Authors: Brian Braden
Kol-ok looked over the side where the ropes anchored the flotilla to the Köy-lo-hely.
“They’re gnawing the ropes again.”
Wise men will one day dismiss those dark days as myth. Such things could never be, they will say. Their doubt will be understandable. When the inevitable Age of Disbelief comes to pass, I will not condemn mortals for their ignorance.
I will rejoice in it.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
The day wore on and so did the wailing from the masses packed on Hur-ar’s rooftops.
The water, choked with all manner of debris, relentlessly inched up walls and turned the streets into muddy rivers and the Grand Market into a lake.
The King and his court surveyed the disaster from the palace balconies. The last regent of the City of Gold ran from one edge of the lush rooftop gardens to the other, staring in disbelief at his forsaken city.
Black claws yanked under all who swam or waded through the muck. Those who tried to row through the streets on makeshift rafts fashioned from doors and tables capsized and vanished.
On a few rooftops, warriors tried to establish some semblance of order. In most places, however, the strongest preyed on the weak, as the city spasmed in its final moments of life.
Yet, even in Hur-ar the last bright sparks of love glowed brightly. In isolated pockets, husbands reassured wives, mothers comforted children, and lovers embraced against the coming doom. Beggars and feral children, the forgotten of Hur-ar, clung to high stairwells. Some succumbed to the black claws, while merciful hands pulled others up to their last refuge.
Along the city’s edges the strongest struggled to scale the cliffs which, for centuries, shielded the City of Gold. Now those cliffs formed prison walls, confining the damned to their tomb. Above it all, the Black Fortress stood impassively, offering neither judgment nor hope.
The survivors felt the glacial wave before they saw it. A bass pulse throbbed through the mountains, felt more in the bones than with the ears. Rocks jiggled loose and tumbled down the cliffs, hurling the climbers to their deaths. The vibration strengthened to tremors and tremors swelled to a roar. The roar transformed into a shock wave ripping the roots of the earth from their foundations.
All of Hur-ar turned west and witnessed the end of all things. Beyond the city parapets and newly formed Black Sea, a sinister line piled above the horizon. It thickened into a wall and merged with the clouds. A sudden blast of cold wind swept the city as if the atmosphere fled in terror.
The Hur-po spent their last moments in astonishment, possessing no context for what they now witnessed. The world to the west became blackness and simply ceased to exist. For those brave enough to gaze upon it, details of the approaching mile-high wave became discernible in the last seconds. The impossibly black water carried in its vertical face the shattered remains of a scoured continent.
The glacial wave slammed against the face of the Adyghe Mountains, instantly flattening millions of acres of forest, before exploding into the canyon.
In seconds, filthy, boiling froth piled against the Cliff Road and transformed Hur Canyon into a lagoon. Beyond the lagoon’s mouth, the glacial wave rampaged south, a ravenous beast flattening, shredding, and submerging anything in its path. Inside the lagoon, the water rose and swirled about, robbed of much of its energy.
Hur-ar vanished under tons of debris and mud, eternally lost to history.
Water, the enemy for which the Black Wall had been truly built, climbed higher and higher up the Cliff Road until it sloshed against the outer gate. The bronze bell clunked dully in the current before falling silent forever. The flood pressed against the outer gate’s pitch-sealed kupar logs. Reinforced by a massive interior ramp constructed from layers of Lo reed bags filled with sand, the wall didn’t budge under the intense pressure. Only a trickle penetrated into the holding area between the gates. Tamed by the Black Wall, the flood slowly filled the holding area between the gates. Finally, it crested the inner gate as a gentle waterfall and streamed into the Black Fortress. Repelled by an unseen force, no water demons slipped over the wall into the compound.
The Black Wall transformed into a dam, the double gates into a lock. The Black Fortress bent the floodwater to the will of the Nameless God.
A tranquil pool rose around the silent, sealed Ark. The morning’s cooking fire hissed into extinction. Water filled Noah’s stone cottage and covered the wooden supports beneath the Ark. As the water crept up, weight shifted until the Ark’s side boards creaked and popped.
Almost imperceptibly, the giant rose.
Borne on the shoulders of the Deluge, the Ark floated higher and higher until the Black Wall itself vanished under the waves. Without so much as bumping the canyon walls, the giant drifted into the lagoon. With seven slow, lazy spins, the Ark passed beyond the two islands that were once the tops of the canyon walls, to join the Black Sea. The current snatched the Ark and carried it swiftly south to its fate.
Ahead, the clouds thickened.
In the time before my immortal body attained manhood, Mother led me deep into the evergreen forest beyond the Lotus Bridge. On a gray winter day we ventured beyond her domain. After many hours wandering the fern-carpeted eternal twilight, Mother took my hand. Ahead of us sinister growls echoed among ancient the ancient forest, as burly shadows darted beyond the trees.
She casually spoke, as if we strolled through Nushen’s market, “Do not be afraid. As long as you hold my hand, you are hidden from all harm.”
We emerged into a bright clearing where a pack of gray wolves cornered a doe and her fawn. They paid us no mind, though we stood in plain view at the edge of the forest.
Instinctively I pulled away, but she held me there, her face impassively locked on the unfolding drama.
The doe’s wide, unblinking eyes are forever burned in my memory. Pinned against a cliff, she shielded the trembling fawn behind her. Ragged wounds painted her fur crimson. She darted about, striking out with her front hooves. The doe still possessed the strength to run, but she held her ground, prepared to give her life for her offspring.
The pack could have taken them both at any time, but they seemed to take pleasure in tormenting the doe. My stomach knotted at the inevitable outcome.
The wolves withdrew and began to circle in unison, preparing for the final assault. Their almost sexual excitement permeated the clearing like the prickling heat before a thunderstorm. On some unheard signal from the pack leader, the hunters plunged inward like a bolt of lightning.
Guttural, wet, ripping echoes haunted our footsteps as we slipped away.
“Why did you bring me to see this?” I asked.
“To witness the power of a mother’s love, and to know evil lives in all things, not just man.”
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Atamoda focused to her right, where four heavy ropes anchored the flotilla to the submerged köy-lo-hely. The current streamlined the flotilla toward the south and out to sea. One of the lines vibrated heavily, like a fishing line with a carp just starting to nibble the bait. A moment later it popped, went limp, and floated to the surface. If the demons cut the remaining lines the flotilla would quickly drift to sea...
...and away from Aizarg. He will never find us.
Rage exploded in Atamoda’s heart, reinvigorating her will.
“Damn you, hideous spawn of heli-dar!” She shouted. The patesi-le waved her arms over the water and uttered the ancient warding chant taught to her by Setenay all those years ago; a chant she’d almost forgotten, a chant she’d thought she’d never need.
Like falling leaves, the submerged shadows drifted away, but not before another line fell limp. The demons lazily fluttered about until they gathered about two dozen yards from the flotilla. There, they massed.
The reek of venom became overpowering as the surface flattened into an oily sheen. The water seemed to thicken before it hardened into ice. This time, it wasn’t the usual thin crust which often formed wherever the demons swam. Instead, it formed a thick, icy callous that warped the water to their will.
“What are they doing?” Su-gar whispered.
“Massing,” Xva said as he grasped his spear and stood in the boat. He turned to the flotilla and shouted. “Here they come!”
Screams rippled through the flotilla.
Tears welled in Su-gar’s eyes. Ba-tor woke up and began to cry. Su-gar pulled the little boy closer and reached out to encircle Kol-ok’s neck, but he gently pulled away.
Su-gar reached out again, but the boy picked up his makeshift spear; the same crude stick he carried everywhere since Aizarg departed on the quest. He considered the demons and then turned to Su-gar.
“I am the son of a sco-lo-ti, son of the Uros.”
“You know that spear will do no good!” she cried as the building fear finally overwhelmed her.
“I know,” Kol-ok replied.
At that moment Atamoda saw Aizarg standing upon the köy-lo-hely, defiantly shouting
No!
into the darkness.
Before I perish, I see my husband’s spirit dwelling in my son.
Through her pain and exhaustion Atamoda smiled. Pride and love flooded the spaces in her heart hollowed by despair.
Kol-ok met his mother’s eyes and smiled tenderly. He leaned over and kissed Atamoda on the forehead. He then straightened, hefted his spear, and turned to Xva.
Xva merely nodded as an unspoken understanding passed between the boy and the man.
“Men to the perimeter!” Xva shouted. “Women and children to this side of the flotilla, where Atamoda can protect them!”
A sense of doom and determination simultaneously gripped the remnants of the Lo nation. Spears clattered and bristled as men dashed from boat to boat towards the perimeter. The last few days had taught that the Lo spears were useless against the demons, but, like Kol-ok, they prepared to fight nevertheless.
Atamoda’s boat rocked back and forth from the activity on the flotilla behind her. The waves slowly rippled outward toward the ring of ice. Despite the rocking, Xva and Kol-ok stood tall, spears cocked at the ready, in the center of the boat.
Su-gar clutched Bat-or tightly and pressed herself all the way to the stern, while Atamoda knelt over the bow.
One woman stood between the Lo and annihilation.
The patesi-le shook her arms vigorously and prepared to begin her chants anew. Without Kus-ge she could not protect the entire flotilla. She knew that those on the other side would surely die. As she watched the building ice only a few yards away, she doubted she could protect any of them for very long.
The demons massed under the ice like fish gathering under a dock. Now there were thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. They twisted, slithered, and intertwined in a knotted frenzy, as if waiting for a signal to plunge inward. Pulled along by the demonic undercurrent, the noose of ice groaned and began to rotate.
They are gathering power.
Atamoda began her chant, slowly at first and then faster, with more inflection. Grim resolve reinforced her will.
I will not die in fear.
As if in response, cracks suddenly formed in the ice ring. Shards splintered and drifted away. Several demons shrank farther back under the rotating rim.
Atamoda suddenly remembered a sunny day so long ago, when an old patesi-le instructed a young girl on a warm dock over a friendly sea. Setenay made her recite the ancient chants over and over until they were seared into her mind.
***
“Where does a patesi-le draw her power? From Psatina?” she asked Setenay
“A patesi-le draws her power from love, child. Psatina only taught us how to channel it. Love flows from a woman’s soul like warmth from the sun.” Setenay lifted her face to the midday sun and closed her eyes. “The wellspring of a woman’s soul is bottomless and only deepens with time. Never forget that and your magic will be limitless.”
***
Atamoda’s heart swelled with new confidence. Her voice and arms strengthened.
The ice sheet popped and crackled under her magic’s renewed assault.
Feel my power!
“Mother!” Kol-ok gasped. “The demons falter!”
A white wisp flickering in the water immediately before her caught Atamoda’s eye. Her cadence faltered, and her arms sagged as the drifting object drew her attention. At first she thought the demons had snapped another rope, its frayed end billowing in the current. She lowered her face and peered down, drawn to the sharpening image, as everything around her faded.
***
Atamoda paused her chanting to readjust her legs, which began to ache against the rough dock. She looked back at Setenay, lounging against her father’s upturned boat, eyes closed and sunning herself on the dock
“Old Mother, is there anything as strong as love?” she asked.
A cloud passed over the sun and cast a shadow over the old patesi-le’s face. The old woman opened her eyes and let her gaze wandered off to the water. A chilly, unexpected breeze swept off the sea.
“Fear,” Setenay whispered
.
***
A clawed fist clenched a knot of waving, gray hair. It thrust the lifeless head toward the surface. The corpse’s hair billowed back like seaweed.
Setenay’s dead eyes stared back at Atamoda.
Atamoda shrieked and collapsed backwards into the boat. The demons’ hissing transformed to cackling. They lunged en mass toward the flotilla.
Atamoda’s trembling arms finally seized in agonizing cramps as her world blurred into darkness.
Fresh screams penetrated her thoughts, accompanied by the sickening sound of ripping and tearing reeds. She felt a sudden lurch, the world shifted, and then freezing cold gripped her lower body.
“Ko-lok!” she heard Xva scream.
Warmth caressed Atamoda’s cheek. It increased to raw, almost painful heat as light penetrated her close eyelids.
Did Aizarg call a council? Someone must have lit the brazier atop the Köy-lo-hely? It feels good.
Atamoda briefly cracked her eyelids to a world on fire before the water and darkness took her.
***
“Wake up.”
Atamoda didn’t want to obey, but the familiar voice beckoned her.
Darkness lightened to gray, and gray congealed into a ghostly image. A blurry face slowly materialized, its details stubbornly refusing to focus. She squinted, unsure if her eyes lied.
He filled her vision, eyes brimming. She reached up and tenderly explored the familiar curves of his nose, cheeks and forehead until she plunged her fingers through his hair.
His hair.
Only one logical thought occurred to the patesi-le, one explanation for what she saw.
Am I dead?
She caressed her own cheek, wanting to know if she was still made of flesh.
She knew those eyes, the same eyes which greeted her after hours of bloody labor bringing Kol-ok into this world. He wore the same expression after saving Ba-tor from nearly drowning last spring. Sweet tears and a trembling smile painted a mosaic of relief and ebbing fear across her husband’s face.
The flesh and spirit are still one.
Atamoda closed her eyes, slowly wrapped her arms around his neck, and deeply inhaled his sweaty scent. With silent sobs, Aizarg tightly enveloped her. She savored each of his hot tears rolling down her shoulder and back.
From behind, little arms encircled her, soft breathing caressed her ear.
“Daddy is home, Momma! Why is your hair all white, Daddy?” Ba-tor asked, the horrors of the last few days banished in a single moment of joy.
Another set of arms hugged them as Kol-ok rested his head on Atamoda’s other shoulder.
Great Mother Psatina, if I am dead, then what a blessed death this is!
And then she remembered Setenay’s face in the deep.
“Aizarg!” she moaned and surrendered to racking sobs. Horror and relief clashed like the competing tides of the Black Sea.
In the bottom of a small reed boat, on the edge of a brittle flotilla of reed and wood afloat an endless sea, a family embraced.