The Dark

CHAPTER Seventeen



Arkarian


The temple is a pyramid-shaped structure, with an enormous base, the centre point reaching far into the darkness and the disappearing sky beyond. It is, so Sera informs me as we enter through an open doorway, made entirely of crystal, glass bricks and marble sheets. The glass is apparently constructed from elements able to withstand freezing temperatures and incredible heat. Inside, the walls are shaped in a design that forms a perfect octagon, a design that can also be found in a room within the Citadel. A smaller, inner octagon forms the base for this high slanted roof. Each panel of this roof is a myriad of etched, coloured patterns. Not that I can see all the way to the top. There’s only the light coming from a single fireplace built into one distant wall, which hasn’t a chance of heating this entire building. But somehow the cold takes second place in here. There’s another more dominant sensation – more a feeling really. Of solace. It helps me control my pain.

I make my way to the fireplace, and it’s obvious the temple hasn’t been used for a long time, centuries or maybe even millennia. It has the look and sound of hollowness. Dust lies thickly on the sparse furniture – a chair, a footstool, a bed, a simple stone bench, a table and a rug before the fire.

Sera leads me to the chair near the fire, where I sit gratefully. She says she will bring me a drink of water, but first helps me remove the cloak. Taking the cloak she looks at it with a frown, then buries her face in it. ‘It smells of Bastian.’

‘That’s right. He was wearing it. Tell me, Sera, how do you know him?’

‘He visits me sometimes.’ Her face scrunches up with a frown and a smile at the same time. ‘He confuses me.’

‘I think perhaps Bastian confuses himself.’

‘He brought me here after a long time of wandering through Marduke’s gardens. They were so beautiful I could have lived amongst those fragrant petals for ever.’ She sighs like someone who misses something she once loved, then shrugs her slender shoulders. ‘I don’t know why Bastian dragged me from them. They’re here, you know. On the other side of this island. But Bastian won’t let me go there any more.’

She leaves me with these bizarre thoughts of Marduke having a garden, a beautiful one at that, to fetch me a cup of water. In all his years in the Guard, I never knew of Marduke’s love of flowers, though he did appreciate beauty in those days. It was his love of a beautiful woman that played a large part in his turning traitor in the end.

Sera soon returns with the cup of water. I sip it slowly, rinsing my mouth of the taste of blood. We sit and stare at the soothing fire, and in these quiet moments I bring my thoughts into focus to try and manage my pain. Still without my powers, the most I end up accomplishing is to take the sting out. I’m not a healer anyway, and so my ribs stay broken, while some of my joints remain bruised or even dislocated. But of these injuries, the worst is to my kidneys. I fear they may both be bleeding.

Suddenly a thunderous noise has me bolting from my seat. Pain seers through my lungs and every joint with the effort.

Sera giggles, covering her face with her hands. She has taken a place on the corner of the rug right before the fire. ‘I told you it was going to rain.’

I have never heard rain as heavy as this before, then realise that it’s actually thick clumps of ice hitting the ceiling and everywhere around us. Neither have I felt anything so cold. I’m suddenly very grateful to be inside, rather than still out on that rocky beach getting pounded into the ground.

Sera seems oblivious to the noise and chilling air. Now that she’s stopped laughing, she sits hugging her knees and staring wistfully into the fire. Eventually the hail eases, and Sera turns her eyes to me. ‘Tell me about my parents, Arkarian. What happened to them after Marduke murdered me?’

I tell her how her father withdrew from the Guard, and life itself, for a while, afraid Marduke would take more revenge on the rest of his family. And I tell her how her brother became indentured as my Apprentice when only four years old, and how superbly his skills have developed. ‘He has an amazing talent – the ability to bring real things to a scene created from his mind.’

‘But he has no psychic skill. I spent years trying to reach him.’

‘Through his dreams. Yes, I see that was you now. Ethan had no idea. He blocked out your murder, believed what the doctors told him, that you died of a medical condition.’

She sighs, ‘And my mother? What of her, Arkarian?’

I’m not sure how much I should tell her. She appears to be the same ten-year-old girl I last saw the day before she was murdered, the day I told her about the Guard and how she was to play a part in it all. But that moment was such a long time ago. How has thirteen years in this place affected her?

‘I tried to reach her too,’ she says in my silence. ‘Sometimes I thought she heard me, or felt me at least. I heard her cry out my name lots and lots of times in her sleep. And sometimes even when she was awake.’ She looks down at her clasped hands. ‘I cried with her.’ She turns to look at me with enormous, piercing eyes, ‘Do you think when Ethan rescues me, I will be able to see my mother once more before I go?’

‘I don’t know,’ I tell her honestly.

But my answer is not enough. She stands up and stomps around the room. ‘Ethan will come! I know this! I have finally broken through to the girl Isabel. You called her that. She knows to come. She will bring my brother. I will finally be free!’

She speaks of rescue and freedom as if it is a certainty. And part of me wishes it were true. A large part! But the risks to attain this freedom are so high. Yet, what right do I have to dampen Sera’s spirits? She finally has hope for release from this morbid prison. At least now I understand what’s wrong with Laura. The least I can do is get Sera to stop sending her mother messages. ‘Listen to me, your mother is … having problems.’

‘What? Tell me how? You make it sound like it’s my fault.’

I try to make her understand, ‘She hears you, Sera. And she feels you too. But she’s not like us. She’s a normal human being with no powers. Your distress is torturing her. You have to stop, so your mother can heal and move on with living.’

‘But I can’t move on!’

She doesn’t understand, and I don’t want to upset her. It might even be too late to help Laura anyway. She’s probably so attuned to sensing her daughter’s entrapment, and feeling her daughter’s pain, that even if Sera stopped sending these messages, Laura might still look for a means to escape. Probably the only way to save Laura will be to save her daughter first. Freeing Sera’s soul, allowing it to move on to its destiny, might be what it will take to free Laura’s mind.

That’s it! That’s the answer to saving Laura’s life!

But even if a rescue is accomplished, and Sera’s soul is freed, would it be in time? I honestly can’t say. Yet there’s one thing that I can do right now, and that’s to make Sera understand. ‘You have to stop sending these messages to your mother, Sera. You’re in touch with Isabel now, and as you say, trying to reach Ethan is a waste of time. But each time you connect with your mother she grows more disturbed. Do you understand what I’m saying? You have to stop, Sera. You have to stop now.’