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Sarah M Jilek / Text 3 of 3 / Mapping Relyah (3)
"Mapping Relyah (3)" by Sarah M Jilek
SF&F Picture 3 out of 3 by Sarah M Jilek
Not so sure if i like this one....it's in for some major editing pretty soon....back to Kay! |
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3
“We should stand guard, just in case,” I said to Rain as he was lying down and getting comfortable (as if that was possible). He turned his back on me to lay on his side.
“Yeah, okay. You do that,” he replied. His voice was muffled. I sighed.
“I’m waking you up when it’s your turn,” I called over to him as I sat down and rested my head against the tree trunk. He grunted in agreement (at least I think that’s what it was) and I rolled my eyes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Issues.
~
Apparently, even though desert climates are blisteringly hot during the day, the temperature drops precipitously overnight, turning it into a cold region with harsh winds constantly whipping around. I couldn’t imagine how Arainn was still asleep. My tries to shield the wind from my face were all unsuccessful. I finally gave up, figuring I’d be sun burnt enough by tomorrow that I wouldn’t care about dry skin anymore. Then I decided it was time to reflect again.
I had started planning my escape from Anarra at the age of five. I had thought I wouldn’t last much longer there, so I had decided to travel someplace and get out of town for a while. Remarkably (and also expectedly, for I knew I wasn’t normal, even at that age), I think I made it to the harbors and almost onto one of the boats when my father finally found me. I think a fisherman told him where I was or something like that (because he probably couldn’t have figured it out by himself). Anyway, he was furious when he found me. I remember him grabbing my arm and practically dragging me back to the house and throwing me in through the front door. The fear was so real, and even now I can recall that moment and feel the same fear that I felt fourteen years ago. My good memory has always been a curse.
The vein in his temple throbbing, he slapped me across the face. I wasn’t crying yet, mainly because I had told myself before never to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry ever again. But I was only five years old, so when he kept hitting me I started to feel the hot tears prick my eyelids and then I finally started to cry.
“You ungrateful little…after everything I’ve done for you…” he went on and on as he did what he had first started doing to me on my birthday two years before.
After it was over he left me, a broken shell of a person, a sobbing ball of fear, rocking back and forth on the cold floor of the house, knowing now that I couldn’t escape from him or the house filled with memories that had passed and things inevitably still to come. I couldn’t escape from Anarra, not in this lifetime.
I snapped open my eyes and was surprised to see that my vision was blurred by tears. I wondered at the fact that a single memory from my childhood could still affect me, still bring me to tears. Still destroy me from the inside out.
Judging by the level of darkness cast around me, Rain and the pathetic excuse for shelter we had, a few hours had passed since we’d gotten there. I stood up, determined not to fall asleep on guard duty, and began to pace the length of Rain’s sleeping figure, curled up on the ground, while I spoke out loud to myself, to my father, to the skies above.
“I still cry sometimes when I think of you. I think about what you put me through, all because she died. All because you blamed me for her death. It wasn’t my fault, though. I must have told you I was sorry a thousand times in this lifetime. It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t kill her. But you blamed me, didn’t you? You punished me. Every day of my life was torture. But I survived. I’m here. You failed. I’m still here, and I’m okay. I didn’t…I’m okay…you…” I trailed off, sinking back onto the ground in a heap of sobs. I was mortified when I thought I saw Rain stir and I wondered if he’d heard me, but he sank back onto the ground and kept snoring quietly. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and let my head fall back against the tree trunk, where I waited until it was time to wake Rain.
~
“Hey, wake up,” I heard a voice call from somewhere… deep in my mind; maybe…I wasn’t sure… “Come on, get up. Time to go,” it said, and this time I forced my eyes open and found myself staring into Rain’s upside-down face. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands until I saw stars and then got up to join him. Light was barely breaking over the horizon.
“Why are we leaving so early?” I asked him; although I already knew the answer he would give.
“We’re going to cover as much ground as we can before it starts getting hot,” he replied. I sighed. It was going to be another long day. In fact, several more long days. Long hot days.
~
It wasn’t until noon that I noticed another speck on the horizon.
“Look at that. Another tree, maybe?” I asked Rain. He shrugged.
“Maybe. It could be anything, though,” he said, and so we kept walking. We were silent for a good part of the day, and the only time we stopped was every once in a while so that Rain could sketch the landscape on one of the pieces of parchment that he was using to make maps. By that afternoon, the speck had become increasingly larger, and I swore I saw it move once or twice. I was wondering what it could possibly be when Rain interrupted my thoughts.
“I had a dream last night,” he said, and I think he was waiting for me to ask what it was about, as if I cared.
“About what?” I asked after a minute.
“I can’t really remember. It was weird, though. Something about a full moon. I don’t know,” he replied.
“Hmm,” I said, trying to sound interested. Why would he bring it up if he couldn’t remember it? Just to make conversation? Well, then I would return the favor. “I can never remember dreams. I mean, I remember them when I first wake up, but then they just slip away.”
Rain nodded, as if what I’d said was thought-provoking. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the considerably larger speck move again.
“I swear, that thing’s moving,” I muttered.
“Yeah, I keep seeing it too,” Rain agreed. I breathed a quiet sigh filled with relief that I wasn’t going crazy, or at least I wasn’t the only one going crazy.
“When do you think we’ll be there? At the, um, thing, I mean,” I said, sounding stupid. He shrugged, a bad habit that he needs to break because it’s going to drive me crazy eventually.
“Maybe a few hours, maybe less. Sunset, at the latest,” Rain responded, shrugging again. I clenched my fists, not sure why I was getting so irritated about such a small thing.
~
We weren’t there at sunset. Desert heat can play tricks on your vision, Rain said, and we could still be an hour away. I didn’t want to stop here when the thing could be a tree that we could use for some kind of shelter. We kept walking and within an hour we could see what the speck was.
“It’s a person,” I said once I was sure. Rain nodded and we started jogging towards it, which isn’t so easy in sand. However, with the sun behind the clouds, it was more bearable. We broke into a sprint soon after and then we reached the body, kneeling down on either side of it. It was a girl that looked our age, maybe a few years under. She was lying facedown on the sandy ground and we rolled her over. She had light blonde curls that fell almost to her waist and she was wearing green armor that was made to look like dragon scales. The armor stopped halfway down her arms and she was badly sunburned. I saw that she had four daggers strapped to her sides, two on each side. She also had a strange tattoo that went around half of one of her wrists. It looked like triangles with a circle, except the circle was suddenly cut off, as if someone had been interrupted while making it. She had high cheekbones and a short, pointy nose and full lips.
“I wonder where she’s from,” Rain said, as if he was thinking out loud.
“Let’s stop here for the night, in case she wakes up,” I suggested, sitting down cross-legged and opening the leather bag I carried. I took out what little water I had and poured some into her mouth, holding it open. I wasn’t sure if she drank it or not, but at least I tried, right?
“I’ll take first watch tonight,” Rain suggested and I agreed, trying to lay down and make myself comfortable. I used my bag as a makeshift pillow and relaxed against the ground, preparing myself for when it turned bitterly cold. I was asleep in moments.
~
Ironically, that night I had a dream and I remembered the entire thing when Rain woke me up to trade watches. I was going to tell him right then, but he seemed tired and I wanted to let him sleep. I was sure I was going to forget it during those hours, but when I woke him up at sunrise, it was still clear as a bell in my memory. Well, as clear as it was ever going to get, that is.
“Guess what? I had a dream last night, and this time I remembered it,” I said once he was fully awake. He smiled slightly.
“About what?”
“Well, it was as if I was following someone the entire time. I saw a dark green and brown cloak, and the person in the cloak was running through a forest, at nighttime. Then I saw the person in the cloak get on a ship, and I think the ship crashed or something. It was weird,” I replied.
“That is weird,” Arainn agreed.
Just then the girl woke up. She sat up, coughing up water and blood and gagging. I held her long blonde hair back while she threw up onto the ground. She fell back down onto her back and took a deep breath, squinting her eyes against the sun.
“Where am I?” she asked us. We were leaning over her. I helped her sit up and she squeezed her almond-shaped sea-green eyes shut as if she were dizzy.
“We found you on our way to Drassea,” Rain answered.
“Drassea? Dra…” she trailed off, running her fingers through her hair, a wild look on her face.
“Where are you from?” I asked her. She looked at me, as if suddenly realizing that I was there.
“Isandrah,” she replied.
“That’s all the way on the other side of the Aerets!” Rain exclaimed, referring to the Aeret Mountains, the chain of almost-impassable mountains that ran from east to west and divided the island of Relyah in half. The girl nodded.
“My grandfather, he’s sick. We’re not doing so well. He sent me to go find help, and I set sail from the west coast, trying to make port at Anarra, but…there was a storm…and, well, I guess I ended up here instead,” she explained. “I’m Sultanna. Named for the Goddess of Love, Passion and the Stars. Call me Sultanna and you die. It’s Tanna, got that?” she snapped, looking back and forth from me to Rain.
“Okay, then. I’m Akkailia - call me Kay- from Anarra.”
“And I’m Arainn - Rain- from Tallieth.” Tanna arched her eyebrows.
“And what, in the name of Aiyana, would a witch and a witch-burner be doing traveling together?” she asked.
“Aiyana?” I asked, confused. She rolled her eyes and blew air out through her short, pointy nose.
“Aiyana, the Goddess of Wisdom and Evil? I can’t believe you don’t know who Aiyana is,” she muttered. “But you never answered me. How did you two come to be traveling together?” Rain and I looked at each other. We both started answering at the same time.
“I found Kay in Demon’s Forest and brought her to Tallieth and then I got sent to map the entire island of Relyah and then we started walking through the desert and found you…” Rain said. At the same time, I was saying,
“I ran from Anarra to Demon’s Forest and Rain found me and then while we were in Tallieth the Council told Rain he had to go out and map Relyah and I went with him…”
Tanna was looking back and forth at us as we talked over each other, one blonde eyebrow raised.
“Okay then,” she said, standing up. She wobbled a little at first but then sighed and threw her long blonde curls back over her shoulders. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go,” she said, taking the lead and marching ahead of both of us. Rain and I looked at each other. He rolled his eyes. We followed closely behind her as she babbled on and on about her hometown and how it was summertime and the orchards were overflowing with ripe fruit and it was so beautiful and on and on. The desert heat didn’t seem to affect her at all and she walked briskly, as if she enjoyed the fresh air. Rain leaned over and whispered in my ear,
“This is going to be one long day.”
~
←- Mapping Relyah (2) | Mapping Relyah (1) -→
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About 'Mapping Relyah (3)':
• Status: OK
• Created by:
Sarah M Jilek• Copyright: ©Sarah M Jilek. All rights reserved!
• Keywords: Anarra, Tallieth, Witch, Arainn, Rain, Akkailia, Kay
• Categories: Weapons, Bows, Swords, Blades, Rapiers...
• Submitted: 2009-10-22 04:38:00
• Views: 39
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| Mapping Relyah (2) | Mapping Relyah (1) |
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