Olive struggled to catch his breath. Dear gods, that woman could move fast.
The outwardly awkward appearance of Amiela’s protective suit was completely deceptive. She still had full range of motion even in such bulky outfitting, more than enough to hurry herself along the river path like she was wearing only regular clothes.
They moved through the trail beside the water, over tall boulders and fallen logs that blocked the way forward. But when Amiela reached a shelf of rock that looked too tall to reasonably scale, she swerved to the side and went splashing right down into the river.
Olive looked on, expecting Amiela to cross to the opposite shore, but she just kept moving forward.
At least the bottom of the water looked only ankle deep, Olive reasoned. With a deep breath to ready himself, he hopped his way down into the stream as well.
Beneath the flowing surface, the smooth river rocks did not feel overly slippery, but Olive could already spot a few hazy outlines of sunken branches coated in richly sleek green, more than tangled enough to catch an unaware ankle or foot if he wasn’t careful enough to avoid them. Olive sighed and quickened his pace.
Far above, the crescent face of the moon climbed steadily into the night. The swaying river grasses seemed to grow higher and more dense the further they moved to travel.
The tall plants were likely nourished by the steady supply of fresh water, Olive supposed, given how the reeds each began to look thicker around the base and more green, becoming something that actually resembled healthy with each moment that slipped by into the dark.
Somewhere not far off, an owl cried a screeching note into the misty air. But the shrill sound was mostly drowned out by the din of crickets singing high into the forest of reeds.
Amiela glanced all around, peering across the shallow, watery ravine with a halfway frantic gaze. Whatever it was she had felt, whatever else was skulking out there in the darkness, all she knew for certain was that it knew her, knew what she was, that it must have perceived her somehow.
It was almost the exact same prickling sensation that would fall all too fluidly down a person’s spine whenever another set of eyes was staring with intent at them, even if the observer remained unseen.
But she would not let it catch her. No matter what it was. The wastelands were practically uncharted territory by that point. Amiela felt certain, on some base instinct, that she could slip deep into the wilderness and never be found again. It was the open stretches of land that were the real threat, where there was little to no shelter to retreat behind and hide.
As she hurried along the river path, Amiela’s shifting gaze examined the tall grasses that swayed back and forth in the wind.
“We’re going up.” Amiela changed course without another word on the matter. She scaled herself right over the earthen wall at the opposite side of the river, hauling herself aloft with one swift grab over the high grassy ledge. She only paused at the top to make sure Olive could climb it as well. “Stay close. Don’t get separated in here.”
“Okay-” Olive panted while he spoke, breathing heavily beneath each muffled gasp. His boots slipped and squelched over the muddy slope of the waterlogged embankment, but he finally reached out and grasped his hands against a half-exposed tree root, dead and gnarled, to help pull himself higher, clambering the rest of the way up with his elbows and knees. “We’re still going south?”
“Yes. But not the way I was thinking of before.” Amiela turned and swiftly disappeared into the sea of whispering grass. The long, dry stalks reached up higher than her eyes, looming past the top of her head. Amiela thanked whichever lucky stars she might have still possessed that she stood shorter than the average person. “This... This place wasn’t as affected, maybe?” While she moved, she peered all around at the veritable forest of rustling grasses.
Olive hurried after Amiela. “Oh! You’re right, it’s still alive in here, look!” He reached out to touch his hands over the thick green strands, petting each of the tall plants as he stepped his way between them.
“Keep your voice down.” Amiela glanced back over her shoulder to give Olive a low shushing sound. “It could still be dangerous.”
Olive whispered at her. “Yeah, but it isn’t even dead, like those thickets.” He smiled at the plush springy texture of the bright green leaves, pressing them gently with his fingertips. “I haven’t seen grass like this in... Oh man, I don’t even know!” A fluttering sensation swelled into his heart just as swiftly as a second wind. He skipped his way ahead through the maze of grasses to truly catch up with Amiela, trying his best to keep his voice to a soft whisper-shout. “This is amazing! Do you think the war didn’t reach this far?”
“I don’t know.” Amiela kept shifting her gaze back and forth. “Let’s just hope it lasts this way for a while.” She slowed her pace somewhat, but only enough to make sure she did not smack herself directly into any stray tree trunks or boulders that might have been lurking there in the dense greenery.
Amiela found she could barely see anything beyond a few feet of the wild greenery at any time. Her eyes could not peer more than a scant few inches above the lofty groundcover, even if she leaned up on the toes of her boots.
“If it’s alive, then it means animals are eating it.” Olive grabbed a nearby cluster of grass seeds. He squeezed his fingers over the supple green pod, scattering out dozens of puffy seedlings into the wind. The pale little tufts drifted all around like cottony bits of dandelion fluff, twirling and dancing in midair. “This stuff, it means there’s food for them.”
Amiela’s tone became somewhat more dry. “If you think you’re fast enough to catch a wild animal in this place, be my guest.” She looked up to glimpse the pale light of the evening stars, making sure she was still on course. “Otherwise, leave that to Ranya.”
Olive grinned to himself with just the tiniest hint of smugness. “I know how to make a snare.”
“Alright. If your snare can trap something while we rest, then go for it.” Amiela still stared directly ahead. “But we have to make good distance tonight.”
Olive settled himself for the time being, content to listen to the softer sounds of insects singing in the depths of the blooming grass. But when he thought a bit more about Amiela’s warning, his smile slowly faded. “Do you think, um, whatever that was, back there... That it’s following us?”
Amiela felt her heart twinge. “I don’t know.”
Olive looked away, trying his best not to let himself frown. He reached out to grasp at another swollen seed pod. It felt incredibly soft and pliable between his fingertips, like a big plump caterpillar. “What even was it?”
Her voice panged sharper for him then. “I don’t know.”
“But it was something..?” Olive peered back towards Amiela, even when she would not answer. He watched the way the glow of the moon reflected over the glass of her strange helmet, still clipped away to a woven loop of her backpack.
Olive squeezed the fuzzy grass pod. He watched how the downy little tufts unfurled from his slightest touch. Every last trace of softness was soon lost to the gusting wind, far away from the grasp of his hands.
In time, the gathering clamor of cricketsong swelled up and rang even higher over the fields. The sheer commotion became much too loud for either of them to really speak to each other inside it. All around the bustle of noise, nocturnal birds screeched and fluttered aloft into the air.
The tiny avian creatures rushed to dive back and forth between the tall stalks of grass, flapping swiftly just beyond the places Olive’s gaze could barely leap fast enough to spot.
Every so often, their shrill little calls and the keen sound of diving feathers would swoop right out between the rustling plants, hunting the frantically chirruping insects. Olive could hear their hungry beaks repeatedly clacking over the wet, solid crunch of insect chitin.
“They must really like it in here. With all these bugs, I mean.” Olive was not sure if Amiela could even hear him through the tumultuous chirping. “We could always, um... Eat some bugs, too, you know, if we catch them?”
Amiela seemed to briefly hesitate, before she glanced back over her shoulder. “Do you like fried crickets?”
“Beachpigs.” Olive only realized how absurd of an answer that sounded after he said it. “Oh, I mean..! They’re, um, like these really big water bug things! They come out of the ocean to crawl up over the beach sometimes, on the sand. They’re really, really good after you boil them, especially with butter.” He laughed a bit bashfully at the memory. “They almost taste like crab legs.”
Amiela did not say anything else for a while. But then, when the din of chattering insects and shrieking birds eventually began to thin somewhat, she finally spoke again. “I once ate a chocolate-covered locust on a dare.”
Olive blinked at the sound of it. “Was it any good?”
Ranya answered for her instead. “Like crumbly chocolate. With legs.”
Even though Olive could not see the slightest hint of Ranya’s shadow anywhere in the moonlit darkness, he hoped she could tell he was trying to respond to her. “I’m guessing you dared her?”
“Well, no. I did want to taste it. But no.” Ranya’s voice became a bit more mumbly than before. “Maybe I would’ve dared her, otherwise.”
Amiela’s shoulders stiffened. She just kept walking forward. Although Olive could not see any trace of her expression from behind, he assumed it might not be a very wise thing to ask her about whoever might have been on good-enough terms to tease her, much less dare her to do something like that.
He did not savor the lapse of conversation, however. Olive tried his best not to let his next words become too awkward. “Do you... Do you like eating things like crustaceans? Stuff like lobster and crabs, I mean.” His own memories wandered further, back to the keen scent of ocean winds and the salty-sweet taste of freshly netted shrimp. “I know we’re never going to find them this far away from the sea, but regular bugs aren’t really all that different.”
“I guess so. I’ve only ever had that kind of thing a few times before.” Amiela shrugged, but her voice was already more thin than the moments earlier. “I mostly just eat whatever’s available.”
Sometimes, Olive reasoned, trying to get Amiela to talk was like conversing with a solid brick wall. He closed his eyes for a second and sighed to himself. Maybe the chocolate locust story was already touching on too sore of a nerve, given the sudden strain threading the tone of her voice. He decided it was probably best to just leave Amiela alone for a while.
The face of the moon rose high and heavy into the clear night sky. A faint golden halo gleamed and wavered over the edge of the pale gray crescent.
Olive did begin to catch a few insects in that time, snatching them right out from the air with the grasp of his clever hands. A few carefully timed jumps helped him when the larger crickets went gliding past, leaping high between the long green grasses. His heart soared above the feeling of his boots whooshing through the brisk evening air, coasting with each strong leap he took, almost as if they could make him fly beneath the haze of glowing moonlight.
Even though the dry flavor of grassland bugs was mostly tasteless and flat at first bite, there was always a much more mellow and juicy center to be found whenever Olive munched on them a bit further. It soon began to feel like every last nerve of his body could sense the potent nutrition hidden deeper in the crunchy insects, burning and tingling alight with rapid pangs of jittery hunger.
It became so much that Olive did not stop grabbing those jumpy little creatures until long after his stomach stopped growling, settling itself back into a lax sensation of fullness instead.
He even saw Amiela do the same sort of thing a few times. Only she merely pulled away one of her gloves and lifted her hand to reveal the most subtle form of a bodily glow. It was just enough to draw those curious crickets to leap fearlessly towards her touch, seeking out that most mysterious, ethereal light.
The pale luminance swirled and blossomed, quivering forth to illuminate the air beneath the inner arc of the umbrella. A shadowy beast waited there, halfway revealed, but Ranya’s vague image only slid her tongue over a set of indefinable jaws, eyes fixated on the sight of swiftly leaping insects.
The crickets swarmed together to crawl their way over Amiela’s hands, despite the sense in which the light seemed to tear at them, chittering and thrumming, falling apart as they gathered closer. The brightness hissed and seared at their glistening chitin.
They kept searching frantically over the flicker of her skin for what their minds surely thought was the clear glow of the moon, before her fingertips snapped down almost as fast as a mousetrap over their fragile little bodies.
Olive watched the way the brittle carapaces blistered and burned beneath the simmering heat of Amiela’s magic. He realized it smelled good, oddly enough, not too unlike crispy fried potato skins or crackling pork belly at a summer market, the way that strange witch ever so carefully cooked her food before eating it without much care for temperature or luminous magical residue.
Ranya grumbled and lifted herself from the shade, peeking her head out from the umbrella’s edge to reveal a sleekly fox-shaped visage. “Ami.” She growled a touch more softly and clamped her wing-claws deep against the tattered canvas fabric. “It isn’t nice not to share.”
Amiela kept quiet while she walked and ate, but she did toss a few of the toasted crickets off towards the air, not reacting more than a slight eyebrow raise and a fond tug of her lips when Ranya lurched forth to snap her jaws over the toasted, crumbly food.
“Ooh.” Ranya licked the juice from her teeth and purred without care for how loud the sound echoed. She flapped her leathery wings all around, though they each dissolved back into glittering darkness the moment she moved them back beneath the webbed fabric, only to reform as solid shapes again whenever they peeked out beneath the moonlight. “Mmm. Delicious. Just like chicken.” She hummed and began to chitter her own sort of throaty song into the windy air between them. “If chickens were the size of roaches.”
The more gentle look from watching her companion enjoy the meal thoroughly drained from Amiela’s features. She wrinkled her nose over a slight bout of inner queasiness. “Please don’t even approach equating roaches to what we’re eating.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Ranya leaned out and grabbed at a few more of the cooked treats when Amiela tossed them over with a flick of her hand, the latter’s appetite seemingly lost. “But for real though, Ami...” She spoke her words between each crunchy, crispy bite of seared insect. “I have an idea. A much better idea than this little disaster-vacation into the worst place you ever possibly could have picked-”
Her demonic mouth glistened with the glow of residual magic, but the inner flesh of Ranya’s tongue and cheeks was likewise brightly luminous. Olive observed the way it glittered while he saw her swinging there from the umbrella struts, the same vibrant hue of gold as the light that always seemed to leak from deep within her long fluffy ears.
Ranya licked her teeth again, revealing the slightest hint of vivid indigo swirling over the bottom of her tongue as well. “We should set up a fried cricket stand, cook them up all nice and fresh with that spark of yours, toss them with chili powder, or chocolate! We’d make a fortune. Even more than we ever would with spiced chicken.”
Amiela said nothing, only snorting a near-silent sound. Her companions each noticed, though, how her faint little twinge of fondness did begin to ever so gradually return.
The glossy wingspan of a much larger creature than any mere chicken, cricket or cockroach swooped down low over the grasses. Olive peered up at the split-second sight, a beautiful flash of speckled plumage revealed beneath the light of the moon. There was something tiny and soft clutched in those dark hooked talons, but he could not see what it might have been before the owl was already gone.
Ranya sniffed at the air. For a moment her bright eyes looked unimpressed, regarding neither the bird or its quarry with any manner of respect, despite her current smaller appearance. She still retreated, in a most unhurried fashion, crunching over the last of the cooked crickets to mash them firmly between her teeth and picking the chitin stuck between each fang in her mouth with the pointy tip of her nearest wing-claw.
Olive soon found his eyes drawn instead to the colorful umbrella itself, the way it swayed with each step Amiela took, swirling with that odd source of hidden demonic magic. “So, Ranya... You hide in the umbrella’s shadow, right?”
“‘Hide?’” Ranya’s voice rose high to scoff aloud into the darkness. She licked away the rest of the dripping cricket fluid and clambered her way right back from the shadows. Ranya looked down at Olive in a more obvious way than earlier, gripping her hind claws tight around the wooden pole while leaning her front half away from it. “I don’t ‘hide.’” Even then, most of Ranya’s body was only a twisting mass of nebulous translucent matter, long and lithe and flexible. “You little humans are the ones who hide... You’re usually all way too wussy to handle something even remotely as interesting as me.”
“I just mean-” Olive lowered his gaze in deference, though he could already tell Ranya was not truly cross with him, given her haughty tone of humor. “You were almost invisible before, weren’t you? When you followed me to the river?”
“Yeah. Sure. But that takes energy.” Ranya peeked out even more from beneath the fabric to wave one of her glossy wings around and shrug at him. “Imagine if you decided to run along ahead here for a mile or two. You could make it that far, sure, but then you’d be feeling pretty tired after that, wouldn’t you? Too tired to be very useful for protecting yourself or anyone else.”
“Oh.” Olive nodded while he walked. “So you pretend to be a shadow? And that doesn’t make you as tired?”
Amiela spoke for her instead. “Ranya has to stay manifested in some way.” She paused to look over her shoulder at them both. “A shadow is the most subtle she’s capable of.”
“Well, I’d say it’s a lot more subtle than most!” Ranya cackled at that. She slipped herself back beneath the darkness of the umbrella, but she was already moving aloft faster, with far more vigor than before. “At least I’m not pretentious about it, am I? Or would you rather I pretend to be a jeweled brooch, or necklace? Ah, maybe even a lovely scarf around your neck?”
The demonic visage that reappeared before them became a surging gust of magic in midair. Ranya’s sleek body flashed wherever she flickered and spun, flowing and smoothing and caressing herself quite close beside the soft flutter of a pulse in Amiela’s throat.
Ranya’s form was swift and fluid in that way, just as serpentine and nimble as a playful airborne mink. She chirred and pretended to lean in and nuzzle Amiela’s cheek from where she floated, grinning wide with each of those pointy mustelid teeth.
Amiela stopped in her tracks for just a moment. “Even if you did, you would still look unnatural.” Her gaze did flash somewhat warily from the way those breathing shadows swept nearer and nearer towards her face.
Something about Ranya’s tone began to rise more eagerly. “But I’d definitely look the part.” Her eyes became just as bright as gemstones, shimmering far along Ranya’s abruptly silken and yet still living ermine body. She coiled herself high, as if perched in midair, poised and listening intently with those pointy little ears perked higher for an answer that would not arrive. “Or maybe I could be a storm cloud raining down over your head? That would certainly fit the current mood a bit better, little miss dour.”
“I’d prefer you not attract undue attention by pretending to be a talking shadow.” But Amiela’s words did not have the same bite as before. Somehow, she seemed simultaneously unnerved and reassured to have Ranya’s presence floating so close there beside her. “It seems quiet tonight, at least.”
Ranya yawned with a lazy hum, revealing her full array of glistening, needle-thin fangs. “I don’t sense anyone around nearby. So, yeah.”
With a low echoing sigh, the wind abruptly changed course. The air rustled hard through the sea of grasses. The sheer force of it all brought the tall stalks low for only a short moment in time, just long enough for the three of them to each see briefly into the wide stretch of sprawling flatland.
Miles afar, the straw-green prairie split into a jumbled divide of dry ravines and tall mesas, only visible beneath the glow of the moon.
“Wow!” Olive leapt up on his tiptoes to try and see a bit further. But the strength of the sudden wind abruptly faded, and the grass returned to where it had been standing just before. “Are we really going out there?”
Amiela nodded vaguely towards the southern expanse. “If it isn’t wide open, then it’s a lot better than where we were before.”
“I guess so.” Olive moved to keep following along after Amiela. He reached out to brush both of his hands over the moonlit grasses, holding his arms wide. “I mean, it’s still not great how there’ll probably be more sinking sand over there, but-” Olive could feel the dewy green tufts tickle lightly over his skin. He savored the smooth, soft feeling. “This place, I mean, with all of these plants still alive, and the ground almost solid like this... This is almost like... An island?” Olive listened to the prairie winds quicken and weave all throughout the moonlit field in gusting waves, briefly bringing parts of it to bow low again as well. “But who knows how long it’s really going to last.”
Amiela kicked a stray twig out of the path. “We won’t be around to see it.”
“But, it... It still matters.” Olive watched the furtive little crickets jumping back and forth, observing how the swift insects leapt high over the land ahead. “What if it doesn’t stop here? I mean, if the war ever starts up again somewhere else, I mean-”
“Listen. I’m going to let you in on something most people would rather be kept quiet.” Amiela looked back at him and halted for just a moment, fixing the boy directly with a wry yet humorless stare. “Whoever was responsible, the people who did this, like those soldiers, or whoever else is really commanding them... If they actually had the power or influence to do this kind of thing to the rest of the world, to destroy everything in a hundred-mile radius in less than a few days, they would have done it already. Several times over.” Her gaze sharpened down to what felt like shards of molten hailstones, striking Olive down to his very soul for only a split second of time. “This wasn’t entirely human handiwork. It couldn’t have been. Not by a long-shot.”
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Olive stood there and stared. He found he did not know what else he could say. Not at all. Her words shook him right to his core, gripping over the wild pulse of his heartbeat more deeply than any flashing blades or serpentine teeth or ghostly arrows singing through the moonlight, than all the talk of witches and demons and malignant dangers in the darkness.
“Just don’t let it worry you.” When she stepped forward, Amiela’s voice began to sound even more fatigued than the evening earlier. “If the war couldn’t kill you, not much else man-made is worse.”
Neither of them spoke again, not for several long hours. The moon above the fields traveled along in its steady nightward path, far above the dry meadows and boulders and mountains looming over the distant plains.
Olive fell into a pattern of just setting one foot down in front of the other, placing his steps forward over the dusty earth. He ignored the dull ache blooming in the muscles of his legs and feet. He tried just as hard to ignore the worry that dragged him down from even deeper inside his chest.
He dearly wished for another easy moment, even one more brief second of levity, where he could just forget about the things Amiela told him, that anyone out there would ever desire, for even one second, for the world to end in such a way. He wished over the motionless stars for a lighthearted topic, or even a terse lesson in whatever other mistakes he might surely have been making out there in the desolate wastes. Anything but the silence.
But only the whirls of the breeze and the chirping insects would answer him, at least for a few more lingering hours. Olive almost expected that particular night to stretch on forever, unraveling boundlessly into eternal, voiceless nothing, when Amiela abruptly stopped.
A pillar of rock loomed just ahead. From their low vantage point in the grass, it was difficult to even guess just how high the vast structure went. It looked wider on both sides than Olive’s eyes could even see.
“Stay here.” Amiela grabbed her climbing pick from her satchels and strode towards the rightward path.
“Okay.” Olive sat himself down on the ground. He stared up at the sky for a while. The moon was already beginning to slip away over the western mountains.
Maybe that was why they were stopping for the night. Without any moonlight, it would become impossible to see wherever they were walking without another source of brightness. Olive soon began to hear the faint sounds of sharp metal hitting deep into solid rock from somewhere a lot higher up.
Minutes drifted by with no further sign of her. But then, quite suddenly, a familiar yet distant face peered down at him from high over the furthest ledge of the pillar.
“Stand back.” Amiela’s voice sounded all too distant and echoey from so far up the windy stone. She held out an object into the dark. “I’m going to lower you the pick.”
“Oh...” Olive hurried back to his feet. “Alright.”
With a gradual whoosh of displaced air, a cord of jute rope slowly descended. Before long, it stopped just short beside Olive’s boots. And dangling there at the end of it, the climbing pick was secured with a neatly tied knot wrapped over the handle.
Olive untied the cord from the pick, but the tool clattered down from his grip once he freed it. With a tingle of surprise, Olive strained to even lift the thing back up from the ground. He had to grasp both of his hands over the leather-wrapped hilt just to get a steady hold on it. When he looked aside from the pick, the lowered rope disappeared back up into the night with less than a whisper of sound.
A soft gasp of exertion made Olive’s arms tremble. The pick really was far weightier than it looked. The curved arc of steel was extremely well crafted, probably quite expensive. But he’d seen people use similar tools before, and none of them seemed any more heavy than a regular grasping hook or metal ax.
Olive sighed. He lifted the pick a bit higher to carry it along with him. He had never once used a climbing tool like that before, but he reasoned it couldn’t be too hard to learn.
His footsteps brought him to find the general area where Amiela ventured off before. There was a rocky slope not far afield, where the vertical base of the pillar had eroded and crumbled from a sheerer face to become more slanted. That was where Olive knew he might find more practical handholds.
Moonlight was slipping away from the night in faint degrees, but there was still enough of a glow left lingering over the rocks for Olive to see.
He reached out to begin with his hands. As he climbed, Olive turned himself around every so often to reach back for the metal pick. He dragged it along by the handle, carrying it up along the stony slopes each time he pulled himself forward. He clambered his way up higher beneath the gathering dark, until a small, shallow ledge came into sight beside the main curve of the pillar.
“Oh, gods... Sheesh.” Olive panted and lifted his body over the edge, where he sat himself down on the semi-flat surface with a quiet thump. He wiped the sweat from where it beaded against his forehead. “No wonder she wants to go all the way up here. We’ll be able to see the whole world in the morning.”
Ranya’s sly face blinked into sight out of nowhere. “Doing okay?”
Olive nearly flailed away from the steep cliff. “Hey!”
“Sorry.” She did not sound very sorry. Ranya’s uncertain form was even harder to distinguish without the strength of the sun or moon, but something about her glimmered there in the darkness like some distantly shifting beam of starlight. “I’m going out to look for those rabbits I spotted earlier. I hope you’ll still be hungry in the morning, after all those crickets.”
“Oh.” Olive waited until his heartbeat wasn’t trying to leap right out from his chest. “You scared me a little, doing that.”
Ranya smiled at him. Her face became a toothy mustelid guise yet again, but it was not made out of fluttering silk or lustrous gemstones. “Well, don’t worry.” Instead, she wore the dark sable coat of a lithely agile weasel. Her velvety pelt rippled with hidden musculature. “You’re not a rabbit.”
“Okay...” Olive watched Ranya leap right off over the edge of the high rock, only to fly away towards the tall prairie grass with a ripple of sound and motion. She looked like some sleek otter coursing there through the midnight air that way, as if gliding down an invisible waterfall, swift and nimble and fluid. Olive called out to her with a breathless murmur. “Good luck.”
But Ranya was gone. After only the slightest bout of hesitation, Olive turned back to peer up at where he needed to go. The pillar’s skyward angle looked even less forgiving than down below. The forward slope was mostly smooth and featureless, worn down from centuries of open wind brushing fiercely across its surface.
Even then, Olive reasoned that the rock must not have yielded to the intense destruction of war, unwilling to let itself shatter or topple. Most of the ancient pillar, despite looking a bit battered given the seasonal elements it endured, still stood far more sturdy than the less fortunate parts of the lower wasteland.
He finally understood then, why Amiela gave him the pick. Only a few obvious places stood out to Olive’s eyes as actual handholds. If only the strange metal tool wasn’t so very heavy.
There was no time like the present. Olive reached up to grab the nearest inward dip in the rock. With the greatest strength he could muster, he swung the pick aloft. But Olive winced and felt his feet stumble backwards over the smooth rock when that steely little point screeched away to glance right off from the sleek stone surface. Olive nearly dropped the pick from sheer recoil.
“Oh, damn-!” Olive felt his entire body tremble fast when he hugged himself tight against the tower. He was so high up, the force alone could have surely sent him tumbling away to the ground. “Oh, gods, oh, gods..!” His words caught breathlessly into his throat. “Ugh...”
Olive’s arms shivered as he clung there like a limpet over the rock wall. He pressed his cheek close against the cool stone surface, silently thanking it for how it held so steady and firm.
But by doing so, the way he rested his face so near against the windswept layer of ancient rock, that was precisely how Olive finally spotted the irregularity waiting only a short distance away. His eyes slowly honed in on the faintest glimpse of winding, meticulously made pick marks that traveled up the span of the vast natural pillar.
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
Amiela stared out around herself, gazing over the flat table of rock. She wanted to click her tongue in dissatisfaction. There was not nearly as much room up there as she might have liked.
For one thing, starting a campfire in such heights would surely reveal their position for all to see, even from miles away. And later on, even beneath the brightness of the morning, the smoke alone would send off a conspicuous pillar into the sky, visible to anyone who might so much as glance in their direction.
Even so, it would be their only real option going forward. Lighting a flame down in the grass would not make their presence any less obvious. The empty stone surface had far less risk of any uncontrolled accidents, as well.
It was in the slow, starlit moments passing beneath the last slip of moonlight that Amiela came to realize she would have to take matters into her own hands.
But for the time being, she allowed herself to lean back and listen to the faint little sounds in the dark, the rolling brush of the wind and metallic noises of dry scrabbling from just a bit further off down the rock.
With a sigh, Amiela reclined herself to rest against the nearest scarp of stone. The smooth wall stood by the outer rung of the main pillar shelf, blocking out most of the western view. The stars above were still burning bright, even if dawn was only a few hours away. The moon’s light had almost fully faded.
A deep twinge pulled at her heart. Amiela winced and closed her eyes. Ranya was already far below somewhere, running beneath that very same starlight, dragging along that key little piece of her soul connecting them to one another. Amiela imagined a fishing line drawn out towards the absolute limit, yet still giving way, stretched to the utter point of snapping.
Amiela huffed an uneasy breath. She told herself not to even wonder how it would feel, running out there in the wild fields alongside her, dew soaking her hair and skin. The warmth of demonic breath at her heels, that foxy face lifting the limp image of quarry before her, blood pooling from her teeth, pride sparkling in those bright amber eyes. Amiela laid herself down on her side instead. The ache was easier to ignore whenever she curled her body tight and focused on her rate of breathing.
Before much more time could flutter away into the dark, the sounds of the pick grew closer. All went quiet. And then, finally, when it seemed like the silence would not break, a trembling little set of hands suddenly grasped at the very top of the ledge and pulled.
Olive hauled himself over, leaning forward with a shaky, breathless laugh. He collapsed there in a tangled heap of limbs and panting, staring up into the starry sky as his lungs heaved with exertion.
“Good job.” Amiela felt her voice brush quietly over her lips. Her words were hazy and slow. “Put the pick away with my stuff, please. Then get some sleep.”
Olive only laid mostly motionless for a while, winded, reeling giddily. “I... I didn’t think I could do that..!”
“You didn’t give up.” Amiela reached over to pull the sleek fabric of her suit closer around herself. “That’s the hard part.”
“I almost wanted to.” Olive’s arms still twitched, resting in a shaky sprawl at his sides. “To give up, I mean... I’ve never climbed this high before. Not ever.”
Amiela let her eyes drift shut. Against the cold rock surface, beneath the light of those incalculably distant, indifferent stars, her dreams wandered far away from the empty wastes and uncharted wildlands, further off towards the more familiar nooks and crevices of her mind.
Darkness. Watercolor hues. It shifted and blurred, the outer reaches of her memories, stirring until the faintest, weakest source of brightness caught hold to light her steps along the way.
Only a firm yet gentle voice could ever unfurl to chase the remaining shadows. “This box was forged with no weaknesses.” The hazy figure extended her arm before the flickering candlelight. She held a tiny metal coffer in the palm of her hand. “It has no openings, no hinges.”
Amiela waited there, half-hidden beneath that very same darkness, in the room with only one lit candle.
“And it is up to you to figure it out.” The woman’s smile was warm when she said it, even if her face was impossible to envision beyond the hazy surface of a dream. “If you can, you’ll receive the prize inside.”
Amiela, sitting there so tiny and young, just as she truly had been in those days, watched how that tall, slender figure set the box down against the low table between the two of them. The firelight revealed her words were true: the iron object was seemingly impenetrable.
“Well. Have as much of a look at it as you like.” The lofty woman wore a feathered hat with a wide embroidered brim, not to mention a matching set of impeccably tailored clothing. The silken fabrics glittered beneath the dim candlelight. “You can pick it up, touch it, whatever else you need.” Her tone became a touch more serious. “However, you may not use any tools from beyond this room. No prybars, hammers, anything of that ilk. None of those are the solution, and I don’t want you to risk hurting yourself by trying.”
Amiela remained there, motionless, until she was finally left all alone in the tiny room. She listened to the sound of footsteps fading, the soft click of heels over the polished wood floor. She slowly reached out to grasp towards the little box, but Amiela halted just before her fingertips could touch it, hovering over the cold iron surface.
The woman’s voice called out again, each word echoing from someplace much further past the doorway. “Dinner will be ready in around half an hour though, darling.”
And there it was. There was the catch. The time limit. Because as exquisite as mealtime usually was, that was one of the rules: always be punctual for it.
Amiela grabbed the box and retreated, slipping back into the dark. She smacked the object down hard against the smooth stone floor. She then picked it up again, gripped the surface tight, and flung it off towards the furthest wall. It clanged aloud and clattered away towards the ground to fall over, unaffected.
From the hallway, there was not even a peep. It seemed like she must have expected brute force. Amiela waited a moment regardless, on bated breath, ears pricked to see if she might be scolded for making such a racket. When only silence arrived, she dashed off to grab for the box again.
She thought to try and pry it against the wooden table, just enough to catch any part of the solid metal corners in a way that might help pull the main structure open, force it apart by sheer leverage. The box would still not budge.
She tried again and again, pressing the stubborn little object for what felt like so much less and infinitely more than any singular half of an hour, to no success at all.
Amiela frowned and glared balefully down at it. How in the world was she ever supposed to get past solid iron?
“Time for dinner, darling!”
Amiela swore her heartbeat slid away to the floor. She only blinked a few times, reeling in disbelief, before she stared down at the box with pure and seething rancor. A colder, far more darkened feeling swept itself with swift wings over her heart and body, making her little hands tremble.
But the call could not be ignored. Before she was even fully aware of what her feet were doing, Amiela had already hurried out, rubbing fiercely at her face and eyes, breathing shaky gasps against the palms of her hands, anything to help try and rid her of that deep red flush of anger.
She stopped at the washroom to clean herself up. That was the only delay permissible, per the rules. The soap smelled of thyme and heirloom lavender. The cold water Amiela splashed over her face helped her breathe just a little bit easier, made the ire fade off into a more simmering, low roil of indignation.
The sticky aroma of sweet roasted meat wafted out into the halls. As she followed that particular scent, trying to keep her expression from faltering beneath the placid stare she kept fixed over it, Amiela stepped into the hall that held the gathered frames of so many tall, painted portraits.
Faded depictions of long-dead people, all dressed in such vividly grandiose, intricate clothing. They each waited there for her, just as silent as figures carved in stone. She felt the very same urge as always to look up into their eyes, to peer at the keen, sweeping angles of their features a little more closely, even while she stalked beneath their images in a briskly stilted pace.
But Amiela kept her gaze locked down instead over the sweeping wooden corridor, following the long exotic rug that tapered off into the diamond pattern of a long-extinct foreign krait species, refusing to even glance up at their far more patient, wizened faces.
Atop the dining table sat a glistening roasted duck, glazed beneath a thick dripping citrus sauce. Sliced potatoes cooked with lavish cheeses wafted plumes of heavy steam from inside a floral ceramic platter, a dish that waited just beside the main course.
When Amiela took her seat, she was served a bowl of light vegetable soup. The scent carried the tang of wild onions and freshly cut leeks. She waited until the tall woman with the big feather hat moved to sit in the chair across from her, before an entirely identical ceramic dish.
Her voice was low and soft, but still just as warm as always. “Please enjoy the meal, darling.”
Amiela did not remember very much of the food. It was impeccable, just as always, like nothing else she’d ever tasted. But she cared not for the difference between rich fatty waterfowl or simple trahana porridge, not when the true prize had eluded her so soundly.
Those keen eyes, however, never did fail to notice the way Amiela’s tiny fingers made sure to snap each hollow bone to draw out the marrow, seeking every last drib of nutrients her mouth could reach.
When their plates were finally empty, past the soup and main course and crumbly, buttery dessert, the woman who sat across from Amiela leaned forward slowly against the table. She folded her hands and rested her chin down in a most delicate, innocuous fashion against the surface of her smooth gray gloves. “Did you happen to solve that puzzle, darling?”
Amiela’s eyes welled up. She could not help but choke back a quiet cry. It spilled from her voice and shattered the silence of the air anyway, no matter how much she tried to stop it.
The woman softly clicked her tongue. “No, no, that won’t do.”
Before Amiela even knew it, she was swept up into a firm embrace, sobbing into the delicate embroidery of the woman’s blouse. “Auntie...”
Her aunt held the little child close and hummed. “Oh, darling. Oh chérie.” The top of Amiela’s head was kissed with such fierce gentleness. “Don’t cry. You can always try again tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Amiela sniffled. She suddenly felt quite silly for ever weeping that way.
“Shh, now.” Her aunt murmured and lifted her niece even closer. “The world beyond us will not give you second chances. It may not even be kind enough give you a first.” She whispered each of her words against Amiela’s hair in a warm, humming hush. “But I will always keep you safe. You will have every chance here, beneath my roof. I promise.”
Tucked away into bed before she could even fully comprehend it, snuggled close beside her most favorite stuffed animal and the plushness of goose-down pillows, Amiela only somewhat remembered dreaming. It was simply too long ago, far too deep within those childhood days for her to remember a distant dream within a dream.
But she did remember the window. She remembered opening her eyes to the midnight hour to try and see the very first hint of light swirling its way through the garden, peeking in from beyond her bedroom to help rouse herself from slumber, to blearily wake herself away from the depths of her haziest imaginings.
She could only mumble her words in a soft tone when those scarce few glimmering fireflies fluttered just beside the panes of flourished glasswork, only half-curious about the peculiar little child sleeping there inside.
Deep beneath the silence of her thoughts, inside the furthest solace of her own mind, Amiela did remember the wish she made to them upon that quiet, starlit night.
But then she was so suddenly back inside that little candlelit room. She looked up at the tall figure who was her aunt, that wise, knowing woman who gave her an even fonder smile than the day before. Amiela still could not make out the finer details of her face or features, not past the deep whorls of dappled, pastel dream-light.
“Half an hour until dinnertime.”
The game began once more in earnest. Amiela leaned forward to brace her elbows against the table. She squinted down at the iron box for any small signs of weakness, for any tiny gaps to peek inside, but there were none.
She took a more methodical approach when it came to slamming each angle against the hard stone floor. Amiela soon tried much lighter taps, striking over every surface she could possibly think of in multiple degrees of varying intensity, and it still would not yet yield.
“Dinner, darling.”
The meal that night was a beef stew thickened with arrowroot and simmered vegetables plucked from the garden, along with a platter of wild roast mushrooms and pearl onions glazed in fine sauce.
Amiela tried halfheartedly to refuse dessert, but her aunt simply would not let her leave the table until she’d tried at least a few bites of the colorful little cream pastries baked earlier that day. Amiela would never admit to anyone, never, at least not aloud, that they were far more than worth being coaxed and cajoled into trying.
Sleep. Wake, breakfast. Receive a quick hug from her aunt over the morning newspaper. Shower, brush the tangles out from her hair. Study her books, play with the little plush horse her aunt had so recently allowed her to choose from all of the shelves of wonderful toy animals in the local village shop, and yet it was already, undeniably her favorite.
The stuffed creature was a stony gray color with faint white spots. It even had a silky muzzle made out of real velvet. The sleek fabric always smelled a little like her aunt after those first few weeks had passed, once Amiela insisted she hug and kiss it on the forehead as well each time she was tucked away into bed at night.
Amiela squeezed the floppy horse close. It might have smelled faintly of soothing violet perfume, but her mind swirled and spun with the more timely memories of blueberry and sugared lemon. She slowly worried her teeth over her bottom lip.
A quick lunch of shaved lamb and vegetable sandwiches, beside steamed almond greens. Amiela even worked up the nerve to ask about starting the puzzle box earlier that day, but her aunt only waved a hand towards a crisp new stack of textbooks on the kitchen table instead. She was to practice her more advanced letters and numbers, first.
And then, once again, finally, the box. Amiela tapped her fingertips over each and every surface it displayed. She tried tracing meaningful patterns into the solid iron, to write lines of invisible phrases and mark down the most complicated mathematical equations she knew. Still nothing.
Dinner again. She could not even remember the food at all.
Sleep, wake, box. Again and again. Less memories. Day after day. All except for the carnival.
Her aunt held her hand close that evening. Her touch was warm, even beneath the surface of such fine satin gloves, the very same ones she’d paid many gleaming coins to have matching sets tailored for them both. “Do you know what this place is called?”
Amiela hugged her stuffed horse tighter and merely stared at it all, wide-eyed and dazzled beneath the glittering, spinning spectacle.
“A carnival, chérie. And that is a carousel.” Her aunt squeezed Amiela’s hand and gently nudged the girl forward. “You can choose any one you like. Just like your own little horse.”
Amiela could not help but breathe in fast. Beneath the softly falling snow, the vivid lantern colors and sparkling glass lights swirled and danced in such delicate glowing patterns before her reverent eyes.
She could barely even remember stepping up towards the polished wooden stairway once the grand inner gears of the carousel finally came to a well-oiled, heavy creak of a pause, as if those painted beasts fixed within it all stamped their hooves and tossed their manes for the raucous ceremony in unison, the way the crowded clamor of voices swelled from each and every one of those other little children sounded like from all around her.
All Amiela could recall of that very first moment was the sight of the proudly rearing wooden warhorse in the crisp winter air, mighty in its silent fortitude. The vision felt all the more real through the eyes of a child; she imagined such a beast could only ever have been tamed by the magic of the carnival.
But her aunt’s face was what she truly began to remember above all the rest, that sheer, unabashed joy in her eyes each time she watched Amiela float by along the luminous carousel. The girl almost felt like she was soaring atop the dappled horse, the silent steed that leaped up high and dove down so far, a graceful chariot turning with each spin of the vast painted wheel.
Amiela soon found that she’d nearly forgotten all about that little iron box and the prize supposedly contained within it, at least until both she and her aunt finally escaped the blustery chill of winter. They found themselves stepping back into that cozy old house with the pointed stone tower, doorstep smeared with snow, past the cobbled bridge of frigid meltwater that flashed like diamonds to reach the grand estate resting by the woodland beyond town.
With a soft gasp, Amiela jumped up on her tiptoes when she remembered. She scampered right off into the stately halls without a word.
Her footsteps echoed beneath each portrait, over the silk that flowed and spiraled like countless scales. She completely forgot to take off her winter coat or her scarf flecked with snowflakes, her frost-crusted boots, or even to leave her fluffy stuffed horse behind when she ran right out into the little candlelit room.
Amiela knelt there, crouched before the box with her tiny horse hugged tight. A familiar, bone-deep warmth was radiating over the inner contours of her hands. She blinked and slowly pulled away both of her velvety gloves, fingertip by fingertip. And just what was that, she wondered: the most curious of glowing lights she spotted there, flickering in faintly colorful waves over the paleness of her skin?
She picked up the box and stared at it. With a sudden tremble of leaping nerves, Amiela pressed her hands so much closer, smoothing firm against the solid metal surface. The light of her handprints remained painted to the iron when she dropped it to the floor.
“‘Your heart will lead you to the greatest power you possess.’”
Amiela’s gaze lurched up, whirled to the side. Her aunt merely stood there, leaning idly against the doorway.
“And that, is because... Well. It’s the gateway to your soul, darling.” She smiled and stepped inside. “Because it happens to be what all the rest of this tiresome world will so desperately wish to hate us for, the fact that we alone hold the gnosis to harness what they can’t even begin to comprehend.”
Amiela peered back down at the fallen box. The iron fell away like burnt paper, curled up and quietly crumpling.
There inside, just beneath those soft ashen wisps of fragmented metal, only the tiniest piece of solid material remained. Amiela reached down for it, past the delicate whorls of each fading ember, sifting through what felt like sand, like fallen crumbs of burnished gold, where she held up the dull yet intricate little pendant into her grasp.
The coppery surface barely even glinted more than iron in the weak candlelight, despite the elaborate flourishes. The finely bronzed swirls made it look like some sort of decorative key, all too delicate to be pushed roughly or pressed for any extended use. She tried to hide her disappointment, but a frown still tugged at her lips. Amiela shivered to try and control it.
But her aunt knelt to whisper close beside her ear. “The real prize is what the key opens, darling.”
She led her there, hand in gentle hand, down the long and narrow stairway that Amiela was not ever allowed to wander into alone.
Amiela soon found she could not help but glance into each and every one of her aunt’s workshop doorways as they stepped past, to peer inside at such strange glasswork tubing and sharp metal spires, the bubbling pale liquids that cast uncanny light to undulate and rise against the stonework shadows, glowing vials filled with every bizarre texture imaginable.
“Here we are.” Her aunt finally stood before the tallest of iron doors. “This world of ours... This world, chérie, will always hate what it cannot understand.” She knelt again and held both of Amiela’s hands in her own, staring deep into her bright little eyes. “You are my blood, nearly my daughter, as much as I could ever wish you were so... And I will never let them hurt you for it. Not one bit.” Something in her aunt’s expression wavered, some rending flash of faraway pain. “But I may not always be here at your side to do so.”
Amiela opened her mouth to protest, but her aunt spoke before she could.
“I have no intentions of ever leaving you.” Those gentle hands moved to touch Amiela’s shoulders in a careful squeeze, reaching further to hold the girl from either side of her face. “I’ve told you, haven’t I? Little bird.” Her aunt’s voice murmured and hushed. “I won’t give you up to this world. Not ever. Not for anything. For anyone.”
It was in that one small moment, Amiela thought, that her aunt looked years younger than she had ever once seen, as if she was speaking a desperate hush to some other little girl in another time, worlds away, some other place, another age her own young eyes had never before chanced to witness.
Her aunt breathed deep. She clenched her teeth to help steady her words. “But I’ve learned more than enough by now to know-” Her eyes glinted with the awful truth of it, no matter how much she gentled each word for such tender ears. “Even our best laid plans won’t always unfold the way we expect. Much less how we wish them to.” She peered over towards the looming door. “That is why we must make ourselves ready for the unforeseeable.”
Amiela remembered stepping forward, hesitating before that dark iron barrier. It felt as if a million whirling fireflies were battering fast along the hollow of her chest, scattered into the wild pulse of her heartbeat. But somehow she still managed to raise her shaking little hands out towards the weathered old lock, reaching even further to first turn the key.
Beyond that precipice, there, beyond the most translucent, glistening barrier, locked up in chains: it was there that awaited the being with so many, many eyes and talons, with incalculable gleaming teeth.