Oh, Zanders, she chided herself weakly, I think this was a little more than just another loopy turn.
Chloe stumbled and collapsed to the ice-covered ground.
* * *
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it."
—THE PROPHETESS EIRU, sixth century B.C.E.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it."
—MIDHE CODEX, seventh century C.E.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it."
—GEORGE SANTAYANA, twentieth century C.E.
* * *
JULY 24,1522
Chapter 16
There were voices inside his head. Thirteen distinct ones: twelve men and the jewel-bright tones of a sultry-voiced woman, talking in a language he couldn't understand.
The voices were but a susurrus, a sibilant murmuring. No more than a stiff wind rustling through oaks, yet like a wind, it blew darkly through him, stripping away his humanity like a fragile autumn leaf no longer firmly anchored to its branch. It was the wind of winter and of death and it accepted no censure and would abide no moral judgment.
There was only hunger. The hunger of thirteen souls confined for four thousand years in a place that was not a place, in a time that was not a time. Locked away for four thousand years. Locked away for one-hundred-and-forty six million days, for three-and-a-half billion hours—and if that was not eternity, what was?
Imprisoned.
Adrift in nothing.
Alive in that heinous dark oblivion. Eternally aware. Hungry, with no mouth to feed. Lusting, with no body to ease. Itching, with no fingers to scratch.
Hating, hating, hating.
A seething mass of raw power, unsated for millennia.
And as they felt, so Dageus felt, too, lost in darkness.
The storm was nature at her height of savagery. Chloe had never seen such a squall before. Rain mixed with jagged chunks of hail pelted from the sky, bruising her, stinging her skin, even through the thickness of her jacket and sweater.
"Ow!" Chloe cried "Ow!" A large chunk of ice struck her in the temple, another in the small of her back. Cursing, she tucked into a protective ball on the hail-covered ground and wrapped her arms around her head.
The wind soared to a deafening pitch, keening and howling. She screamed into it, calling Dageus's name, but couldn't even hear her own voice above the din. The ground trembled and tree limbs crashed to the earth. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The shrieking wind whipped her hair into a sodden tangle. She hunched in a ball with no hope but to endure it and pray it didn't get worse.
Then suddenly—as abruptly as the fierce storm had arisen—it was gone.
Simply gone. The hail stopped. The deluge ceased. The wind died. The night fell still and silent but for a soft hissing sound.
For a few moments Chloe mentally tallied her bruises, refusing to move. Moving would mean acknowledging she was alive. Acknowledging she was alive would mean she'd have to look around. And frankly, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
Ever. Thoughts were colliding in her head, all of them impossible.
Come on, Zanders, get a grip, the voice of reason endeavored valiantly to assert itself. You're going to feel downright silly when you look up and see Gwen and Drustan standing there. When they say "Gee, don't you hate it when a storm comes up so fast? But that's how they are in the Highlands."
She wasn't buying it. She wasn't certain of much at the moment, but she was pretty darned certain storms like that didn't happen, in the Highlands or anywhere else, and furthermore, she didn't hold out much hope that Gwen and Drustan were anywhere nearby. Something had happened in those stones. Just what, she couldn't say, but something… epic. Something that reeked of a kernel of truth secreted in ancient myths.
After a few more moments, she drew her arms back and peeped cautiously out. Rain poured from her hair, dripping down her face. She braced her palms on the ground and suddenly understood what the hissing noise was.
The earth was warm, as if it had been sun-heated all day, and the pellets of hail were steaming on it. How could the ground be warm? she wondered, baffled. It was March, for heaven's sake, and forty-degree weather didn't heat the soil. Even as she thought that, she realized the air was warm, now that the heavens had stopped dumping a small icy flood on her. Humid and positively summery.
Gingerly, she raised herself up a few inches and glanced about, only to discover she was swathed in a cloud. While she'd huddled, a thick soupy fog had surrounded her. She was completely walled in by white. It made the already eerie situation even spookier.
"D-Dageus?" Her voice quavered a little. She cleared her throat and tried again.
If she was still in the circle of stones—and she was beginning to think that might be A Very Big If—she could no longer see them. The fog consumed everything. It was like being blind. She shivered, feeling horribly alone. The past few minutes had been so bizarre that she was beginning to wonder if she'd not… well, she wasn't sure what she was beginning to wonder, and would rather not wonder it.