The Medievals 1, page 18
part #1 of The Medievals Series
The young Truscan nods without delay, but the words do not come as quickly.
After a moment, Skipwillow describes what he saw a fortnight ago in the woods: “He did not have a face. Where a face should be, there was a shield of iron. A red light in his eye. And the black birds… they were everywhere.”
“Waldron,” the King utters gravely, fear in his ancient voice.
“Waldron?” Richard repeats, the infective fear from King Lemlee’s voice reaching Richard’s own. “That is the name the Caemon spoke. It must be the girl we seek. But where do we find this Waldron? Who is he?”
“He is evil in corporeal form. Where there is light, he wishes it dark. And if he convinces the girl to tell him the resting place of Merlin’s staff…” The King is unable to finish his dark prediction. “You must go now. And you must hurry. Find the Descendant.”
“But where?”
“Those black birds of which young Skipwillow speaks -- they are darklings, serving as Waldron’s scouts. They have nests in the Cloudlands, near the Island of Forgotten Souls. I imagine such a place would be a suitable dwelling for Waldron.”
The Island of Forgotten Souls. The name scratches at the base of Richard’s spine. He can hardly imagine what such a place would look like.
“Prince Richard, you and the others must go. And now. Travel to the edge of the Eternal Forest and then through the Cloudlands beyond, until you find the Bridge of Bones. This will lead you to the island,” he instructs.
“Then we are free to leave?” Richard asks.
“You must find the Descendant,” King Lemlee says with a nod, and the Truscan guard immediately removes the tendril bindings from his wrists.
“When I return to my father, I will tell him of your benevolence. Thank you, King Lemlee,” Richard says graciously.
But King Lemlee’s solemn parting words leave Richard wondering if he will ever see his father again: “Prince Richard, if you do find Waldron, I doubt you will thank me.”
{Wendolyn}
In this dark cell, time is an unseen candle with a flame that grows ever slowly. In the days and weeks (or has it been months?) that she has been trapped behind these walls, light seems to have entered from an unknown source, allowing Wendolyn’s eyes to adjust to the once inky darkness.
Instead of a starless, moonless midnight that holds tightly around her, she is now reminded of the loose crepuscular light of the Cumbrian mountains that showed her the distant trees in silhouette in the hours just after supper.
And where before she could only make out the faint impressions of her fingers swimming in the dark pools of air, she can now see the scabs on her knuckles, nearly healed in full.
Wendolyn is lying prostrate on the floor of the cell, life working its way back into her bones after time spent in the Memory Chamber, Waldron’s touch having left her in a state of paralysis. She regained consciousness only moments ago, and much of her body is still numb.
In the Memory Chamber, Waldron takes care in leading Wendolyn just to the edge of certain expiry, and no further. Usually, this ends with Wendolyn surrendering to an insentient state, and only regaining consciousness sometime later on the floor of the dark cell.
Here, as consciousness slowly uncloaks itself, Wendolyn’s memories float among the shadows like ghosts of an impossible life she will never know again. It is only when her body and mind are rested, when she trusts her thoughts again, that Waldron continues his search through her memories.
In the cell now, she is holding her fingers above her face, wiggling them until she regains the feeling in her fingertips, the rough skin around her nails dried and splintered. This is her routine each time her mind swims back to the surface. It is as if she is learning to use every piece and part of herself anew, like she is being born into this uninviting world endlessly and again.
She begins with her eyes, blinking them until they find moisture and her vision clears.
Then, her fingers.
Her toes.
Her arms and legs.
Until, finally, she can sit up.
As Wendolyn wiggles her fingers, she stares beyond them into the naked middle space for which her eyes have adjusted. Limpid blues and purples hovering.
And then beyond that, there is a thick cloth of darkness that cannot be pierced. It hangs there, hiding the true height of the cell. For all Wendolyn knows, this room is without a ceiling, and the unseen space beyond the darkness is infinite.
As Wendolyn lies there, she allows her mind to play upon the endless, brooding canvas above. She imagines a star in the darkness. Like a pinhole poked into a heavy fabric, light laboring to get through.
She imagines another star, positioning it next to the first.
And then another.
Three imaginary stars glowing.
Wendolyn adds four more stars to her pretend night sky. And as they hang together, she recognizes the seven stars of the Northern Basket. Her nocturnal compass. The thing that could lead her home, if only she had a home to return to.
Wendolyn continues to puncture the darkness above her with imaginary stars until she has created a firmament of constellations that exists only for her, warming her spirit with their woolly glow.
Suddenly, she is no longer in the cell, but back in Cumbria, stargazing from the roof of the cottage. Familiar sounds and smells and touches greet her. That feeling of the thatched roof against her back, her feet hanging off the roofline. The undying smell of dead fish that found its way into the bones of the house, and became, impossibly, a comforting scent. The sound of Thorne’s disembodied voice instructing her on the names of the stars, or Zongshi’s tired nicker from the backside of the cottage.
For Wendolyn, the night sky has always been an invitation to a warm endlessness.
A conversation with eternity.
The sky holds a vastness that spills out beyond the limits of her dreams. And it is a place that she wishes to travel were it possible. A place where she might feel as though she belongs.
The stars call to her with their otherworldly light, and they show her their patterns that create secret meanings she does not yet understand. Sometimes, when she has stared long enough at them, Wendolyn half-expects the stars to find their voices and begin speaking.
And she often wonders, if she could translate the language of the stars, what would they tell her? Would they recount the entire history of the Realm, which they have witnessed from their pinholes in the sky? Would they reveal to her the secret about who she is? Would they tell Wendolyn who her real parents were? Or if, perhaps, by chance, they are still alive?
Wendolyn sighs, and the question of her parents pulls her mind back into the cell. Her imagination surrenders to reality, and the clusters of stars dissipate, leaving her back in a place where her past, her present, and her future are all more unknown than known, reflecting the unpierceable darkness above her.
With the imagined celestial bodies having vanished, a melancholy creeps back in to fill the empty space as Wendolyn wonders: Will I ever see real stars again?
Then, as if growing out of the darkness, the spider drops down from above, suspended on a thread. This is her new and only companion in this world.
For an uncountable number of days -- because the contrast of day and night has been defeated by this cell -- Wendolyn has been visited frequently by the spider. The many-eyed, many-legged creature regularly slips down out of the shadows, kindly interrupting the saturnine discussions between Wendolyn’s mind and the poisonous solitude. And in that time, Wendolyn has convinced herself that this spider is a friend. It is the first companion she has had since she was kidnapped, and she appreciates the spider’s presence.
When it is near, the oversized spider makes a subtle purring sound, a comforting serenade that fills the otherwise soundless space. And just having a second heartbeat in the cell helps to slow the decay of her soul. It helps her to say, I can keep going for just a little longer.
The spider stops just above Wendolyn’s face and Wendolyn finds a smile for her confidante.
“Hello, Hope,” Wendolyn says, her voice climbing out of the silence to greet the spider with the name she has given to it.
Wendolyn holds out her hand, and Hope drops onto it, filling her palm. The spider uses the two small leglike appendages near its mouth to rub the inner surface of Wendolyn’s hand. This is Hope’s way of greeting her. At least, that is how Wendolyn has chosen to interpret the intimate gesture, which has become a part of their routine.
Wendolyn has taken to speaking to the spider. And, as impossible as it still seems to Wendolyn, Hope appears to make meaning out of what Wendolyn says. It reminds her there is an unexplainable connection that Wendolyn shares with animals and other creatures, an empathy that sometimes succeeds where the bonds between her and her fellow humans fail.
Of course, the spider does not respond when Wendolyn speaks. But Wendolyn senses that unspoken understanding between them. At the same time, she has learned to appreciate the movements and rhythms of a one-sided conversation thanks to Thorne, who had a reluctant relationship with words.
Wendolyn sits up, leaning her back against the wall, and Hope moves from the palm of her hand into Wendolyn’s lap. There, the spider tucks its legs beneath itself and then seems to nestle into Wendolyn.
“Where did you come from, Hope?” Wendolyn asks the spider, wondering how their fates have been joined. “Did the stars bring you to this cell?”
Hope looks up at her and, as if answering Wendolyn’s question, the spider’s many eyes glow with a green light that pushes softly against the darkness. In this absence of light, where there is nothing to reflect, the source of the faint green glow must be coming from within the spider, Wendolyn thinks.
She has never seen the eyes of a spider glow, and it reminds Wendolyn of the glowing flower in the bell-shaped jar that Thorne kept locked in the cabinet. The jar he shattered so that the glowing petals could escape beyond the reach of that cruel night. “It was a signal. For help,” Thorne said.
Could this spider possibly be the help that Thorne spoke of?
◆◆◆
Since Hope appeared, Wendolyn has been planning her escape, her way out of this perdition.
She knows that the key to the lock on the metal door rests on a hook just outside her cell. And if Hope can crawl through the space between the floor and the bottom edge of the cell door, the spider could retrieve the key for Wendolyn, and she could be free.
It is the plan of a person not in their right mind, Wendolyn knows. The idea of instructing a spider to fetch a key sounds as impossible as commanding the wind.
Perhaps the twin torments of Waldron’s touch and endless isolation have taken a toll on the soundness of her thinking. Or perhaps this unassailable darkness has begot a disease in her mind. Either way, Wendolyn needs to believe escape is possible. Otherwise, her spirit will soon be devoured by the gnashing teeth of her own despair.
To that end, she has been preparing for such an escape. She has been noting the timing of when the saurians bring her gruel, sliding a tin bowl beneath the door; or when they trade out the pail Wendolyn is provided for urination and defecation.
She is mostly left alone, like an abandoned sack of dirt, so there is a wide space of time between the two visits. And Wendolyn thinks that if she gets the key just after they leave her gruel, she will allow herself the most time to escape.
The greater challenge for Wendolyn will come once she is free of the cell and must then navigate the dark passages to find her way to the outside world. As the saurians have escorted her to the Memory Chamber, she has been mapping out the corridors and stairwells as best she can. But beyond the darkened walk to the Memory Chamber, she knows not what awaits her. She knows not if she is in an underground lair, or the highest level of a citadel. Is this a cave? Does she go up? Or down? If Wendolyn breaks free of this cell and makes it to the stairwell at the end of the corridor, her intuition must lead her from there.
And Wendolyn knows that if she can get the key, she will have only one chance to escape. If she is caught, this cell becomes an unceremonious boneyard.
◆◆◆
Wendolyn hears the saurian coming down the corridor to deliver the gruel, its heavy breathing accompanied by low, inarticulate sounds. The tin bowl scrapes against the stone floor as the half-human creature slides it beneath the bottom of the cell door with a grunt.
She continues to wonder why Waldron tolerates the company of the saurians, and his earlier explanation is not enough for her. These are the very creatures whose ancestors murdered Waldron’s father before his eyes, a bloody scene that now haunts Wendolyn’s own memory.
Wendolyn knows that the heart and the mind do not heal from such horrors. And given the chance, she would take Waldron’s life as vengeance for Thorne. She wonders what pact Waldron and the saurians have entered into that would spare the saurians lives from the same. Perhaps, Wendolyn thinks, Waldron has a larger, unspoken purpose for the two saurians.
Wendolyn listens as the saurian trundles back down the corridor, its steps becoming quieter as it gets further away, until the footfalls disappear altogether.
“It is time,” Wendolyn says aloud, looking down at the spider in her lap. “Hope, I need you to retrieve the key. Can you do that for me?”
The spider looks up at her, its eyes glowing green with affirmation.
Hope obediently crawls from Wendolyn’s lap, and then crosses the ground to the door, where it slips beneath the metal barrier and disappears.
Wendolyn’s heart lifts ever slightly as escape seems close. And her mind fills with images and sounds of the outside world that have been all but blotted out by an inky hopelessness: the evening sun hanging low in the sky; the flap of a trout caught in the net as it fights for life on the shore of the lake; a gentle wind begging a leaf off an alder tree.
Tink-tink. The sound of the key jingling on the chain. The spider has the key!
Wendolyn can hear the key scraping across the floor of the corridor. Hope is getting closer.
And closer.
Until...
SKREEEEEEEEEEEE!
The disincarnate shriek suddenly punctures Wendolyn’s airy anticipation, her skin tightening against her bones.
The soul-piercing sound dissipates quickly. And Wendolyn is left with only a grim silence. She presses her ear up to the pitiless gap in the cell door, listening for signs of Hope.
Nothing.
Wendolyn is forced to wonder whether the howling being somehow killed the spider.
“No!” Wendolyn panics aloud. Then, pulling back on her voice, not wanting to alert the saurians, she whisper-yells: “Hope, are you still there?”
But there is no response. No sound at all.
“Hope!”
Still nothing.
She feels her heart loosen, then sink slowly through her rib cage. The image of the spider, dead in the corridor -- or worse, eaten by whatever being shrieked past -- flashes against the inside of her eyelids. Wendolyn has come to care for the spider, as strange as it seems. It is her only friend in the world.
And, without the spider, without the key, she cannot escape.
Tink-tink. The sound of the key!
And now she sees Hope’s legs backing into the cell, the bottom lip of the door revealing the metal key being dragged by the spider.
“Hope! You did it!” Wendolyn celebrates as she pats the spider on the head.
Then, she picks up the key and she inserts it into the two-sided lock. But as she tries to turn the key, the lock resists. Again she tries, and again she fails.
However, by the feel of it, the marriage between lock and key is sound. Only, Wendolyn does not have the strength to turn the key. Her body must have weakened during her time in this cell, the gruel not enough to sustain her. For the first time, Wendolyn notices that her wrists ache when she turns them.
Wendolyn closes her eyes, focusing as she tries to source all of the remaining strength in her body -- as far down as her toes -- and then bring it all to her hands. She breathes in as much air as she can, conveying that to her hands as well.
Then, Wendolyn wrenches the key with all she can muster and -- CLICK -- the lock surrenders.
She pushes her shoulder against the door, and it creaks open. She stands there, still for a moment, just staring at the door that yawns with opportunity, her chance to return to a place where time exists.
A bright vein of freedom pulses through her body. The hairs on her arms and legs and the back of her neck all react in unison.
Here we go.
Wendolyn bends down to pick up Hope. “You are coming with me, friend.”
The spider’s eyes glow green and Wendolyn places Hope on her shoulder, its seat for the journey. Then, Wendolyn takes a deep breath and moves out into the unlit hallway.
She goes left, the way to the Memory Chamber. She pads down the familiar corridor with haste, refusing to look back, a tandem of wish and fear powering her withered legs.
She reaches the end of the corridor, and there is the stairwell. But now she must make a choice: does she go up or down? Wendolyn thinks a moment, not knowing how to make the right decision. Either way could lead her to an exit, or a dead end. And either way could lead her back into the clutches of Waldron. How is she to know?
Then, the faintest breath of cold air kisses her cheek. Like a draught that has entered in through a window or a door.
Wendolyn thinks a moment. Then, she steps forward to the landing of the descending staircase. The draught is gone. But as she steps to the landing of the staircase that climbs upward, the subtle draught returns. The cold air’s entry will be her escape!
Wendolyn ascends the darkened staircase that screws its way upward. Using her hands against the stone walls, her arms assist her tired legs. On her shoulder, she feels the legs of Hope, tightening into her skin as the spider tries to hold on. Or, perhaps, encouraging Wendolyn onward.
She circles once, then twice, before a cool light grows in the air. She circles the winding stairs once more, the light spreading before her, and then she reaches the landing to another floor, the staircase meeting its end.
