At first, all was darkness. For the longest time afterwards, Elu came to question the void of those days, and what they had truly meant. It was a question that would haunt her for many years to come, almost to the precipice of madness. If she had known the truth, perhaps she would not have asked those questions so fervently and for so long. But the answers are so seldom handed to us, and even more rarely are they bestowed to us on a plate. It would have been best, Elu decided long after her story had ended, that she had not wondered about it at all. Perhaps then, Fate would have been kinder to her. Perhaps.
The darkness was the first thing she remembered. She did not know how long it lasted, only that it could have been days, or minutes, or decades. She remembered being encased in it, as though in a box or a coffin; yet she had not feared it. It had been as thick as oil, as impenetrable as rock. It was nothing, and yet it was everything. Sometimes, Elu was inclined to think, darkness has more substance than any of the things we witness in daylight.
Presently, she recalled flashes of white and crimson in the midst of the void, at first distant and pale, but then nearer and sharper. They had seemed to pluck at her consciousness, as though awakening her from a slumber. She had been aware of trying to turn away from them, to shut her sight from them, to keep them at a distance. They tormented her, day in, day out – if indeed the darkness was counted in days. And as they became more lucid, voices came with them. She could not understand what they said, for they were faint, but they were insistent. They beckoned her in a way the lights had not. They rent her mind into wakefulness, harsh, forceful, unrelenting. It was chanting, Elu later realised, or something akin to chanting. But it was not pleasant to listen to. The language was dissonant, guttural.
It was during this cacophony that the edges of the darkness seemed to fray and unravel, to draw back as though a curtain admitting dimples of light. The clamouring of the chanting seemed to call her to those holes of light, to clutch at her and drag her through as though to the surface of water. She saw that surface, drawing nearer to her, inevitable, inescapable. A whiteness, a blinding brightness that she quailed from. Somehow, she felt the light unnatural. She fought against it, trying in vain to release herself from the clutches of those voices. But they would not let go of her. Like talons of sound they seized her, dragged her upward, outward, out of her body and out of her mind. She was flying, and suddenly the darkness and myriad lights burst into a rush of colour, that of scrolling scenery – plains and fields, trees and towers, villages and farmsteads; peoples coming and going, laughing, talking, quibbling. Each landscape passed even before she could mark it in her mind, so fast was she travelling. Then the greens and browns and greys ceased, and her eyes were dazzled by the brightness of an endless white. Snow. The memory of such a thing cut into her with a sudden clarity. She was travelling over a plain of snow.
Then the vision ended, as quickly as it had come, and was replaced by another one. It was as though her body – or her soul, or whatever part of her it was that had come here – had been dropped from a great height unceremoniously into the middle of a dark pit. For it was indeed a new darkness that greeted her. But not the darkness of her long slumber. With smarting eyes she looked about, and perceived that she was in a hall, lit only by the flickering flames of candlelight. For a moment, she could see nothing; but then, as her sight grew accustomed to the dimness, she saw that she was in a chapel or temple of some sort. She was standing facing the hall in its entirety – it was long and tall, richly decorated with gold and marble, lined with thick, stern pillars that glared out at her from the shadows. At the far end of the chamber stood a high altar, and it was here that many candles were stood, providing the only source of light in the room.
“Ashar gûrlam, eswar gûrwet ar.”
The chanting. Ugly, tuneless, irresistible. She suddenly realised that she had been called here, and that it was the chanting that had summoned her. She listened, half repulsed, half entranced. The chanting echoed on, out into the back of the hall where she stood, resounding over and over in an endless dissonance. The language seemed familiar to her, and yet she could not manage to grasp it. Ashar gûrlam…Life and death…?
She was drawn forward, her spirit body drifting out into the light, unable to resist the insistence of that call. Soundless, motionless, she allowed herself to be taken to the source of the voice, to commune with the thing that waited for her. The light swallowed her, but she cast no shadow, she left no mark. She was like a dream. Perhaps in reality, all this was only a dream.
Four people there were, standing by that altar. Three of them she could not see clearly, for they stood outside the ring of light, and their features were shrouded in shadow. To the left of the shrine stood a tall man, his frame strong and manly, cloaked and silent. To the right stood an older man, hunched over a cane, which he held in one hand, while in the other he grasped the shoulder of a small, soundless little boy. They seemed to be witnessing some sort of ceremony, so solemn and quiet were they; their heads were bent as though in reverence; the strong man and the boy had their hands clasped before them.
“Ashar gûrlam, eswar ashart gal.”
A violent twinge clasped at Elu’s heart, as though something in those words had beckoned her from deep within. She looked up with a start, all at once strangely joyful and fearful. Before the altar, full in the light, stood a man, older than any man she had ever witnessed or was likely to. He was wrinkled and wizened beyond imagination, and of a race she did not recognise. His skin was tanned, leathery; his features harsh and rough, his hair thick, ashen, coarse. He was dressed in gold and red finery, dotted with pearls and jewels, and robes that swathed his frail frame. Upon his head he wore a tall headdress, lined with golden thread, studded with rubies. His arms were lifted towards the sky, his face was tilted upward, as though in the throes of some religious ecstasy.
“Ashar gûrlam, ashar gûrlam!”
Again Elu felt the wrench in her heart, and she gasped, unable to stop herself from moving forwards towards the old man. There was a rustle in the room, as though of autumn leaves whipped up by the wind – the younger man started, looking about uncomfortably; the young boy was trembling in the older man’s grasp. But the strange man by the altar seemed to waken from his trance, and he lowered his head slowly, and Elu saw that his filmy eyes seemed to be looking right through her, almost as though to acknowledge her. A twisted smile grew across his face, and he gazed round triumphantly at the others present. And he spoke; and suddenly Elu found that she could understand him.
“The moment is nigh,” he hissed, his voice filled almost with something akin to glee. “The ritual is about to begin. Let no one speak! Let us only pray that the god Madûl hears us!” He turned to the man with the cane, his expression imperious. “Bring me the boy.”
He swivelled round back to the altar, and Elu saw him reach out for a long obsidian knife that was laid out upon a cloth of red velvet. All at once the young boy began to scream, a scream so piercing, so full of terror that Elu was sickened. She knew all in a moment, and beyond all doubt that what she was witnessing was a sacrifice.
The old man was turning again, knife held aloft, only the whites of his eyes showing. The man with the cane was forcing the young boy onto the altar, and the boy was struggling like a wild thing, screaming and crying with such abject horror that Elu could no longer bear it. If this was a dream, it was a nightmare, and she no longer wanted to be a part of it. With all the strength she could muster she willed herself to return to her body – but something held her, something far stronger than her. It was the old man. Somehow she was linked to him. It was he who was keeping her there. He had bonded himself to her, with his chanting – she could not let go.
“Madûl hear us,” his voice quavered into the hall again, echoing itself out into the darkness. “Take this boy’s life in order that life may be given! Take it, and give us life in return! We beseech thee to barter that which is weak for that which is strong!”
The boy, too feeble to free himself from his guardian’s grasp, had given himself over to pitiful weeping. He was wrapped in rich white silk so that not even his face could be seen, and was led to the altar, where he was placed upon the cold slab of marble and held down by the two witnesses. From within the shroud of silk, Elu could hear the dim muffles of the boy’s crying, and her stomach turned. Again, something tugged at her heart, compelling her to stay, inviting her to join in, to move forward. She fought, but could not. Even as she climbed the steps to stand beside the altar, the desire to vomit grew overwhelming. And yet, even as she stood facing the blind man with that knife sharp and glistening in his hand, she could not turn away.
“Madûl hears us, and his assent has been given,” rasped the priest. “Our life will be given to us through the death of this boy. And so may it be!”
The knife rose, a pinpoint of shining light in the air. Suddenly the boy began to struggle again as his fate threatened to rush at him along with edge of the blade in all its bloody promise. The two witnesses, grunting, exerted all their power to hold him down. From within the shroud Elu heard the voice, desperate, beseeching, helpless.
“No, no, please, don’t! Grandfather, I beg you! Don’t!”
Such was the horror that filled Elu at these words that a wildness welled up from deep within, an outrage that such innocence should be destroyed, rent from his body and tossed away. With all the might she could muster she fought and tore at the invisible bond that held her to the old priest, ripped at it as though it were a physical thing. How slow each moment seemed, punctuated by the screams of that little boy, cries that only furthered her will for vengeance. And then the cord snapped, almost audibly, and she was free – with one leap she had crossed the altar, and her formless hands had grasped onto the throat of the old man.
“No,
no!” she cried, “His life will not be taken! It shall be yours!”
For a moment his eyes seemed
to look into hers and there was abrupt understanding, comprehension on his
face.
“N-no…” he began, choking, as her grip tightened, “This was not meant to happen.”
“The boy must go free,” she whispered, “He has to.”
She dipped her right hand into his chest, to the place she knew his heart would be. And even as she clutched onto it, and he died, she was wrenched apart from him, and her dream body was flowing backwards, away from the hall, over the snow, over the fields and the pastures, as though some great force were tugging her back. All in a moment she was thrust back into the confines of her physical body, with a violence that forced upon her the harshness of reality. Consciousness pricked at her, dragging her onto the raging, spinning surface of wakefulness. She spluttered and sprawled like a baby, suddenly aware of a tingling in her brain. What was it? Sound, sight, smell, touch. She was alive.
And as she scrabbled to that surface, it was as though she heard a voice, different from all the rest.
I hear you.
I see you. At last, you are
here.