A map of Gaia loomed over the body of a child wracked in pain.
Nilda was stretched out in a standing position with long thick metal chains and shackles pulling skinny arms up over her head. She stood on a stone column jutting out from the ground with matching metal clamps holding her feet in place on the column. The column was there so she stood at exactly the correct height for the Being in Smoke to carve up her back.
He had a heaviness to his step and a presence in his body so Nilda was almost certain the Being in Smoke was in fact an actual person. But his body was made of some dark substance that danced like dark flame and looked to be made of a hazy fog of smoke. Strangely, he wore clothes like a normal person and the clothes fit over what looked like a corporeal body - jarring to see something so real over something so vaguely physical. A roughly head-shaped dark shape rose up from the collar of his tunic, his face containing no features in its inky void except for two green gemstones. They were smooth and polished but flat and circular. Nilda assumed they served him as eyes.
His eyes could be made of sweet pastry rolls for all she cared. He was hurting her. After stringing her up so that she couldn’t move, he started scraping her back with something sharp. In the beginning, she gritted her teeth and endured it; she told herself she’s endured worse. Once she stole some food from a market stall and the merchant caught her and tried to slice off her arm. Another time a man tried to grab her and force her into a dark alleyway and the fight left her with bruises along her face. Ever since her mother left her in the streets of the city, she’s done nothing but endure.
But this time, in this place of stone walls and metal chains under a map of Gaia, Nilda felt a pain so deep she was sure it cut into her very Solute. And it didn’t stop. The Being in Smoke kept scraping at her back with the sharp object and the pain was endless. It didn’t lessen, waver, or dissipate, it simply persisted.
Nilda started screaming.
You weren’t supposed to scream. You weren’t supposed to give voice to your pain. Nilda learned that the week her mother left. Lots of bad people liked it if you cried, if you showed that what they did to you affected you, so kids on the streets learned how to be silent when they endured. But this wasn’t like anything Nilda experienced when she was on the streets. The Being in Smoke made it hurt so much, she started wondering if enduring it was even possible.
For the first time in a long time, she cried for her mama. She cried so long, so loudly, her voice rang itself raw and mute. Just like when she left years ago, she didn’t appear when Nilda cried for her. The pain didn’t go away. The Being in Smoke stopped carving her back briefly and stepped in front of her, studying her with his emerald rock-eyes. They glowed briefly.
“I don’t know where your mama is,” the Being in Smoke said. “I’m sorry.”
Nilda stared at the green rock-eyes incredulously for several seconds before understanding that he thought she was asking him for her mama. She lurched forward in her confines.
“Everything hurts,” she croaked with her damaged voice. “Let me go.”
“I can’t do that,” the Being in Smoke said.
“You’re hurting me.”
“I know. ” The Being in Smoke returned to her back and continued making her hurt. He didn't sound happy nor upset about it, merely stating them like neutral facts.
For a long while after that, she flailed in a sea of pain. She had nothing to hold on to, nowhere to hide. Her mind seemed to want to slip into the dark of unconsciousness, but every time it tried, the pain brought her back to stark wakefulness. She wasn’t allowed to sleep through this. She had to suffer.
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And so her mind went to the next best thing. She hazily looked up at the map hanging on the stone wall in front of her and stared at the intricate markings that outlined the land. Off the side of the landmass were swaths colored in a light blue ink and little waves indicating the oceans. Patches of land were covered in the spiky symbols depicting trees. Jagged peaks portrayed the mountains down the middle of the landmass. Oceans, forests, mountains. The map stretched out before her, showing her that she could be anywhere but here.
She thought she floated up to the map, close enough to press her nose to its surface. Nilda thought she could see the texture of the fine canvas, the blots of ink, the evidence of dust at the top of the frame around the map. But no that wasn’t possible… she looked back down and returned to her body, shackled and bound to the stone column.
She returned to her body of pain and was forced to look up at the map. Just ink markings showing the forests, oceans and mountains, all of which were unreachable. Nilda closed her eyes and endured some more.
—
When the Being in Smoke finished, the pain stopped. This she didn’t realize until she woke up on a thin threadbare mat on the stone floor. She was placed stomach down and the cold seeped through to freeze her bones. She was so stiff she couldn’t move.
“Your trial hasn’t yet finished,” the Being of Smoke said. Nilda struggled to lift herself up but her limbs refused to cooperate. She collapsed back down to the cold floor. That awful pain that she felt had lessened to a more familiar one - a kind of pain one would feel with a scraped knee, except it was all over her back. When she tried to move her torso, the skin on the back would stretch and make the pain worse. So she laid back down and waited until the Being in Smoke moved into her line of vision.
He was scribbling something on the stone floor with a piece of chalk. For hours he worked without saying anything else to her and she dozed on the cold hard floor, cheek pressed against the thin mat.
When she opened her eyes, whatever the Being in Smoke was drawing was now glowing on the stone floor. Any lethargy left her and she tried to lift herself again from the mat.
“Stay there,” the Being in Smoke said. She looked around until she spotted him standing in the corner of the room. The glow eerily did not light up his incorporeal form, only casting light and shadows on his clothing and reflecting off his rock-eyes.
“What are… you doing… to me?” She was barely able to force the words out.
There was a long pause. Nilda almost thought he was ignoring her question until his voice responded: “I am making you stronger.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you want to be stronger?” he asked.
Of course she wanted to be stronger. Then perhaps she wouldn’t have to endure so desperately, so pointlessly. She cast her gaze back up to the map, her neck groaning in protest. If she was stronger, perhaps she could be anywhere but here. The thought occurred to her in this forsaken stone prison - she had that thought back out in the streets with the other starving children.
The Being in Smoke seemed to understand without her saying a word. His rock-eyes glowed their unearthly green and the runes on the floor reflected the same color.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she rasped.
“You’ll either become stronger or you will die,” the Being in Smoke replied. “Depending if you last through this spell.”
She cast her gaze down at the huge enchantment circle he drew around her. It twisted and churned with amazing intricacy and almost seemed to move as he activated the spell with the glow of his eyes. His form remained a black void, unaffected by the lights.
“Why… are you doing this?” she asked. She thought she should ask more questions. He told her he might die after all. She could feel some sort of force churn around her, as if a giant wave of water was about to rear up to crash into her.
“I am attempting to correct a mistake,” the Being in Smoke replied. “With you.”
Nilda screwed her eyes shut, trying to understand. “What do you want me to do?”
“Survive.”
The proverbial wave crashed and Nilda realized what the sensation was - the Great Solvent was moving around her and she could feel it. The enchanting circle around her was doing something to the Solvent and in that realm, it took a hold of her poor, battered Solute and plunged it into a maelstrom.
Nilda screamed again as a new type of pain filled her. It was like water was being pumped directly into her skull, forcing its way down her spine and into her heart, lungs, stomach. She was being pulled apart and she was going to die. She barely heard the Being in Smoke continue his last words to her:
“Survive until the world burns.”