The Fog of Forgetting (29 page)

C
hase wasn't sure if he was dead or alive. Every nerve in his body hurt—a fair indication that he was alive—so he sat up and opened his eyes. To his surprise, he was perched on the edge of the terrace he'd seen before in his visions. Maybe he
was
dead after all, he thought; but then his nose started to bleed: real, warm spurting blood. He tilted his head back to stem the flow and scanned the terrace out of the corner of his eye. It was all exactly as he had seen it. The burning cauldron sat twenty paces from him in front of an oversized door leading into the towering structure; beyond the edge of the terrace, the sky pulsed in vivid, phosphorescent blues, greens, and purples, as if the furnace of the world had been lit. Below him, swirls of purple-black clouds whipped around in a terrifying whirlwind.

He got to his feet, head spinning, and drew close to the cauldron in search of some warmth. It burned a bright violet hue but gave off little heat. Pale light emanated from the door to the building, which was constructed of layers of white marble and covered in sculpted friezes and geometric forms. He could identify triangles, cubes, octahedrons, and another multifaceted form he did not know. Carved figures leered down at him from the corners, and cryptic markings that might have been letters were etched into the lintel above the door. He circumnavigated the entire structure, walking past three more identical doors before returning to the cauldron. The back of his neck tingled. He turned around and found himself looking into the gray eyes of the tall, dark-haired woman from his vision.

“Ratha?” he asked, his voice trembling.

The woman's face was blank. Her skin was very pale, and her eyes held none of the curiosity that those of her siblings possessed.

“It is I,” she replied, though Chase was unsure whether she actually spoke out loud or just in his head. She moved, crossing the distance between them with astonishing speed. Her robe flashed and flickered in a multitude of colors as she moved. The effect was strobe-like. Chase put his head between his knees.

“My brother, my friends, they fell; the glacier—” He puffed from his inverted position. “You have to help them!”

“They are safe,” said Ratha. “They were rescued soon after you left them.” She stood a few feet away from him, perfectly still. “I have been watching you since you came to Ayda.”

Chase raised his head. “You were watching us the whole time?”

Ratha did not break his gaze.

“Of course. Very little passes my regard in Varuna—or elsewhere.”

“So you know we've been looking for you,” said Chase, “and that Dankar and your brother and sister are after us.”

Ratha nodded. “I also know you are unsure of whom to trust or whether you may trust me—not altogether unwise.”

Chase felt for his sword and was relieved to find he was still wearing it. The knowledge gave him courage.

“What do you mean?”

Ratha shifted, and her robe changed colors. Chase found himself staring, transfixed by its hypnotic effect. She turned on her heel and glided to the edge of the terrace.

“It is a peculiar trait in humans to seek validation and direction from others and not from within,” she mused. “It makes you vulnerable, deaf to your own daylights and ignorant of the power they possess. You become subject to the whims of those whom you presume to be more powerful than yourselves, always to your peril.”

Ratha took a feather from the deep cuffs of her robe and tossed it over the edge of the platform. It bounced and fluttered like a buoy on an angry sea, catching each gust, floating back and forth, up and down, then, suddenly, banking into a steep dive and falling into the swirling, boiling mist. She turned toward him again and continued.

“But you have come far alone, farther than others might have expected of you—even if you did require assistance.” She cocked her head to the side, reminding him of the bird she had sent.

“How did I get here?” Chase ventured.

“I brought you,” answered Ratha.

“But I didn't see or speak with anyone the whole time since I left the glacier.”

Ratha took a few steps toward him. Her eyes flashed, hungrily, with a purple light.

“Your brother is right, Chase, your daylights are bound to Varuna. It is this fact, and this fact alone, that allows you to stand before me, where few outliers have ever stood. But then, such is the way of our kind: to make our own way.”

A stiff wind began to blow through the door closest to them, as if called by some unseen command. It mingled with a soft, warm breeze coming from the door on the opposite side of the building. The flames in the cauldron danced. Chase's bangs lifted off his forehead and the fabric of Ratha's robe billowed around her as she spoke.

“It is for Varunans to bring sight to the blind and strength to the weak. Like the wind that flattens the grass and stirs the seas and the trees, we give evidence of things unseen and kindle hope in the hearts of those who have none.” The fire in the cauldron leapt higher and higher. The clouds pitched violently around the terrace. Her voice rose above the wind.

“I am Ratha, Keeper of the stone of Varuna, eldest daughter of Remiel and Rachel, mistress of wind and air, reader of stars and dreams, protector of all who heed my call. Your presence here is evidence of a dream that is now become real: a wish, barely spoken.”

A tremendous gust of wind blew across the terrace and then seemed to suck back in on itself, snuffing the fire in the cauldron and leaving silence in its wake. Before Chase could register what was happening, Ratha was beside him again, her hand outstretched to his face. She cupped his chin in her hand and brought him nearer to her. Pursing her lips, she blew softly into Chase's mouth. His lips parted slightly and he inhaled. Her breath was icy and sweet; it filled his lungs completely and flowed through his chest and limbs. Any leftover weariness fell away and his mind turned blank, like a curtain closing across a stage. Slowly, an image materialized—he recognized it instantly: the granite rocks off of Summerledge. Waves pummeled the ledge with thundering booms. Cold, angry spray exploded into the air. At the very edge, a lone figure paced back and forth, drenched in frigid water. Wind buffeted the blanket she was wrapped in, trying to wrench it out of her clenched fingers.

“Mom!” he cried out.

The image changed. Chase now saw the house itself, another familiar face in a window, eyes blank and rimmed with red. His father's fists banged on the windowpane. Chase looked back to the rocks. The blanket lay crumpled on the ledge—empty.

“MOM!” he yelled again, caught in the vision. He sprinted to the place where she had jumped, but the ledge wasn't there. He was back on the terrace, kneeling before Ratha.

“Please,” he begged, “my mom and dad. You have to tell me: Is it real, or is it something you've planted in my head?”

Ratha extended a long, pale arm and touched his brow. With only the barest hint of emotion, she replied, “That depends on you. On what you decide.”

“What do you mean?”

“You continue to submit to what you have been told rather than what you know to be true,” said Ratha. “Think! You are by right Varunan; consult your daylights.”

Chase shook his head, hopelessly lost.

Ratha sighed. The colors of her robes shifted again and he heard her answer in his head.

“You and your companions have more than once questioned the idea of surrender, of resignation—a question that has led you here, and not in vain. I tell you that you have been brought to Ayda, through the fog of forgetting, to serve a purpose, and it is only by this service that you will be able to reunite with your family.”

Chase groaned.

“Stand up!” commanded Ratha, and to his surprise, Chase's body obeyed. He heard a distant rumbling, like thunder. A flash of lightning cut across the swirling sky. Ratha was perched at the edge of the terrace, partially shrouded in mist and unearthly light. The shifting colors in her robes made his head hurt. He had to close his eyes.

“It has been a great mystery to my brother and sister why, after the fog of forgetting cut off Ayda from the rest of creation, certain outliers from your world have managed to land on our shores. It is a rare and ominous occurrence, but it is no mystery, for it is I who have seen what they cannot; I who brought you and your companions here.”

“You! You did this?” Chase exclaimed, but the conversation seemed to be happening only in his mind, a mind that could not erase the image of his grieving father and mother.

Ratha nodded slowly.

“But why?”

“It is known to me that the Fifth Stone was not destroyed or lost after the Great Battle, but banished from Ayda, sent beyond the fog, beyond the reach of Dankar—and beyond the mindless folly of my brethren.” Ratha spat the last few words into the wind.

“But I thought, I thought, the fog …” Chase's question trailed off, uncomprehending. Bile rose into his throat. He felt violently sick.

“You thought there was no way to pass through the fog,” Ratha finished. “And yet, here you are, proof that it most certainly can be done. Indeed, it is not easy, nor is there any surety in how or where one will emerge from the fog—but it can be done. It
has
been done. I have brought others here and they have survived—”

“Seaborne,” Chase mumbled, opening his eyes to slits.

Ratha's clear eyes darted to his. “And others.”

Chase's eyes widened.

“More? How many? Where are they?” It seemed cruel beyond imagining that his brothers, Evelyn, Frankie, Seaborne, and countless other people were nothing but experiments for this terrifying creature.

“Child,” she admonished. “Do not credit me with playacting the role of a god. That is the realm of your people. Is it not? Only the progeny of the Others could be so bold—so selfish—as to make a ruin of the delight that was once theirs, to treat the daylights and all they have wrought as if they were replaceable.” When she returned her gaze to his, her clear eyes seemed to spark white, icy diamonds. They bore into him like knives. Her voice dropped to a low hiss.

“Human blood runs through my vessel, as well, but unlike my brother and sister, I have no love for it.”

Chase cowered beneath her. If she had been holding a weapon, he thought she would have struck him. But Ratha needed no metal weapons to inflict pain. Instead, she sent him fast-forwarding through a nightmare, each vision in his head worse than the previous one: A man with a deep, bleeding wound in his chest lay dying on a sacrificial altar; a woman in rags groaned under the weight of carrying an enormous burden; a ship tossed on a rough sea, its cargo packed with people in chains; fallen soldiers in different-colored uniforms littered a battlefield, and then another, and another; a prisoner stared out at him from behind barbed wire. The vision expanded until he was seeing a vast slum-city, where people moved like ants through narrow alleys and garbage heaps. Then, the lens of his vision clicked back again and he was above the Earth, watching in dismay as acre after acre of trees fell and in their place grew concrete buildings, tracts of highways, and rows of houses. A darkness descended—not quite night, but nearly. The lens of his vision zoomed forward and he felt himself falling into the blurred darkness. He landed on his back, on the pavement, in the middle of a line of identical homes. Their silhouettes mirrored one another perfectly and their windows were lit with a matching, flickering, blue electronic light. In a flash of recognition, he knew exactly where he was: Elm Ridge Road.

Ratha spoke, her voice cold, dismissive.

“Who needs Dankar when you have already enslaved yourselves? The Others have taught you well.” She stepped away. Chase's mind went suddenly, gratefully, blank.

“Few remain beyond the fog who can recall the light of their own making,” said Ratha in a faraway voice. A final image dawned in Chase's head, like the sun rising over a shadowy mountain range. It was of a lobster boat with a blue hull, drifting quietly in the fog. A man sat at the helm, his gray-streaked hair and broad, sweatered shoulders unmistakable to anyone who had ever known him.

Captain Nate.

“What the—” said Chase, utterly confused.

“It is he whom I seek,” Ratha interrupted. She retreated a few more steps.

“I don't understand,” said Chase, still stuck with the image in his head.

She did not reply audibly. Instead he heard her voice in his head saying, again, “
Think
.”

He paused. The fog in the image crept lightly around in his head, as it had that day on the boat. The day they had come to Ayda. It grew thicker and engulfed him in its gauzy whiteness. He felt the peace at the center of it, the heavy weight of water held captive in the air. The pieces fell into place: The Fifth Stone still existed but was no longer on Ayda, which meant someone outside the fog must know about it—or have possession of it.
Ratha thought Captain Nate was that someone
.

“
He
has the Fifth Stone?” asked Chase, thunderstruck.

Ratha's eyes glittered.

“All that matters is that this man come to Ayda. I need your help to bring him here.”

Chase exhaled. His lungs felt strong—purged and capable of breathing more deeply than he had ever been able to before, yet his knees still buckled under him and he was forced to sit on the steps. Clouds swirled below him in an eerie, more terrifying replay of the fog that had enveloped his mind, but, surprisingly, he could feel the same strange sense of peace. The dizzy feeling subsided. He spoke directly to Ratha, his eyes trained intently on her face.

“Let me see if I have this straight. You brought my brothers and me and my friends here, but you really want Captain Nate, because he may or may not have the Fifth Stone, which was banished from Ayda. You've brought other people from outside to Ayda for this same reason, but all this time you've been trying to get Captain Nate?”