And so I run. Down the burning smoking hill through the field of fire. No erfl gets in my way as I kick up dirt, running through a world that has become merely a bright tunnel surrounding a singular point of darkness. The closer I get to the darkness in the forest, the colder the wind becomes. The flames have spread down to the edge of the trees, but they do not cross the border of bark and wood.
I knew it. As I stop in front of the forest, I begin to make the connections. There is a Shade here. The paletrees, illuminated by the perimeter of fire, appear to have become slightly more gray. A familiar gray.
“Life, drained away in shadow …” I whisper into the night. “Like the texts described.” My stomach drops, realizing what has happened to me. The luscious world, drained in a moment of weakness. A light from the sky disappears in a blink. I clench my shivering fists, gripping my heirlooms; they are my last hope in this long-lost land.
Somehow, I have ended up in the past—
“Save me big brother! Help memmgh–!!” cries out the voice from the forest, before it gets muffled.
Canthi. Her name embeds itself sharply in my mind like an arrow released from a bow. I loop the sickle back into my belt and take out a torch, topped with a chip of crystal, flattened after a day straight of hammering. Afraid to take my eyes off the forest, I walk backwards towards the line of fire and stretch the torch to an open flame, breathe in and call out:
“Do not be afraid.”
The crystal lights with an angelic HRRM, and a pure blue light gleams from its head.
“I will save you!”
I walk into the barrier of trees, cutting the surrounding branches and holding my torch ahead of me, my guide across this peculiar game trail full of long and wavy treads. I direct the shine to the surrounding trees; scratches mark the bark in fresh cuts with dried blood. Bushes that were once makeshift barriers across game trails now lay uprooted and torn off the trail. I follow the debris.
She put up a fight, that’s for sure. I carefully navigate the off-beat path, my torch continuing to hum with every step deeper into the woods. But why does the Shade want her? I think. Could she be a potential threat? Maybe she is a priest—
“i have been waiting,”
A voice speaks with a thick chill. My tongue freezes inside my mouth—
“so, so patiently. it has been a long time since someone wished for their death to be by my hands.”
—It gets louder, but I cannot move. I can only listen as it approaches, leaves crushing under its mass—
“but i did not expect to have not already determined if i would live or die in the encounter.”
The wind continues to get colder, wilder, more arcane—
“you surprised me, sunblighted. come to me, and see if the future is yours to reclaim.”
How foolish of me, to fight a Shade head on—
“DUCK!”
Instinctually, I fall to a crouch as a thin blade comes swiping at my head in an impossibly wide arc. Splinters scream through the sky while trunks groan and fall forward as I fall flat onto the dirt, narrowly avoiding the woody projectiles. But a silver light from the sky illuminates the arena, as no paletrees block the sky, nor do they stop me from rising to confront my enemy.
It is as if a shadow was peeled off of the ground and given life. Nothing about this creature is natural. Crimson markings etch across its body in ancient patterns and symbols. An ashen gash of a curve is where its mouth should be. It does not move from its haunting grin. It gestures upwards with a hand.
“you wish to save her?”
It points to the left, where Canthi lays out on withered ground. Behind the Shade is a trail of blood leading to her. As it draws its right foot back into the pooling blood, its left arm becomes a formless mass of black and red, then solidifies into a flat, needle-like blade with pulsing red lines stretching from shoulder to hand. “give me a fight worth dying for.”
“If that is what it takes.” I take the spear off of my back, bringing its head down to my torch. The HRRM gets louder the closer they come together, and when they touch—
HRRRRRRM
A flash of light envelops the curved spearhead. When the light ebbs, it is no longer dull and pale, but shining and sharp, like the day it was forged. “Then I will slay you, Shade.”
A rumble of laughter escapes the Shade and shakes the ground under its feet. “finally, someone who knows how to kill us,” its right arm shoots out, becoming a second wicked sharp needle, “and not just die by our hand,” and slashes at the air.
A gale of wind pushes against my stance, whipping up dirt and debris as I hold my ground. I try to keep my eyes looking forward but—
It slices downward, already on top of me. I put my spear up and take the brunt of the strike, my feet digging into the dirt as I push it off with a swing to the left. It lands in a crouch as I dart towards it and follow up with stabs and jabs to the head that it parries with both arms before dashing at my feet, which I narrowly dodge by jumping towards the streak of blood.
I look behind at Canthi. She’s still breathing. The blood has stopped pooling. I could grab her and run, she seems lighter than her brother—
I dodge a black projectile sent at my head. It embeds itself in the tree behind me, and disappears in a cloud of shadowy smoke. I turn back to see one arm in the middle of reforming, while the other points in my direction.
“she is alive.” It spits out the last word like a curse. “and holds onto foolish hope. something common to humans in this time.” The arm pointing at me gets longer and sharper as the other arm melts back into its body, the red lines becoming brighter under its feet. “but what i wish to know is …” it takes a step back, and I brace myself, holding my spear tightly—
“why do you?”
An explosion launches itself forward like a crossbow aiming at my heart. I duck, pivot, and spin my spear to stab it, but its back grows blades that slash and stab back, forcing me to defend myself from the rapid cuts and stabs that graze my sleeves, drawing blood, piercing my forearms and hands. My spear is torn from my grasp, spinning in the air and landing head-first in the dirt, but not piercing the ground. It clatters next to Canthi, its light illuminating her scratched-up face and dirty brown hair. Her purple eyes open and dart around the scene, but she is not getting up, laying still as if she was dead.
“when the time comes, as it is supposed to be, she will realize that there is no hope,” I grip my sickle—
“and die.”
It kicks me at an impossible speed, sending me careening through air, desperately reaching at the ground with my weapon, vainly trying to stop, but I miss and I fly straight through the branches and brambles of the half-destroyed forest and into the field of fire. My chest heaves, coughing up blood and phlegm, splinters of wood and a broken rib leaving me writhing in pain as the world around me burns.
The Shade stands at the edge of the forest, its pure white grin only made more jarring by the orange waves washing up and ebbing away from the forest’s shore. I won’t die laying down, I think, as agony burns through my entire body. I force myself to rise, my mind hammering against my head, pulsing with pain and the knowledge that I cannot win this fight. I promised Sulumin I would fight.
“I cannot die now.” I spit out a tooth, the fire fades from sight, and the Shade swallows all of my attention. “You have no place in this world.” I stand up, bent forward, but on my feet, sickle in one hand, knife in the other. Everything is glowing orange, but I drag my feet to the forest, flames licking at my exposed skin through torn, bloodied clothing.
The Shade stands there, pulsing a thick red and hollow black, then extends its left arm back, absorbing its head, right arm, and left leg, all to create a curved spiral the length of a treetrunk. It laughs with no mouth, this time cruel and manic, letting it echo through the sky of eternal night.
“and you have no future.”
I close my eyes for the last time—
A crashing and sickly scream erupts beyond my frozen eyelids, but a strong voice rises above the guttural cries of evil:
“To take a life! is to break your promise! so shall you! be bound once more!” The ancient chant used to extinguish these disgusting blights and their stain on the world. I hear it screaming and repeating over and over, like rehearsed lines releasing from inside the mind of a priest, fulfilling their purpose, begging to be useful.
I open my eyes to a black mass writhing on the ground, burning and melting in the flames, with my spear stabbed in the right of its chest. Next to it, battered and bruised, but alive, is Canthi. I hobble over and sit next to her. She grabs my right arm tightly. I wince, but she moves closer, hugging it. Light sniffles turn from soft tears into heaving sobs as we sit there, like the last people on Earth, kept alive by the flames licking at the puddle of shadow and the beating hearts in our bodies.
Her tears begin to ebb away and she lets go of my arm. She reaches into a hidden fold in her dress and takes out a white handkerchief with red sequins around the edges, untouched by gore or dirt. The handkerchief is also a tapestry of an idyllic setting. Wild horses trot on the land, and the sky above is dotted with stars and a bright sun, as well as a large crescent shape. I look at the sky myself and see the stars through the smoke, as well as that mysterious crescent shape, emitting silver rays.
“Mister,” Canthi says as she delicately folds her handkerchief on her lap. “Did my brother die?” She looks up at me but then forces her purple eyes to linger on the handkerchief. “He promised to protect me. Did he run away?” She tries to hold back her tears, but her quivering lip gives way to more tears. “Was I another burden for him?”
“Canthi,” She looks up at me, scared and frail. I barely understand what I’ve gotten myself into. “Your brother, Sulumin, did everything he could for you.” But what I do know is that these children carry the world on their shoulders. “He was scared, but he fought back.” And I am sorry you have to hold this burden alone. “He knew you had the strength to do what he could not. He believed in you, Canthi, so you should believe that he will always protect you, even if he is not there.”
Her tears stop falling as she closes her eyes and leans on my shoulder. “Thank you, mister,” she whispers, and promptly falls asleep by my side, finding comfort in my words, or at least my presence. I sit there for however long, staring at the spear wielded by one frail girl to take back her future.
I need to take her back to her home. I try to remember the landmarks on my journey that I used as makeshift homes. Maybe where the ruins are in my time is where—
Suddenly, the flames begin to lower down and a booming HRRRRRRRM comes from the spear, and the Shade’s corpse begins to vibrate. We stare at the black mass, exhaustion anchoring our legs in place. The HRRM gets louder as I cover Canthi’s ears and wince hard as she grips around my broken ribs, her eyes glued to the writhing darkness. It begins to glow brightly, but not like the fire, nor the sun. Like a pure whiteness, with no color—
It explodes, sending bits of bright dust across the wide field, pushing me back, but I stay held onto Canthi. She needs to have a future, I think, shutting my eyes to the blinding light—
The ground becomes soft and moist, and a gasp comes from Canthi and she lets go of me as soon as she releases her breath. I open my eyes …
… To a circle of stone, wood, and coal alight in a field. The grass I sit on isn’t brittle, and the wind flows from the east, balancing the heat of the fire with its cooling waves—
Where is Canthi?
I jump to my feet and look all around me. The forest is no longer torn and cut down, but rather flourishing with nature and greenery. The bark is brown and healthy. The shed atop the hill is merely a foundation of gravel now, overgrown with roots and an assortment of vegetation. My legs give out and I scrape my knees against the ground—
“You really proved yourself out there, Lih.”
I pivot, drawing my knife to the direction of the voice. I turn back to see a man sitting crosslegged at the campfire. He is clothed in a shirt cut from sack and plain leggings, but his shoulders are loose and his eyes are lazy, with a clouded, gold hue. He smiles like he wakes up with no struggles to live through, no enemies to fight. But his attention is solid and unmoving.
“Who are you,” I say, pointing my knife at his head, arms shaking with exhaustion, “and how do you know my name?”
“First of all, where are your manners?” The man drops his smile and leans forward seriously, but his voice drips with sarcasm. “Is that really the way a holy warrior should greet his patron deity, Lih; the Last Sunblighted?”
End of Part One: The Ritual of a Lost God
Photo Credit: “Sun” by DBduo Photography is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
