~ MACEL ~

They walked in the full heat of the sun for the whole morning. Macel’s face burned, and his throat was cracked dry. It was no use asking Bess if they could rest. She wouldn’t stop. They had to go as soon as possible, she said. That turned out to mean ‘as soon as there was even the faintest glimmer of sunlight over the horizon’. She wouldn’t even let him saddle up some of the horses. They had to walk, she insisted—them alone. Macel knew even as he asked her why that was the case that she wouldn’t answer him.

He felt sorry for her. She was prone to particularly vivid dreams, and to admit it would be to invite the fury of the world upon her. She’d told him all about the people who had such dreams, people like her—the Foresleepers.

Others had told him about the Foresleepers too. Theirs were less pleasant stories, about all the nasty ways they’d like to see people like Bessily killed or maimed. Macel tried to avoid those people.

It was impossible to say how numerous the Foresleepers were. For as long as their abilities had been known, charlatans had arisen in great plenty, trying to claim some glory. Most would gamble their reputations on a specific event—which would inevitably never come to pass. Some, no doubt, had never been discovered for the frauds they were. A few suitably vague predictions, and a stroke of luck, and they would look like true augurs. And those who genuinely had the ability learned to hide it, if they didn’t want to be murdered by a mob. The more the Foresleepers hid their power while frauds tried to proclaim it, the more hatred grew for them. It was hard to blame Bess for keeping this a secret.

Bess didn’t act like she wanted the power. The dream last night had left her shaken and sobbing. “I don’t want it,” she’d moaned, still half-asleep, while Macel tried to soothe her and Delie Rice had gone to fetch some water. And later, when the water had been drunk and she was calmer, she’d tried to tell him what she saw. In truth, he hadn’t been paying much attention. His sleep had been interrupted, and he was exhausted. She’d said something about a woman in the darkness. He’d told her that she needed to go back to sleep, but she could finish telling him in the morning.

She’d never finished telling him. She’d woken up like a woman possessed, taken suddenly by an urgency and a vigour. “Up,” she said, while it was still so dark out that he wasn’t certain he’d gone back to sleep, “or I’ll leave you here.”

If he were to piss her off enough that she’d abandon him, he could rule out ever taking her to bed. So he’d followed her lead. At first, she’d followed the trails the Advanced Party had forged in that first fortnight. The memories made Macel smile, a bitter smile. For the most part it had been good fun. Well, apart from the mystery man they’d struggled to keep alive. And the three friends who had disappeared.

Bess led him through the thick Easterwood, past where Corporal Bartley’s body had been—the ground there still red with blood, and the atmosphere heavy—to the rock where he’d first found the injured man, and then beyond, further than he’d ever explored. Eventually, the land began to rise again, and the woods grew thin. At the crest of this gentle hill, they emerged from the trees, to be met by a flat plain that stretched in two directions as far as the eye could see.

A river ran along the edge of this plain, a great glistening jewel, and on the other side the terrain was more uneven. That was more like the land around the valley—hills of white and grey rock, topped by green grasses and littered with trees. Giant tors loomed over the grass like imposing behemoth spectres, huge weathered crags thick with heather and moss. And there were lots of animals here, the mettysnatchers that wandered down as far as the valley, cattle with brown fur and floppy ears, golden-furred creatures knee high to Macel that looked a bit like cats. Bess had strode past them all without acknowledging they were there.

This terrain didn’t seem to end. It had just kept on going until he was sure he was going to faint. And then, at last, Bess stopped walking. “We’ll rest here,” she said, pointing out a narrow pass where once a stream had carved a gorge in the rocks.

It was a perfect place to rest. In places, large flat boulders had fallen across the pass, keeping it cool and shaded. The gurgle of running water was loud here, the source somewhere close by. Macel sat down in the dark, next to where the stem and leaf of a yellow-green plant were poking out from the rock. At once he took off his boots, and began to massage his feet. They were sore.

“We mustn’t stay too long,” Bess said, turning around, and it was then that he got the first glimpse of her face since early that morning. She was drowning in sweat, her skin red and her lips chapped. When he looked at her, he could see that her legs were gently quaking.

“Look at the state of you,” he said. “Bess, you need to rest. You’ll hurt yourself.”

She shook her head. “There’s no time.”

“You weren’t like this yesterday. This dream you’ve had, it’s like it’s taken all the reason out of your mind. You’re acting insane. Tell me what you saw that’s frightened you into overexertion? What’s so urgent that you can’t take the time to rest? Was it the Moonlight Woman?”

Bess looked at him for what felt like a solid minute, then slumped to the ground. “I don’t remember,” she said, and he could hear that she was choking back sobs. He held his arms out for her and she collapsed into them. Her head fell onto his shoulder, moistening it with tears. “Macel, I was so scared. I wanted all the time to wake up. And when I did it was like I knew the way. Like I had to be here today.”

“Here?”

“No. A little further, half an hour maybe.”

“You’re not walking that far,” Macel said. “Not until you’ve got some of your strength back. I’ll find some water to drink.” Their flasks were long since empty, but he could refill them from the gurgling stream he could hear. If only he knew where to look...

The water turned out to be almost inaccessible. He found a gap in the rocks where the petty torrent rushed, wide enough for him to reach his hand in and cool his finger off but too narrow to get the flasks filled. Too narrow by half. He scraped his knuckles on the rock as he tried to force one of the flasks through.

As he was about to give up and go back to try and find the river, he noticed a wider opening. A few of the mettysnatchers were bathing in it, but all scattered as his hand approached. He filled both the flasks, then took a great gulp that near-emptied his own, and filled it again for good measure. It was better to run the slight risk that the mettysnatchers had somehow contaminated the water than it was to try and battle against dehydration. The hospital had a pill for cholera, if it came to that. There was no cure for death.

Bess drank gratefully when he returned, the water dribbling down her chin and soiling her clothes. She held her flask upside down over her open mouth until every drop had gone, and then let it fall to the ground. “Let’s go.”

“Not until you rest,” said Macel, picking her flask up out of the dust.

“It has to be now,” she insisted.

In the end, Macel was able to convince Bess to rest for a little longer, but they’d been in the pass for no more than an hour when she suddenly stood. “I’m rested now,” she said. “So I’m going. Come if you like, but don’t try to stop me. I need to be there, Macel.” And she gave him such a doe-eyed look that he had no choice but to relent. It would have broken his heart to disappoint that face.

They followed the pass for a while, Macel savouring the parts where the rocky overhangs blocked out the sun and cast them in shade. It was slow-going. His legs were still aching dully, and the way Bess was wobbling it was clear she felt the same way. The rest had stopped the muscles burning, but instead there was a palpable weakness. Nonetheless they trudged on. And after about twenty minutes of walking, the ground they were on sloped upwards, bringing them out of the trench they’d wandered and up onto the ground.

When they emerged, Macel felt his breath catch in his throat. What they’d stumbled upon was a beautiful enigma. A patch of land no more than a dozen feet across, covered in grassland and thick-trunked trees and rainbows of wildflowers, was caught between a near-vertical wall of hills to the left, carved up by deep gullies, and to their right a huge lake of calm water that stretched out endlessly to the horizon. It broke upon the shores, and on a few small islands in the middle of the water. Otherwise it was completely still. The heat of the sun warmed the water up to a cool blue. Oh, to bathe in it—just for a minute. It would be heaven.

But all along the shore, he noticed now, were the strangest things: dark stone obelisks. At a glance, he guessed that they were maybe eight feet tall, and half a foot wide for much of their height before tapering gently to a point near the top. There were hundreds of them, all the same shape. Something chilled him. They had definitely been made by human hands.

There was a strange and sudden shift in their dynamic. Macel was curious about these obelisks. He wanted to go up close to them and have a better look, but Bess had stopped moving altogether. She was leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree, her face quite pale. He went to her.

“Are you alright?”

Bess nodded. “Fine. Just... queasy.” She tilted her head towards the nearest of the obelisks. “I don’t like those things.”

“I don’t see how they can be here. That’s the bit that worries me. By rights they shouldn’t be here. There’s no way they’re natural.” He put his hand on her arm. “Come on. Let’s have a better look at them.”

“NO!” Bess threw Macel’s hand away as she shrieked. “They’re bad. I know it.”

He gave her a look half of pity and half of concern. Was her mind well? “Bess, calm down.” That line earned him the sharpest scowl he ever saw, but he kept talking. “That dream’s obviously hit you hard,” he continued. “You’ve been just like a child today.” He’d tried to strike a fine balance, putting venom enough into his voice that it’d sink in while also speaking genially and not sounding venomous at all. It was an impossible task, and predictably he failed. In the end, he’d just snapped at her. She stood her ground, blinking in confusion.

“What’s wrong with being a child? Maybe we should all be children once in a while. I know I never got my fair chance before.”

“You’re being impetuous,” he said.

“And you’re being unkind.” She pouted. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side. I don’t control what dreams I get, Macel, I told you that.”

He sighed. “I know you don’t ask for these dreams, and I know it’s hard for you to deal with, but that doesn’t mean you get to act like the universe is going to step aside for you. This is a dangerous world, Bess. You can’t be stupid about it.”

She nodded sarcastically, a thin smile scratched into her face. “That’s it, that’s me all figured out, right there. I’m stupid.”

“Bess...”

“No, you’re right. I’m a prime fool. Everyone has dreams, but I’m stupid enough to believe they’re real.”

“I never said that.”

She grimaced at him. “I thought we were on the same page, Macel. Did you think I was just some pretty girl with nothing else to do in her life than sit with you every day? I’m a Foresleeper. That means I have these dreams, and it means I have to act on them, because nobody else will. And I’m sorry if I don’t always fit into your little plan.”

Macel shook his head. “You’re making a meal of this. I just think you should worry about your own health. Look at you. Would you have had even a single drop of water today if I hadn’t made you sit down?”

“I have to be here,” she said.

“You have to take care of yourself. You can’t help anybody if you’re dead.”

Bess quietened a bit then. Sullen, she sucked on her flask, and pretended not to wince every time she touched her cracked lips. It was apparent that she wasn’t going to go any closer to the obelisks than she had to. Any time Macel even attempted to broach the subject, she turned away from him, shaking her head. “Let’s start back then,” he said. “If we’re quick we can get back to the Watch before it gets too dark.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She shook her head firmly at that. “We have to be here,” she said. “They told me so.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“I’ll start to build a camp,” said Bess, avoiding his question. “We’ll stay the night here.”

She busied herself, clearing fallen twigs and leaves from the ground underneath one of the girthiest trees, and ignored Macel’s attempts to strike up a conversation. He watched her milling about with mild bemusement, and when he asked her what the hurry was, she snapped at him. “Maybe if you helped, I wouldn’t need to rush around so much.” After that, he’d given her a hand—but not too much. His legs were sore from the double-time march she’d made him do all day. It was a small revenge to leave her to make her own bed.

By the time she’d finished pottering around building what he supposed passed as a camp, Bess had calmed down considerably. She was still uneasy about the obelisks, but after some cajoling she agreed to look closer. They’d have to go back eventually, Macel pointed out, and somewhere up the chain of command somebody would want to know exactly what these strange stones were.

Getting there was slow going. On more than one occasion Bess stopped completely, and Macel had to lead her onwards with a hand on her back. As they came within touching distance of the nearest, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her hands, clenched into fists, hovered at shoulder height. When nothing happened, she relaxed again.

Right up close, it was possible to notice the imperfections. The stone had been fairly roughly carved to begin with it seemed, and by the way it was weathered these monuments had been here for quite some time. Centuries at least, Macel thought. Markings had been hewn into the sides, indentations almost lost to time. He traced some of the markings with his fingers. “Letters, perhaps,” he mused aloud. “Ancient writing.”

But who wrote it? Whoever it was, their message was lost. Their very existence, in fact, seemed to have been forgotten. If he squinted, Macel could just about see the shape of the letters in some places—indeed, it seemed as though it had been written in the Belaboran alphabet. But the words themselves were meaningless. A dead language, probably, the people who spoke it lost in the mists of time.

Macel let his gaze wander to the water. It was a beautiful summered blue. No doubt it would make for an excellent place to bathe. He had a mind to suggest it to Bess, in fact. She’d voice her own discontent, no doubt. Certainly she would refuse to swim herself. She was infuriatingly reluctant to give up even a hint of the rigid chastity she’d shown him. She’d said she wanted to be his girlfriend, and since then they’d shared not even a kiss. She slept in his bed from time to time, but only if he slept on the floor. Maybe she thought that baring herself in front of him, even just to swim, would open the door to a physical relationship later on.

And to be fair, that was the intention.

“Up there.” Bess was pointing up over the crest of the nearest of the promontories. A huge marble-white figure stood there, towering high into the clear air—the statue of a man. The top of the statue’s head, and a chunk from the back of its neck, had fallen away, leaving a rough gap. The rest of the head was bent in a prayer, obscuring the face. Another statue stood nearby, a woman in battle armour, a shield on her arm and locks of carved hair flowing down her face. Such was the quality of the carving that Macel expected her hair to blow with the breeze. Like Bess’s did. He loved to watch the way her hair blew.

Between the two statues on their promontories was a gorge, just wide enough to fit two carts side by side. More obelisks ran into this pass, a trail of them. “This is the way,” Bess said, and she headed in. The way to what, Macel wondered. What had Bess been leading them towards? He’d assumed it was the obelisks that she’d seen in her dream, but she didn’t seem especially interested in them. On the contrary, they’d repulsed her. And there was a whole trail of them they could follow without going into this canyon. Yet she was adamant this was the way.

There was shade here, and plenty of it. Little wispy trees poking out from the pass’s rocky walls blew with each gust, and their rustling leaves were whispers. Grandfather had told Macel that the whispering was the conversation of ghosts. He wondered what these ghosts were saying. Were they pleased to see new blood in their old home?

Maybe that was a question best left unanswered.

At the end of the gorge, two rock sentinels stood guard, hooded figures with their long battleaxes crossed. These, unlike the other statues, were made of the same dark stone as the many obelisks around them. They’d scarcely eroded at all. Perhaps the gorge sheltered them from the wind and rain. Beyond the hooded men, it opened out into a round valley, a crater perhaps twenty feet in diameter with these great reaching cliffs on all sides. In the middle was an altar.

The altar did not stand alone in the clearing. Looming behind was a statue of a woman, barefoot and weeping, her left breast exposed. The statue seemed to watch over the altar. More of them watched from on high, rows of huge figures, their features weathered away, many shorn of heads or arms through decay. Tendrils of creeping plants had claimed some of the statues. One was a bearded man holding an open book in his hand; the book was almost entirely given over to the vegetation. It was a sad vigil these statues kept, and even its candle was gone. Only an empty, rusted holder remained on the altar.

As soon as Bess stepped past the sentinels, she screamed. Macel turned to find her bent double on the floor, her arms pressing at her head. “It’s not right,” she cried, her voice muffled. “Oh, it hurts. Make it stop.”

“It’s okay,” he said. He was crouched down in front of her, stroking her temples. She batted him away with a wildly flailing arm. And then she vomited, leaving her last meal as an offering to whatever gods they worshipped here. She lay on her back after that. Her breathing was heavy and her face was beaded with rivulets of sweat. She moaned a low, constant moan. It didn’t stop until Macel had carried her all the way back to their camp and lain her on one of the makeshift beds she’d made earlier.

He left her there, sleeping, when the sun began to set. Restlessness came with the twilight Absurdly, he crept back into the maze of stones. There was nobody around to hear him, and none would chide him if they did, but still he felt compelled to go gently into the growing darkness. He’d left no light in the camp. Night was likely to have truly fallen by the time he was finished, and he’d have to feel his way back.

The air was cold now, weighing heavy. The obelisks felt damp to the touch, yet when he moved his hand away from them he found it bone dry. The gorge was easy enough to find again. The tops of those behemoth statues were illuminated by the sun’s last hurrah. How he wanted to climb up there, up to the top of that hill, and sit at the feet of one of the twin giants. What better place would there be to watch the sun set behind the still lake?

Instead he pressed on. In the gorge, there was no sound but the sound of his breathing. He was suddenly acutely aware of every breath. This intense awareness lasted until he passed by the shadowy sentinels.

The moment he crossed into the clearing the night shifted. At once the air became light, and there was a palpable sense of peace. This was a holy place, he thought. And whatever spirit watched over it once is here now, too. It should have scared him, but it was a notion that gave him some strange comfort. He was safe here, he knew.

A candle was lit on the altar. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but once he saw the glow he couldn’t imagine how he’d missed it. The melting wax dribbled over the edge of the holder and onto the stone whilst the flame lit his way. Who had lit it? What shade had been here? He called out to anybody who may have been listening, but nobody answered.

For the first time he could see the altar clearly. The stone was carved deep, a picture engraved on the top. A young woman—or an old woman, there wasn’t enough detail to be specific. She wore a robe spangled with diamonds, a humble crown on her head, and a glum sulk on her face. Some words had been carved beneath her feet, but the markings were shallow and they’d faded almost out of sight. The letters ‘E’ and ‘S’, together in the middle of the word, were the only ones still legible this long after the fact. Macel put a finger on one of the lost glyphs, pressing down on the stone as if it might give way and reveal what had once been carved clear. The stone did not yield.

A sudden gust of wind knocked Macel off his feet, and extinguished the candle. Without it, the night was as thick here as anywhere. He stumbled in the darkness, and when he regained his footing he saw that the candle had been lit again. Some ghostly sorcery was at work here. He was feeling a lot less safe here than he had earlier—perhaps Bess was right to mistrust the clearing. His breathing was heavier.

He looked back at the altar, and immediately Bess’s determination to lead him here was justified. A body was lying sprawled atop the altar. A woman, her hair blonde and matted with mud, faded strips of pink at the tips. Her clothes were torn almost to shreds, exposing the bare skin of her navel. She’d been grazed there, and wet blood glistened. So too had she been cut on her face, a deep wound in the left cheek. Her eyes were shut and her brow slick with sweat. He knew the face well. Eilidh Cailie.

She didn’t wake as Macel tried to lift her from the altar. She made no sound at all but the faint whisper of her breath. He knew he was smeared all over with her blood, he had to be, but he didn’t think about it. She needed help. She needed to be brought back to the Watch. Now was not the time to be put off by a bit of blood.

He carried Eilidh part of the way back, hoisted her over his shoulders and struggled away from the altar, but he was tired, and she was a dead weight. Somewhere in the gorge, he lowered her to the ground and run for camp. Eilidh wasn’t the biggest woman. If he really tried he could possibly have dragged her all the way to the camp alone. Possibly. But it would have left him shattered. Two of them, though, would have no trouble.

Bess was still asleep, so peaceful in the pale caress of the sister-moons. It was a shame to wake her. But needs must.

“Bess. Wake up.” He shook her gently, and when she didn’t stir he shook her more firmly. She opened sleepy eyes and batted him away with a playful swat of her hand. So he put his fingers on her eyelids and gently pulled them open. That woke her up quick enough. She shot bolt upright, and rubbed at her eyes when he let go.

“Why would you do that?” she whined.

“I need your help. Quickly.”

Bess wasn’t happy at the idea of going back towards the altar. She followed him sleepily towards the obelisks, not seeing them perhaps in the dark, but when she reached them she remembered her aversion. It was pure happenstance that Macel noticed her starting to turn and run, and held out an arm to block her. “I don’t want to be here,” she said, kicking and flailing at air. “I don’t like it here.”

“We’ll go in a second,” he promised. “But I need your help. I can’t carry her on her own.”

She looked at him with her eyes a picture of confusion. “Who?”

“Eilidh.” He deliberately said the name as quickly as he could, hoping that Bess would mishear him. If there was one person he was sure she’d brave anything to save, it was her sister Elly. It was a cruel trick, really, but it worked.

Excitement sparkled in her eyes. “Elly? My sister?”

Macel grunted. He didn’t want to lie, not explicitly. It wasn’t fair to Bess. Deceptive half-truths sat better on his conscience.

Bess took his non-committal noise as an affirmative, and suddenly she was running into the heart of this obelisk maze. He had a job to catch up to her in time. She’d almost run right past the gorge, when he nudged her shoulder and guided her in the right direction.

“There,” he called, when he could see that she’d got to Eilidh. In the dark, and with Eilidh on the ground, Bess hadn’t seen her. Bess had nearly run right past Eilidh. She wheeled around and looked wildly in every direction before Macel caught her eye and jabbed his thumb in a downward position. Then she saw Eilidh lying on the ground.

It was as if it had been rehearsed. Bess dutifully took one of Eilidh’s shoulders in each hand, and waited for Macel to arrive. He grabbed Eilidh’s feet, and on the count of two they lifted her just a little way off the ground. They worked in perfect tandem, Macel leading the pace, with Bess holding her own and spotting him whenever he was close to backing into one of the obelisks. With both of them at it, Eilidh seemed to weigh nothing at all. They were at the camp in what felt like a couple of seconds.

They set Eilidh down as gently as they could on the bed of flattened leaves which Bess had been asleep in a few minutes earlier. The moment she was down, Bess slapped Macel again. This time, it had force to it. This time, it hurt. It hurt like a bitch. He fell to his knees, his legs weakened momentarily by the sudden flash of pain. Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them away so he wouldn’t give her satisfaction.

“You tricked me,” Bess said. “She’s not Elly.”

The stormy cloud to her face suggested to Macel that now was not the appropriate time to play the ‘well, technically I didn’t, you just thought I did’ card. She had the gist of it. He had tricked her, and she was rightfully pissed off about it.

“I couldn’t have carried her alone,” he said, pointing at Eilidh. “I needed to get you to come.”

“And you knew I wasn’t about to go into that henge for someone I didn’t know.”

“It’s not a henge.” Why did he do this to himself?

Bess lost her thread. “What?” She’s giving you an out, Macel. Take it. Pretend you didn’t just say that.

“It’s not a henge,” he said again.

Idiot.

“I really don’t think it matters what it’s called. You know what I’m talking about. You lied. You let me think my baby sister was here, because you knew I wouldn’t go back in there otherwise. This place is bad for me, Macel. Surely you feel it too?” She’d started off angry, but the anger was giving way to a vulnerable desperation. “When I’m in those stones, my chest gets heavy. Like there’s a great boulder crushing me, pressing down. And my head hurts. It’s like I’m walking over my grave. Treading on forbidden ground.”

“I’m sorry.” He’d tried to get away with not saying the words, but they were the least she deserved. She turned her face away from him. He could still see her smile.

Bess slapped him for the third time in a short while, this one another playful one. “Be glad I like having you around,” she said. “How bad is she hurt?”

“Not sure. A few nasty cuts at the very least. I don’t know if she’s unconscious or asleep.”

Now it was Eilidh’s turn to be slapped. Bess hit her only very gently, patting against her uninjured cheek. Eilidh’s eyes flickered open, and she murmured something. Bess leaned in closer, her ear to Eilidh’s mouth to hear her, then turned to Macel.

“She wants water.”

“Good job there’s a lake.” He took one of the flasks from its position on the ground beside him, and carried it to the waterside. There, after swilling a finger around in the water to make sure it was safe to drink, he removed the cap and submerged the flask. When it was filled, he brought it back to Eilidh, who poured it gratefully into her mouth. It dribbled down her face, so she reached out with her tongue to lick up what she could reach. The cut on her cheek was just about in her tongue’s range, and when she touched it she gasped in pain.

Bess held Eilidh’s hand until she fell asleep again.

“I think she’ll live through the night,” Macel said, when Eilidh was peaceful. “As soon as it’s light I’ll head back to Lieutenant Bennett. I’ll fetch help.”