The Spaces Between (A Drunkard's Journey) (42 page)

Chapter 2 – A Voice Out of Nowhere

We all hear voices in our heads. Who speaks? Who are we talking to if we dare reply?

Cleric Bertrand

A
las, I can reach you. Your mind is so closed when it is awake, little one. I see you are with the Dawn.

The voice sounded strained and careworn, as if the owner had struggled long under an illness or depression. Zhy thrashed in his sleeping bag, but his eyes remained closed. He floated in the indigo haze of a deep sleep, and yet the woman's voice seemed to pull at him physically and he was tugged upward into a separate part of his dream. It was a dream, wasn't it?

In dreams, he had had lengthy conversations with Kahl, with women, with people long-since dead, and even with himself. It was not unusual to hear people speaking in dreams, although given his current exertion, he would have expected a death-like embrace of the sleeping world. The voice repeated its earlier statement, but he shrugged it off, feeling his dreaming body trying to wriggle into the pure black of oblivion.

But the voice continued.

Zhy… Zhy, please answer me. I know you are there. I can see you.

He groaned.

Zhy
, the woman's voice repeated. It was a sad, soft voice, and slightly grating in its tone of—what was it, anyway, he wondered? Pleading? Exasperation? Hopelessness? Yes, there was something deeper, something determined in that voice. Still, he rolled over again, trying to force himself out of the dream.

Zhy, please answer me. I know you hear me.

"I'm only dreaming," he finally muttered.

If you want to think so,
the voice replied. The sad and tired woman's voice continued. Her voice trembled slightly, sounding as if, as if she had just finished crying.
My son murdered me. And now he sits in a castle, far away, working to destroy the world.

"Destroy… How…? What are you talking about?" In a mirrored situation of his waking experiences, he had a hundred more questions to ask, but only a few came out, muttered into the roll of clothes he was using as a pillow. His companions snored nearby in their own oblivion. He could hear them snoring… Was he awake? No, he assuredly was not, he convinced himself. This was a deep and disturbing dream and he was simply adding the sounds of the waking world to it.

You died, Zhy. You died.
The abruptness of this statement shook him and his legs jerked. She seemed to sigh and continued.
I snatched you away at the last possible second, but I had to let you die. I'm sorry. Things will now be very different. No one could reach you until that happened."

"Then this is a dream," he muttered and tried to float away from the strange voice. But it pulled him back.

No, Zhy, it is not. You are not dead now, and you are not dreaming… I was the only one who could rescue you.

"What do you mean?" Why was he talking to her? Who was she? He did not remember many women—he remembered very little of his life before. Her statements were the prototypical fuzzy phrasing of dreams, and thus were his responses. But in the far reaches of his mind, these were questions he needed answers to—the bright memories of snow and rock were too sharp and too overpowering to allow any other thoughts to seep out.

What other meaning could there be?
She sounded almost irritated by the question.

"I don't understand how dying and being brought back to life is a good thing," he snapped. His joints, muscles, and bones had gone through an incredible jarring on the horse, and it seemed every last fiber in his body screamed in an agony of dull and throbbing pain.

You will, perhaps, appreciate it later. I can understand your confusion and your pain—your body was almost completely crushed.

"So why even bring me back? What possible purpose could that have?"

You were the only one not yet gone by the time I got there… the others had already passed into the final resting place.

"Others?" Her mention of others brought forth a flicker of a memory.

Yes, your friends. They are gone, sadly. You are the one, the only one, who knows the area, who can help these men kill him.

"I am no use to anyone, dead or alive."

He could see her shake her head.
Enough of that kind of talk, Zhy. I saved you for a reason, and it was not out of any whim.

"But you just said I was the only one left! I guess I wasn't smart enough to go that this 'final place' or whatever you call it. There was a long fall and my head was probably smashed—so now you've rescued an idiot." If he could convince her that he was worthless, perhaps she would leave him alone.

That ploy may have worked with others, but not with me. You will see the point to all of this, I hope sooner rather than later. The three of you have a long journey and you must deal with a very dangerous person—not the man who killed you, but he might as well have.

Zhy grimaced and sighed. If this were a dream, he could take comfort in her absence in the morning. If not, what horrors of the mind did he have to look forward to for another thousand miles? It was a thousand miles, right? He thought he remembered. "Fine, I will play your game. For now. Who are we going to kill?"

My son.

"Your son?" he barked. It only got stranger.
This is just a dream, a very bizarre one.
As long as he remembered that, the strange conversation would not seem so out of place. If only he could fall back out of it and get some sleep!

Yes. My son… he once had a name, a nice name. He counted turnips in our field, played the sutan... I mussed his—
Zhy could hear her forcing a coldness into her voice.
Now he calls himself Ar'Zoth and he wants to rule the world.

The name didn't register at first. In the purple void of the dream, his mind suddenly raced past the image of rocks and snow and focused on a long and familiar face. A smile floated past and then vanished.
Father
. If this were truly a dream, then what would it hurt to think of his father? And in the way of a true dream, his focus shifted rapidly. "If you're dead, is my father there?" The question leapt from his lips. Memories of his father were as cloudy as any other, but for a brief moment, he knew the face; he knew who the man had been, and that was enough.

She sounded like she was crying again.
Your father was here. He tried to reach you. But he is gone now. He was helping my son, in fact. He wanted to tell you something—

"NO!" Zhy screamed. The dream had turned to nightmare. In some small station of his mind, a stern voice warned him not to believe those who purported to talk to the dead.
Never call their names, never call on them, and never talk to them. For they are liars and they will amaze you when they can reveal a loved one's past—but they are cheating you. They read you. You give them clues and you don't know it. Avoid them. Run.
The voice faded as abruptly as it came.

In his rage, he tried to kick the sleeping bag off of his body, but he was wrapped in it, and the fabric made a stretching sound. Frustrated, he pushed the bag down to his waist and sat upright on the hard ground. He bellowed into the dark, "No more! Out! Away!" Gone. Gone! Always gone… gone forever.

Yulchar stirred, but Huyen kept snoring. "What is the matter, Zhy?"

"Voices!" he spat. "There is a woman. But how? It is not Mother. Who is it? Is it me? Am I mad? " He was frantic. His mind had not registered the fact that he had mentioned hearing his father's voice before.

"You heard your father's voice?"

"I—" He broke off. "What? What did I just say?"
Am I still dreaming?

"You said you used to hear your father's voice, but now there is someone else?"

"I said that?" he asked. Had he said that? Yes! He had asked the woman about him, hadn't he? So, he had had a father, and he was most likely dead. Try as he might, the memories simply stopped. Why could he not remember his own father? "No, I was talking about a woman."

"A woman?"

"Yes, a woman. Talking in my head. She was telling me… about my—" He stopped. "About my father, but she was lying."

"Why was she lying?"

"She's dead! That's why!" Zhy veritably screamed.
I am either dreaming, mad, or… or drunk… Drunk? How could… wait, had she said that she wanted us to kill her son? Her own son?
His head fell heavily into his hands and he squealed in frustration. There was too much, too much! Dead, alive, rocks, falling, blinding snow and sun, dead women, dead fathers, dead… dead sons.

"Zhy?" Yulchar was asking. "Zhy, do not worry. You are not mad." His voice was suddenly soothing. "Now, tell me. Are you sure that there was a woman—a dead woman—talking to you?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"A woman!" Yulchar blurted, his voice tinged with excitement. "That is she! It must be!"

"Her? Oh…" His thoughts raced back through the day, what the man had said as he stood on the stoop.
Some woman. She is dead.
"How?"

Yulchar shook his head. "I said, I do not—"

"Know how these things work!" Zhy snapped the sentenced closed. He sucked in the cold night air. "I wish I knew!" His fists were balled and he pounded his knees; he forced away the tears of frustration behind his burning lids.

"You must find out everything you can. Who is she? Why you? Who are you? What did she say?"

Zhy thought a moment. What had she said? Only seconds ago, it had been vivid in his mind, but now there were only blanks.

"She said… she said she was trying to find something."

"Find something?"

"No, wait, she was worried about her son. He was someone else." His face was a slate of confusion. Yulchar leaned on his elbow, his face patient. Given Huyen's disposition, Zhy expected him to be breathing fire.

"Yes, that he had killed someone. Maybe her."

"Did you get a name out of any of this?"

"No. Yes!" He paused. "Ar'Zoth," he finally whispered. As soon as the name crossed his lips, something familiar tickled his brain. Something horrible.
No. NO! It cannot be…

"What?" Yulchar pushed himself off of his elbow and bounded to his feet. He paced in the dull moonlight.

"Ar'Zoth. She said the name Ar'Zoth!" Zhy repeated, louder. As if saying the name would somehow coalesce those horrible memories, or at least make them go away. The only change was a sudden shift in the clouds which revealed a full moon just below the tops of the trees. He hadn't slept very long.

Suddenly, Huyen leapt from his bedroll, sword in hand. "Demon-spawn!" he snarled. The glow of the full moon caught the blade of his sword and sent muted flashes into the forest. In the bright light, Zhy could make out his companions as clearly as in the day. Where had he seen a man draw steel so fast?

"Listen, listen!" Yulchar barked. "This is far bigger than us." Huyen's face was a distorted, angry mass, with glaring eyes and a raging crease across his forehead. Yulchar matched his stare with one of his own. "Do you wish to turn out like Gryn and seek revenge? Isn't it obvious?"

"It's obvious that he was one of these three that Gryn was chasing—one of those in league with the warlock. Who can say that he is not in bed with the demons?" Huyen growled.

Zhy glanced nervously at the twisted face of Huyen and his gleaming sword.

"The only thing obvious to me," Yulchar replied softly, "is that this was
one
of the three, yes. But he was the only one who never engaged the Dawn, who never started a fight."

"And how will that help us?" Huyen spat. "Surely not in a fight against Ar'Zoth!"

"No, but he might be…" Yulchar almost whispered, his voice faded, and his gaze was on something far away. As quickly as it came, the mood vanished and he looked at Huyen, speaking as if Zhy were not there. "He will help us, surely."

"How?" the other man snarled. He scowled at Zhy, and a small scar under his lip made it look almost like a bat, a sneering, bat, with dripping—

A bat!
The thought struck Zhy with such force he nearly fell back on his bedroll. An expression of horror ignited upon his face, and his nostrils filled with an unholy scent. Then it was gone.

"Is something wrong?" Yulchar asked, after seeing Zhy's body jerk.

"No, I remembered something," he stammered. "But it's gone. A bat. Some kind of large bat." He tried to recall the memories, but all that remained was the fleeting smell, and that was replaced by the scent of dead and decaying leaves, wet with snow and rain.

Huyen's scowl deepened, and low growl seemed to emerge from his throat. "A gherwza. I knew it!" His sword thrust forward—

Yulchar's arm was a blur as it lashed out and gripped the sword hilt. Huyen held it firm, but did not fight. His eyes locked on his companion's. "I think his mage companion killed it. Please stop this. This man is not demon spawn. We can be sure of that."