25. ELOWAN
Rule number one when it comes to the Resting Ruins: Do not go through the Resting Ruins.
Rule number two: See rule one.
Like Zala had plainly stated in Keeci’s apartment, it was a suicide mission for them. Despite this, it was key to adding potential allies to the rebellion, so it was a necessary risk they were willing to take.
Elowan and Zala aimed for the edge of a cliff along Mor’s Gorge as dawn broke. Thick brush lined the entire cliff edge, painting the dust-covered rocks in a rich orange. There was no life here surrounding the Resting Ruins save for the hearty plants that could endure a thousand droughts.
They had officially landed in the Western Wastes – dry and dead land spanning to the horizon in every single direction. It was a place where many things came to die or waste away as punishment.
Elowan and Zala unbuckled themselves from their glider. Together, they collapsed the glider, neatly folding the glass frame. Tucking it behind a bush, Elowan’s hands glowed faintly as she twisted them, camouflaging the glider with a quick masking spell. They’d leave the glider here, just in case.
If Elowan’s map was correct, the Resting Ruins would be just a hundred metre’s walk from where they stood. “Let’s get this over and done with,” Elowan sighed.
Zala nodded and made to move.
They strode in silence.
There it was.
The markings of where the Resting Ruins began.
Ahead, only a metre in front of them, black sand replaced the rich orange they’d landed on. Pillars of black stone stretched out in every direction as far as the Fae eye could see. It looked lifeless. Still.
There was no clear path through the Resting Ruins. It was a maze made long ago when Faery was in its infancy. The oracles, powerful beings of mana that could see deep into the past, present and future, had created this place for the troubled souls that endlessly roamed Faery. This was the place where stray souls got lost.
As if on cue, a soft whispering started, coating Elowan’s skin in goosebumps. “You hear that too?” Elowan asked.
“Yep.” Zala pulled her lips into a thin line of worry – a rarity for the wraith to even show an ounce of emotion.
“Then may the gods guide us.”
“To where we’re destined to be.”
Using her short spear, Elowan sliced the bottom of her black shirt, creating two blindfolds. In unison, Elowan and Zala tied the makeshift blindfolds around their eyes and over their ears. A cautionary tale spun into an old nursery rhyme was their only saving grace today. It had been passed down through generations of families for centuries.
Resting Ruins oh souls with fear
How many years will we spend here?
Take our ears, take our sight
Perhaps that will give us might
To walk in limbo, past the screams of despair
None of them just or treated fair
Pray with light that our fates do not take flight
And lose their way through the maze in spite
The rhyme was vague at best and disconcerting at worst. The solution was simple enough, but it was no guarantee. They needed to cover their ears to mask the screams and pleas of the souls that were trying to claw their way out. They needed to cover their eyes so that the souls didn’t trick them and guide them into a dead end. And they needed to pray like hell that the Fates didn’t intend their final resting place to be the Resting Ruins.
Hand in hand – a physical grounding and link to one another – Elowan and Zala stepped foot onto the black sands of the Resting Ruins.
Immediately, the air grew still and stale.
The temperature plunged and along her skin Elowan could feel fog and mist wrapping itself around her. She squeezed Zala’s hand and Zala squeezed back, calming her rapidly beating heart.
Silence. The whispers they heard along the border of the ruins had ceased.
And so, they walked.
Elowan would lead until her mana grew weary of navigating the unknown, then Zala would take over. Together, their manas would lead them to the end of the maze. How far away that would be, she had no idea.
They walked a few metres, feeling the sand crunch beneath their boots as they weaved through the black stone pillars. Elowan’s mana guided them to a left turn but quickly coiled back from something. Elowan stopped moving instantly. It took every shred of willpower to not pull away her blindfold and look at what had caused her mana to recoil. She was smarter than that.
Zala squeezed her right hand.
Then a cold hand squeezed her left.
Elowan let out a scream, yanking her hand away from the soul that dared touch her.
“Z take over,” Elowan urged.
“Roger.”
Zala pulled Elowan closer to her and they weaved through the pillars with haste. The twists and turns Zala made started to make Elowan dizzy. That’s when the begging started.
“Please take us with you!” a young female voice shouted from the left.
“GOTCHA!” a deep, croaky male voice laughed.
She could feel cold hands playing with the ends of her blindfold and hair. Elowan readjusted her blindfold so that it covered her ears better. Her heart worked itself up into a panic.
“We need to move faster. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand this,” Zala shouted above the souls that had made it their goal to throw them off their path. So they picked up some speed, now weaving through the pillars at a steady jogging pace.
“Fuck. E, take over,” Zala panted. Her mana must have coiled back from something.
It was unsettling how the ruins had a way of freezing and frightening their mana.
“On it,” Elowan said, pulling Zala just behind her as they ran hand in hand. Elowan’s mana had barely recovered, but it was enough.
“Take us with you!” shouted from the right.
“At least have the decency to look at us as you condemn us here!” shouted from the left.
Voices echoed and rolled into a cacophonous symphony of sound. Until thunder boomed right above them. The rain poured in tiny little pellets that pinched their skin as they whisked through the pillars.
Then the voices disappeared.
All but one.
“Where are you going?” a soft, female voice asked.
Elowan knew that voice. The first voice she ever heard. A voice that soothed her through all her aches and pains. A voice that stopped her dead in her tracks.
It was her mother’s.
Hot tears started in the back of Elowan’s eyes.
“Ellie, don’t listen to it,” Zala pleaded from behind.
Elowan remained quiet, her throat angry and her heart torn.
“Aren’t you going to look at your mother?” the soul said.
“Ellie, don’t,” Zala warned.
Old Elowan would have torn the blindfold right off her face and embraced her mother in whatever celestial form she was in. But Elowan was born anew. The moment a drop of Veritas met her lips, she was faced with her truth. She could see clearly. The broken heart that she wore on her sleeve, had finally healed.
“You’re not my mother. My mother is dead,” Elowan said to the left where the soul spoke. Elowan felt a cool caress on the back of her neck.
This is not good.
Elowan ran.
Wherever her mana took her, she didn’t care. They needed to get out of this blasted place, stat.
“Run, you little bitch,” her mother’s voice whispered into her ear.
Maniacal cackling followed Elowan like a shark in the water with its prey. It stung, but only for a moment. Elowan swatted the voice away as she ran. Blind. They needed out.
Zala’s grip grew tighter, panicked. She was being pulled away. “Ellie! Don’t let go!” Zala shouted.
Souls took a hold of Elowan’s ankles, and they too began to pull. Elowan fell to the ground, panicking as her hand ripped free from Zala’s. Elowan could hear Zala’s grunts of pain and struggle.
She’d hit the ground too.
“Z! Z! Fuck!” The absence of Zala’s warmth in this hellish nightmare was debilitating.
“Ellie!” Zala’s voice disappeared into the fray.
“NO!” Elowan bellowed, engulfing her entire body with raging flames. Droplets of rain pelted from the storm brewing above her. Water sizzled and hissed before it even touched her skin. The souls shrunk back in fear. Elowan could hear their hushed whispers moving farther away from her.
It dawned on her that she had to run the rest of the ruins alone. It was what she and Zala agreed to on their flight from Seaspun Bay. If they were separated in the ruins, they would do everything in their power to get to the other side, even if it meant leaving the other person behind. This was a war they were waging, and sacrifices needed to be made. It would be better that one of them made it, than neither.
Elowan gripped Camrine’s short spear and took in a deep breath. If running was the only way to escape the Resting Ruins, then she would leave a burning trail through it.
It felt like Elowan had been running for miles. She probably had. The only string of hope that managed to deafen the screams and pleas of the souls she ran past or collided into was the thought of seeing Zala on the other side.
The grit and grime of the black sand eased, growing finer and finer until the air came to life again. The rain ceased and alas the harsh sun of the Western Wastes blessed her skin. Elowan slowed down and fell to her knees.
Never in her life did she imagine crying at the feel of dead brush beneath her knees and the feeling of cool, fine sand between her fingers. Gone was the smell of death and its place was an earthy fragrance.
Elowan pulled off the blindfold with relief and braced herself for the brightness of the Faery sun. It was high in the sky. Midday. She had spent six hours running. Her knees were shot, and her shins felt like she’d smashed them against the edges of rocks. With numb hands, Elowan pulled the skin of water she had not dared drink from, from the waist of her belt and drank deeply. Water spilled everywhere and it felt like a divine blessing upon her face.
Putting the skin of water away, Elowan pushed herself up from the ground. Her body begged her not to, but her heart and her mind pulled her off the floor in search for Zala.
Elowan turned back to face the Resting Ruins. It sat still, undisturbed and unassuming. It turned out that Hell was a place on Faery, and it was here in the Resting Ruins.
Elowan waited, surveying the border of black sand for any disturbances.
Come on, Zala, come on.
Nothing.
The sound of shifting sand grew louder just ahead of her. Elowan ran toward it. It had to be Zala. It had to. At first it was just her hand, then her whole body came tumbling through the fa?ade that encased the entire Resting Ruins.
Elowan opened her arms, ready to catch the wraith.
With a harrumph, Zala collapsed into Elowan’s arms, her laboured breathing an absolute blessing to Elowan’s ears.
Elowan quickly stripped her friend of her blindfold and unfastened Zala’s skin of water. She helped the wraith drink.
“You made it. Z, it’s Ellie. We made it,” Elowan repeated.
Zala came to after a few more measured breaths and leaned back on an elbow. The wraith took the skin of water from Elowan’s hands and drank deeply. “Let’s never do that again,” Zala breathed.
“Agreed, Z. Agreed,” Elowan said, laughing. They sat there in silence for a little while longer, recouping whatever shred of energy was left. Above them flew a bird. No, a large raven, bigger than Elowan had ever seen before. It circled above them for a moment before spiralling down, landing a few paces away from their feet. “Shoo,” Elowan waved the bird away.
At the words, the bird exploded into a plume of black smoke. In its billowing wake, a hooded and hunched figure appeared.
Elowan and Zala pounced from the ground, drawing their weapons.
“That won’t be needed,” a scratchy, old feminine voice drawled. The hooded figure lifted an obsidian-coloured hand to its hood. Long black nails like knives tipped each finger, dragging back the hood with the stillness of a being centuries old.
Elowan held her breath, a hand poised to release her short spear at any moment.
Underneath the hood was the wrinkled face of an oracle. A species deemed extinct only a few years ago. The oracle’s piercing green-filled eyes smiled in delight as it registered the surprise undoubtedly written across both Elowan’s and Zala’s faces. The oracle stretched out a hand, pointing to the dead land behind them.
Elowan turned. Gone was the wide expanse of dead brush and nothingness. Peppered throughout the dry land were tents of all shapes and sizes. Beings and animals milled about. Smoke billowed. Vegetation grew all around. Life had suddenly sprouted in a dead valley right before their eyes.
“Welcome to the Untold Valley,” the feminine voice croaked.