Martyr (The Martyr Trilogy) (5 page)

It
was exhilarating; the cool moisture of the air against my face, the warmth of
Reya’s body as I pressed myself against her, the undulation of the creature’s
back beneath me.  For such a large animal, the ride was surprisingly smooth;
its muscular legs seemed to have remarkable shock-absorbing properties.  I was
initially uneasy, being up so high and moving so fast – faster now as the beast
had steadily picked up speed as we began to clear the larger trees.  But it
moved with such grace and care, seemingly always aware of exactly where it was
placing its feet so far below in the darkness.  Reya hummed again and the mount
increased its velocity further yet.  The sensation was that of riding a living
projectile.  I now tucked my head behind Reya’s shoulder, for fear that I would
be dislodged or perforated by the impact of some alien version of a June-bug. 
With my head so protected, I was afforded a view to the south, and I was amazed
at how fast the landscape flew past.  In the moonlight I was able to make out
the contours of valleys and mountains, forests and plains, all cast in shades
of black and blue and grey. 

I
looked down momentarily and saw the blur of rapidly covered terrain; it made my
head spin.  Suddenly my stomach tightened and I felt a sense of
weightlessness.  There was a slice of a moment when all was silent.  I thought
I saw a flash of light and then it was gone, as the soft hoof beats and gravity
returned.  I righted myself and looked over my shoulder.  Our ride had just
cleared a wide stream in a single leap; the light I had seen must have been the
reflection of the moon in its rippling surface.  I vowed not to look down
again, and then allowed myself to look at that moon.  It was high in the sky,
only slightly ahead of us, and appeared to be full.  Time had passed, maybe
twenty minutes from camp to the time we crossed the stream, and then fifteen or
twenty more at full clip.  This was truly an amazing species, with stamina to
match its size.  At last it began to slow, and we came into an area largely
devoid of vegetation.  The mount found it necessary to pick its way more carefully
among sharp, irregular outcroppings of rock, which rose and fell, but the net
effect was that of a gradual descent.  It became apparent that we were
descending one slope of a great valley, which continued to drop for maybe a
half mile before rising toward its far brim.  Casting my gaze to the north and
south, it seemed to extend to either horizon.  No water seemed to flow in this
natural trough; whatever had carved it had done its work and found a different
course, or dried up. 

Near
the bottom of the groove Reya guided our mount to the south, and I now saw that
we traversed not a dried up riverbed, but a jagged fault line.  It paced us off
to the right as we continued to ride south for another couple of miles.  There
didn’t seem to be any separation of earth, only a meeting of two plates: the
healed scar of some ancient tectonic activity.  Reya hummed one last directive
to our mount and it stopped, folded its legs underneath itself and laid its
head on the ground.  Apparently the dismounting platforms back at base were a
courtesy for these creatures rather than a necessity.  Reya informed me that it
was ok to release her waist and I flushed again as I did it, hoping the moon
wasn’t bright enough for her to notice my change in color, but knowing that it
was.  She climbed down and I followed suit.  She took my hand and led me a few
paces farther, where I could see the fault line did separate briefly, forming a
roughly circular hole about six feet in diameter.  I would have thought it a
well if not for its peculiar location.

“Here
we are.”

I
looked at Reya with raised eyebrows.  “You can’t mean that we are going down
there?”

“Not
‘we’, ‘you’.”

6

Reya
stood looking at me expectantly and offered no further advice.

“What
is this place?”

“We
call it the hollow,” she replied.  “It’s a place of understanding.”  As if that
clarified things.  If there were something I was supposed to understand here, I
had missed it.  But as I saw no reason why these people would have rescued me
at great risk to themselves only to drop me into a hole in the wilderness, I
decided not to probe further.

“Do
you have any supplies?  A rope or harness of some kind?  A flashlight,
perhaps?”

“You
won’t need it.  Trust – that you will need.”

That
was about the only thing I had to offer.  “Of course I trust you,” I said. 
“But what do I do?”

“Just
step into the opening.  You won’t be harmed.  And then wait.  And listen.”  I
looked briefly to her mount, which cocked its enormous head to one side and
snorted as if to say, “What part of this is difficult for you?”  And then I
approached the edge of the hole.  I expected something – a musty smell wafting
from below, a sound as the dust from the edge struck a distant bottom, I don’t
know just what – but it was just a hole, black and entirely mysterious.  I
wanted to look back over my shoulder, but knew Reya, and possibly the animal,
would just nod encouragement.  So I stepped out into the middle of the hole.

I
fell quickly at first, but soon felt as though my descent were slowing.  I wondered
briefly how I could determine this in the absence of sight, then realized that
I could, in fact, vaguely make out the walls of the column through which I
passed.  And they became clearer the deeper I went, softly illuminated in a bluish
haze.  I could see that I dropped through a roughly cylindrical passageway,
varying little in diameter as I descended.  After only a few seconds of this
sort of motion, the cylinder suddenly exploded into a vast, open chamber. 
Simultaneously, I was bathed in blue light.  I had to blink against it after
the recent period of light deprivation.  As my eyes adjusted, I saw that I was
suspended in the center of a massive, round chamber of stone.  The walls of the
chamber glowed with a blue luminescence that seemed to pulse rhythmically.  It
was not clear what force held me in mid-air, but the sensation was like that of
floating in a viscous liquid, and the air had a touch of warm moisture to it
that was not unpleasant.  It was oddly familiar, and then I placed it: my dream.
 The amniotic stream that had raised me to the surface; here it had slowed my
descent and now held me aloft.  And then another piece fell into place.  The
chamber that now surrounded me was a sphere.  My memory gradually inverted
itself and became superimposed upon my present reality.  The tree of my
vision!  It was the trunk I had fallen through and now I lay in the midst of
that lunar sphere of branches I had seen by the shore of the stream.  This
place was like a negative image of the tree I had seen.  Or was it the mold
from which such a tree was cast?  Was the stream of the vision then the
fault-line?  Perhaps it was best not to try to find analogues to every detail
of my vision.  But it could hardly be denied that my present circumstances were
foreshadowed.

I
expected Reya to call down to me, to ask if I had landed safely.  The call
never came, and I understood why.  She had been down here herself.  Maybe every
member of her band had at one time.  She knew there was no need for fear in
this place.  I considered calling up to her.  But I decided to heed her advice
and wait.  And listen.  For what?

“Justin
Mayer.”  The voice from my dream, a soft vibration like distant thunder, but
clearly understood.  “I know you.”  The voice seemed to resonate from the walls
of the chamber in every direction.  It was impossible to identify a source.

“Do
I know you?” I ventured.  The question sounded foolish in my own ears.  It was
greeted by kind-hearted laughter of the same rumbling tenor.  I hastily mouthed
a follow-up question that sounded only slightly less obtuse: “Do you have a
name?”

“As
many as there are points on a sphere.  But you may call me Chaer-Ul.”  I noted
that the blue light continued to pulse rhythmically, but slightly brighter
while the voice was speaking. 

“Chaer-Ul…” 
I repeated the name, wondering if the voice would give meaning to the sound. 
When there was no response, I decided to try a more direct approach, one that I
hoped would shed some light on the many questions assailing my mind.  “Do you
know why I am here?”

“Yes.”

“Why
am I here?”  I wanted to shout the question, but restrained myself out of
respect for the force that presently prevented me from plummeting the rest of
the way to the chamber floor.

“Because
I chose.” 

Was
I asking the wrong questions?  Or was this entity being intentionally cryptic? 
I took a different tack.  “Why am I being called ‘Martyr’?”

“There
was another who bore this name.”

“Tal-Makai,”
I said.  This elicited no response.  I took this to mean that I was not
entirely off-track.

“You
are not Martyr.  But you must become.”

I
felt a sudden surge of resentment at being shoved into a role I never asked to
play.  “Become….‘Martyr’?  What do you mean?  If this Tal-Makai gave his life
heroically, I’m sure he had a good reason.  But I’m not anxious to do the
same!”

Silence…

Infuriated
more by this, I continued to press my point.  “These seem like good people, but
I don’t want to die for their cause…I’m not even sure what their cause is!”

Silence…

“As
you have pointed out, I’m not who they think I am.  I don’t even belong here! 
Don’t I get a choice?!!?”  These last words were tinged with the bitterness I
was feeling at being dealt such an unfair hand.  This time there was again
silence, but only for a moment.  Then I felt as if my head were cleft by a
blade of pure sound – a shriek of such pitch and intensity that my vision was
momentarily blurred.  When I was again able to focus, the blue light emanating
from the walls grew abruptly brighter, whiter.  The sound became a deafening
roar, and amidst a shower of sand from the passage above the light flashed
blindingly bright for but a second, then all was dark and silent.  I felt
nothing.

Slowly
I became aware of a profound stiffness in my neck.  I attempted to reposition
my head to alleviate the discomfort, but something prevented me.  I also began
to feel as though my entire body were being jostled about.  Presently I pried
my eyelids open and glimpsed once again a moving landscape.  I was riding
behind Reya.  The stiffness was a function of my having been strapped to her
back in the upright position, head turned to one side.  Feeling my respirations
grow suddenly deeper against her body, Reya addressed me.  “What happened down
there?”

“I
think I may have angered your god.”

“Oh,
you think?” she said.  “I told you to listen.”

“I
did!  I mean, at first.  But he was being incredibly vague, and I have so many
very specific questions.  Don’t I have the right to know why I am here, and
what is being asked of me?”

“You’re
right,” she said.  “You do, of course.  All of this happened so fast, we are
all still trying to figure out how to react to your presence here.  And this is
so hard for me, especially.  Don’t you realize…no, of course you don’t. 
Ta…Justin.  It’s painful for me to even look at you…I…  I’m sorry, I really
am.  You can’t be expected to understand.  But it’s also not fair to deprive
you of knowledge this way.” She began to bring her mount to a slow trot.  “So
at the risk of my own emotional well-being…”  With a flick of both her wrists,
the creature assumed the dismounting stance once again.  “I think it’s time for
a little history lesson.”  She muttered something to the animal then.  It
sounded something like, “Muur-puurrha”, but it came from deep in Reya’s
throat. 

At
first I only heard a sort of hum, like the sound heard while walking under
high-voltage power lines.  Then I thought I saw little sparkling lights before
my eyes.  No, not before my eyes precisely, but between the many prongs of our
mount’s antlers.  Thousands of tiny sparks, and a crackling sound joined the
hum.  Then, it seemed as though the air between us and the animal began to
shimmer and take on a different aspect.  A sphere roughly two meters in
diameter hovered in the air before us, essentially green with forms moving
within.  Suddenly I had a nauseous feeling, of a rapid change in perspective as
if accelerating toward that sphere.  It grew to envelop me, and then there was
no more Reya or beast, only the emerald of a dew-sprinkled hillside. 

From
uphill to my left, dozens of men and women rushed down the slope.  They were
dressed much like the people of Reya’s camp, in soiled and well-worn clothes
and scraps of makeshift armor.  They carried melee weapons of equally mundane
origin: garden rakes, pruning shears, sharpened handles of push-brooms and
mops…I even thought I saw a hockey stick in one pair of hands.  I directed my
view downward and to my right, and saw that they advanced upon a mass of
figures that held their position at the base of the hill.  These others were
noticeably better equipped, wearing uniform, darkly-colored outfits with only a
splash of crimson at the left shoulder.  They all brandished the same sort of
bladed staffs.  At a shouted command from somewhere unseen, these soldiers
assumed a series of neat rows and positioned their weapons to meet the
onrushing horde.

For
a series of breathless moments, the troops to my left appeared to be frozen in
the instant before the inevitable clash with the army below.  Then motion and
volume returned in force; the shouts of individual combatants pierced by the
spine-shattering screech of steel-on-steel, the sickly-hollow thud of blunted
tool against poorly-protected skull.  Wave after wave of hapless and
ill-prepared troops flung themselves down the hillside, and most of them met a
speedy end at the tips of the enemy’s weapons.  Occasionally someone would
breach the enemy line for a moment, and the thick line of dark soldiers would
realign itself, new members pouring into the gaps.  The effect was like a
great, thick, dark serpent healing itself after each insult, repositioning
scales to cover areas of exposed flesh.  Or like rows of shark’s teeth, new
ones quickly pushed forward to replace those lost or damaged. 

I
heard a shout from high above to my left, and squinted in the brilliant
sunlight to see the form of a great white steed and its rider high on the
hilltop.  The valkyrie that issued the shout was Reya, and at a command she was
flanked on either side by two neat rows of archers.  I saw them raise their
bows in unison to point at the first row of enemy troops.  Then as I watched
they raised their weapons slightly and froze.  At a second command from Reya
they unleashed their missiles as one.  The projectiles flew not at the enemy’s
front line, but at a point just beyond the last row of soldiers.  As each one
landed, a small explosion could be seen, followed a micro-second later by its
sound.  The enemy troops, more heavily armored for a frontal attack, were
caught off-guard.  Here and there the perfect lines of their formation were
disrupted, and the efforts to restore order seemed a bit less organized than
before.  Some were injured; a few fell.  Reya’s troops, encouraged by this
small victory, pushed with renewed vigor down the slope.  The shouts grew
louder, weapons and heads held higher. 

A
warm breeze swept over the hillside, rustling the grass and carrying the smoke
from the explosions away.  As the haze cleared I saw a stirring on the crest of
the next bluff, beyond the enemy.  Reya’s people saw it too.  A second wave of
enemy troops.  Then a third.  They filed in behind their comrades at the base
of the hill.  The dark serpent was now a veritable sea of black, a great dragon
in constant, subtle motion, ever poised to strike.  The effect of this newly
tripled threat was immediately evident among Reya’s troops.  Their descent
slowed; the battle cries were choked off in their throats; a few warriors
actually stumbled.  Reya’s army was outnumbered to begin with; now the
situation had become entirely hopeless.  I tried to see how Reya would react to
this, and I saw her glance quickly over her shoulder and back, a nervous sort
of motion that seemed somehow out of character for her.  Reya issued a command
for her army to regroup, but even as her voice reached the front lines a change
was taking place on the enemy side.