloodied
scratches and gouges on his arms and face.

The same
clearing awaited every time, but what it meant he had not yet
penetrated. It was pebbly and circular, clear of debris, surrounded
by jungle, purposefully conceived and signified something. It was
also an open funnel to darkness, yet a diffused glow lit the
rounded space.

Seeing it now,
really looking, feeling stronger and more objective, he
understood.

He went numb to the edges of his toes.
This is my mind, my soul, and my spirit. This is I. The
concept I. The contrived clearing is the pretence I am, the jungle
is what awaits me, and those are my monsters.

Tymall
awakened.

The clearing
remained, superimposed on their sylvan surroundings. He blinked,
but it refused to leave as quickly as usual. Having understood it
was himself he confronted, he now understood the waking world was
no barrier, and his monsters would soon intrude on reality.

Vicke gave a
shrill cry. They looked at each other, both saying nothing. Both
glanced at Renar twitching on the grass, and awakened him. Renar
would not meet their eyes. Even the cleanest and untrammelled soul
could suffer the inner dark.

They drank
more, filled their water bottles and rose. They headed downstream,
following the watercourse.

A river led
somewhere.

This Valaris
was poisonous jungle.

They wandered
for weeks, hoping for a landmark. They went nowhere.

They no longer
mentioned the mission or spoke of family and friends. The fruits
they dared sample to date had done no harm and they tended to look
out for those, but the jungle tricked at every turn, the fruit
became impossible to find again. They lost weight. Renar was a mere
shadow.

The stream
vanished into a rock face. They drank more, feeling stronger again
than two hours before, and studied the obstacle in their path.
Narrow, high and hemmed by thick growth, it afforded numerous
handholds.

Tymall grasped
the first and levered up. The rock was dry, grip was good, and he
scaled the face, with Vicke and Renar following.

The top was a
narrow plateau at canopy level, and they set off unimpeded, the
view an endless sea of green. It was blistering hot, but night
would herald relief.

Renar soon
trailed and Tymall chose to halt beneath the branches of an old
tree that towered from the canopy. An added advantage, discovered
by the slower Renar, was a creeper filled with tiny fruit they ate
before.

They had a
feast that night and stayed awake to appreciate moving air, and ate
slowly, pacing themselves, sipping water. Morning found them tired,
but definitely stronger, and Renar with colour in his cheeks.

Midmorning of
the next day their path through the canopy ended. There were stairs
hewn into the rock leading to the jungle floor. Not a comfort
supplied by nature, but something someone sometime carved into the
rock. They descended. The stream resumed at the foot of the stairs
and it was heartening. They drank deeply and refilled their
bottles.

The terrain
was friendlier. Even the pesky flies abated. Tymall admitted
something nagging at him since they encountered the rock face. It
began to change for the better once he acknowledged the place of
his nightmares. Dare he draw the obvious conclusion?

Confrontation
was escape. If he acknowledged his monsters, his inner self, the
way out would come forth. It implied a major manipulation, an
external force not of his making.

The stream
broadened for a way and then the jungle swallowed it, a clear
swathe of water in a green, monotonous world.

There was
nothing for it, they followed.

They wandered
the watercourse for three days drinking their fill, but food was
scarce.

Tymall’s
nightmares ceased. As did Vicke’s; it was evident in his bright
gaze and sense of humour. Tymall and Renar found little amusing,
but were happy to listen to his ribald comments.

On the third
day, it went wrong.

Tymall called
a halt at noontime and turned to ask Renar how he fared.

Renar was
gone.

Vicke was
distraught. He and Renar grew up together. Tymall calmed him and
they began searching and calling. They retraced their steps, and
nothing. They lost sight of the stream and could not find their way
back.

Fear set in.
Nightmares returned tenfold.

As Tymall
stood at the edge of the clearing, he lost sense of the verdant
jungle. He did not hear Vicke scream in terror and did not see his
companion drop into a crawling scuttle.

Tymall.

It was the
alluring blue creature again. Would it be enough to overcome just
her?

Come to me, Tymall,
her melodic
voice entered his mind, stirring his blood anew.

She is a
figment of my imagination!

“No!” he burst
into speech for the first time in this place of his mind. His voice
startled him and served to steady. “This is in my head.”

“No less
real,” she trilled back and began swaying her pelvis suggestively.
“Come here, and take this gift. You know you want to.”

He put his
back to her and for an instant the green jungle intruded. Where was
Vicke?

She laughed.
“That is a fallacy, Tymall! Turning your back won’t empower
you.”

He swung back in anger. She stepped into the clearing, an
unwilling action.
What did I do?
How do I repeat that?
“
Who are you?”

“I am the tale
your father told you.”

“I do not
understand,” he said, retreating at the mention of his father.

She laughed
and stepped back, in control.

I was angry and she entered the clearing, I was anxious and
she resumed her place.
If his reasoning
was sound, it meant sustained fury on his part. Surrender to his
volatile nature. To escape, comprehend the place and confront what
he was?

“Explain
yourself! No riddles!” He smiled when she stepped into the
clearing, her feet disturbing the perfectly laid pebbles.

“There is no
call for anger, sweetness,” she whispered and he caught her
uncertainty. “I shall tell you.”

“Then do
so.”

She took
another reluctant step towards him.

“I am the
presence of Infinity.” She crowed in triumph when he gasped and
took a dancing step back.

“Not
possible.”

“You had
nightmares about me as a child and I was real to you then. Why
should it be different now? We never entirely lose the thoughts of
our childhood.”

He did not
retreat, did not react, and the tableau froze.

After a time
the jungle returned in cloying emerald glory, and he was
displeased. It would happen repeatedly until he either surrendered
or won out. He wished he confronted her claim.

He knew about
Infinity, although his father’s recounting was a dry tale,
including how she died near the Dome. It was his grandfather
Taranis’ stories that gave him nightmares. Taranis battled the
dara-witch across millennia. A young mind boggled at the influence
she wielded, her tenacity, and he experienced delicious fear,
begging his grandfather to tell more, more. He wanted to meet her,
learn from her.

Now he was in
the place of his childish desires and he liked it not.

Surely, he should revel in this? This soup of
darkness?
Is this not what I
am?

A swarm of
hairy flies landed on his face, emboldened by his stillness, and he
brushed them aside, spitting disgust, and lost his train of
thought.

“Vicke!” he
shouted, realising he was alone, but no answer came.

He was alone
for the first time in his life, physically, emotionally,
spiritually. He hungered for the presence of his twin with a
longing that was new and painful.

Tymall doubled
over whispering, “Tris, where are you?”

~ Twin war
gods

Desert
Valaris

T
ristamil’s reasoning was borne of
certainty the moment he found the city of Menllik
missing.

Staring at the
emptiness, he knew immediately he was displaced. Valaris, as he
knew it, lay in a different reality.

He would
overcome. His father wanted him to get through this.

Following the
curve of the mighty range into the valley, he moved east, hopefully
to find a residue Torrke. If he watched the shadows, he could
escape the worst of the sun and, as the temperature plummeted at
night, beads of condensation would form on the hot rock to sustain
him.

It took three
days to enter the valley, three thirsty days. Condensation did not
materialise. He knew he hallucinated as he entered, but that he was
aware meant there was hope. He gave up attempting to figure the
reasons behind the displacement.

Torrke was
shifting dunes as high in some places as the mountains, without
scrub, without even a shattered rock to break the fierce monotony.
No water. Dun. Dead.

He almost
surrendered then, disappointment so acute he could not function. He
considered ploughing his head into the powdery matter to suffocate.
To be done. There was no hope. There was nothing.

The thought of
his father staggered him upright.

Father, you
will be my hope and motivation. The hope that I shall again meet
you in reality will have to pull me from this hopeless
depression.

Tristamil sank
onto the sand, not in surrender, but to think with his mind as
clear as he could make it. The antidote to fear was faith. He
needed to believe in a future beyond this. He had to rely on
himself. In thinking that, a sense of freedom overcame him,
difficult to understand in his hallucinatory state, yet there.
There was no Ty to monitor every second of every day, never at
ease.

I have been
akin to this waterless land, afraid to give, afraid to receive,
expecting nothing to change. I have pushed away loyalty, respect,
friendships, love, especially love. I gave to my father, but at a
distance, knowing there was an overpowering need to disguise Ty. My
father gave unstintingly, a gift I was unable to acknowledge. Only
Ty understood and used it and me, but he is not here.

I am free.

I can be all
that I can be.

I may finally
grow and flourish.

A smile
settled onto burnt lips and he closed his eyes. He visualised
himself as a sapling oak sprung from the health and vitality of a
perfect acorn, growing steadily in fertile soil under a benign sun
and showered with blessed rain.

With infinite
care, he saw himself reach for maturity, bright emerald leaves
unfurling from tight green buds after a long cold winter, raising
up to the beginning of a new spring, and felt in that visualisation
in perfect sync with the pattern of the universe. It was not a
hallucination or an imagining borne of desperate hope; it was an
awakening of his true self.

This is
life.

He extended
his tongue to catch the coolness of raindrops.

His eyes
snapped open. He licked his lips. Chapped, burnt, swollen … and
wet.

The awesome
imaginings of a sane mind could drive one to crazy acts, but the
frightening delusions of a feverish mind could drive one entirely
insane, sometimes beyond redemption.

Is my need so
dire I am delusional?

Yet, there it
was again.

Raindrops.

Tristamil
rose, afraid to dislodge the delusion. Glad of the delusion. Even
if it ended now, as hard as disappointment would be, it was
satisfying.

When he
stepped into a puddle of fresh rainwater, the blessed cool bringing
instant relief to a hot, blistered foot, he laughed aloud and put
his other foot in. It was worth the pain after, to feel cool and
refreshed in his mind, no matter how short-lived. He sank to his
knees in the puddle and drank, slurping greedily like one of the
Keep’s kitchen mongrels, enjoying each dunking of the tongue.

I am an oak tree, young yet, reaching for the stars, and I
shall grow strong and mighty.
He rocked
back to drink more sedately, more in keeping with how he envisioned
himself.

It was real.
While he believed in the purity of his oaken self, it would be
there for him. If he lost faith the desert of his previous pretence
would return.

I believe
.

The valley
transformed. It was not the Torrke of contrary magic and nature,
but it was fertile with streams a design of intricate delicacy,
fruit trees, sweet herbs and alder, willow, many others, and the
stately, steady oak. Gentle with rolling sylvan hills, and birds
erupted into boisterous melodies.