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Chapter 34. Between |
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endaran Caradec.” The voice spoke to him across the void. He knew its meaning and had resisted it for as long as he was able. He opened his eyes to a dim gray landscape, a shadow world forged of obsidian and ashes. For once he was free of pain, free of the oppressive shadow of Haodrim. Curling onto his side, Pendaran resisted the urge to look at the woman standing behind him. She was from the past, her bones long since turned to dust. “Am I dead?” he asked her, already knowing the answer. The evidence was before him in the silvery glow of his translucent skin. Shriven from his body, he was pure spirit now as he lurked between the world of flesh and his home beyond the Mists. “Yes,” she sighed. “I tried to hang on. I didn’t want to die.” “I know, Beloved.” “But why are you here? I thought you crossed the Mists.” “That is true, my Love, but the gods granted that I might remain here to await your arrival. You guided me to freedom and so I am to be your guide to eternal bliss. I shall take you where there is no more pain and suffering, only joy and union. It is my final act of gratitude.” “I can’t leave them,” he protested, a deep upwelling of grief tearing his soul asunder, “I never got to say goodbye. What will happen to my wife and children? And Zhou? I can’t abandon my family and my master.” ”They will mourn for you, but it time they will get on with their lives and keep you alive in their memories. The living must go on living and leave what is dead behind.” He staggered to his feet, his ethereal body unwilling to shake the memory of being awkward flesh and blood. Misery curled up as a cry from his throat as he gazed upon the bleak domain that stretched off forever in every direction. Luitha drifted slowly to stand before him and take his hands. She was as he remembered her in their final moments, beautiful and exalted. Here, in this domain, however, she no longer had the warmth of flesh but existed as he, a silvery reflection of the physical world. “Come, my love, this is Grenth’s domain, the shadowy echo of the world you have left behind. His halls are this way. You must first go before him that he might weigh your deeds and decide your fate.” Grateful for her kind and gentle treatment, he obeyed and walked over the strange bleak terrain. Patches of snow and ice lurked in the deep shadows around juts of rock or oozed from the cracks in the weathered stone. There was a cold wind pouring over the jagged landscape and at times he thought he might hear the forlorn cries of the aggrieved and lost. His grasp of her translucent hand tightened and still they drifted past iced over pools of deep black water. The strange twilight glow of the sunless sky skipped over the sheets of hoary ice and it seemed there was movement beneath the frost. Somehow he knew he must look upon it and he halted even though Luitha tugged him gently, a mild expression of alarm upon her features. When she refused to let him go he tugged his wrist away and moved down toward the closest of the pools as she stood above him on the bank shaking her head sadly. “Pendaran, come away from there, you must move on.” Her words only intrigued him more and he knelt now upon the clouded ice, aware of movement beneath its frosted surface. He swept his hand over its icy crust and, though he had no substance, the pall of frost swept aside effortlessly until he gazed down into a blackness so complete, so depthless and empty, he feared that it might swallow him up. Still kneeling, he inched away before staring in blank wonder and confusion as the darkness resolved into the world he had left behind. All of its color and simple majesty flooded his starved and tormented senses. He watched the green lands of Kryta flow away beneath him, as if the vision came through the eyes of a swallow. “Pendaran, come, that world no longer has a place for you.” His heart raced with anticipation as land gave way to sea and an island drew into sight. Home! He wanted to see his family one last time. Was that so much to ask? The vision seemed to follow his desires now and drew closer to the ground, down through branch and leaf, past castle wall until it seemed he was walking among the busy throng of workers preparing the great hall for the needs of the living. Invisible, he stalked among them, walking through walls, hurrying now as he guided the vision toward the rooms he shared with Teleri and his children. What he saw made him ache with sadness. She was sitting in the rocking chair beside the window staring absently into space while Sabina suckled desperately at her breast. The babe was starving, but not for food. Heart broken, Sabina sought for Teleri across a chasm of grief. The warmth of love that Sabina had always known was gone now. Unable to reach Teleri, Sabina wept and struggled, calling to her in the only way she could. Haggard beyond her years, Teleri rose stiffly and carried Sabina’s whimpering form to the bassinet and abandoned the babe to cry until exhausted -- to learn the meaning of futility and powerlessness at too tender an age. “No, Teleri,” he cried, going to her side, wanting to take Sabina and hold the child, to pour his love into her until Teleri was capable of doing so again. But it was pointless. He was not truly there and his voice might have been no more than a passing breeze for all that it mattered. Teleri strode past him, abandoning the child and leaving the home they had once shared behind. “Pendaran, please, do not dwell upon the living. It is time for you to move on,” called Luitha’s gentle voice. “My daughter,” he choked, staying with her as her helpless cries went unanswered, “Someone needs to take care of my daughter.” “Come, my love, it is time to go.” “No. I will not leave her.” “Pendaran, listen to me, my love. If you cling too much to the world, you will become a ghost, you will drift in misery knowing only the suffering of the living. There is nothing you can do in that world, you are no longer of that place. Come away, my love. Seek your rightful rest and know that you will meet them again when it is their time.” He tore his gaze from the strange icy pool with its window into the living world. It shimmered and rippled as he looked away and he feared it would fade and he would lose the image of his precious child. Luitha’s face was grim and sad. She would not look upon the vision for she knew it was a trap. She stretched out a hand toward him, smooth and silvery. “Come away.” But something stirred in the depths and his head whipped around to see it. A shadow fell over the world that he knew and a tall dark figure crawled through the bedroom window and stalked toward the cradle. Pendaran found the man horrifyingly familiar, a betrayer, the one who had brought him here to die. Alone and helpless, Sabina’s hiccoughing cries escalated to that of sheer terror. The nightmare unfolded, his worst fears realized. Pendaran looked on in mute horror, knowing what would happen even before the stranger reached into the bassinet and drew his daughter wriggling and screaming into the light and flung her down at his feet like an unwanted toy. Her cries stopped abruptly. “No!” Pendaran howled, “My daughter! No, gods, no!” “Pendaran, come, it is pointless staying there. Please, my love, do not be trapped by the snares of the material world. I would not have you suffer endless heartbreak.” “I’ll kill him,” he sobbed, “Sabina. My little Sabina.”
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