Pillar's Shadow

Pillar’s Shadow

  By Lijah Phoenix

  Copyright 2014 Lijah Phoenix

  “We are the men of the rolling dunes. The forgotten lot of a wasted World.”

  1 Tell me, O muse

  Rhine Toledo awoke tasting blood, not knowing where he was. The air was stuffy and hot, his body resting against a pile of sand in the shade. Opening his eyes hurt, they felt glued shut, and his lips were cracked and bleeding. Looking around, he saw four walls, a roof and nothing but sand below.

  His bones ached all over. Flashbacks appeared like a mirage in his mind. He saw himself, felt his body walking on and on without water, scorched under the burning sun of the desert. He had accepted his death, that any second he would fall and never get up, but it hadn’t come. Unless this was the afterlife.

  He blinked a few times, brought his knees to his chest, and sat up. He saw something else, no not something else, someone else. It was hazy, his mind felt as raw as the rest of his body trying to remember. There was no use, he had been saved, but he couldn’t remember how.

  The last thing his body wanted to do was stand, but he forced his legs to lift him up anyway. The room he was in was made of stone. Placing his hand against the wall, he felt the coarse and hardened earth and, for a moment, felt he was in danger. The only place he’d ever been to that had stone houses was Bly, where there were ancient structures that had been built many generations ago. Had the man with the badge found him? Had he been dragged back to Bly to be executed in front of the town?

  There were no windows in the room, just a wooden door with light bleeding through its cracks. He approached it cautiously. I might have to run, he thought. Feeling the soreness in his body, the pain in his feet, he knew running would be incredibly painful if not impossible.

  He peaked through a crack in the door, his eyes blinded by the brightness. After taking a moment to adjust, he saw blurry sand and what looked like another structure like the one he was in. But he didn’t see anybody or hear anything but sand being dragged against more sand in the wind. He considered waiting there a while and watching, he still wasn’t sure if it was Bly, it could have been.

  He pushed his hand on the door, forcing it open through the sand that had built up against it. More bright light, this time an entire world of it, blinding into him. He covered his eyes as he stepped out. Wind flapped his clothes and caused him to stumble a step. Sounds began to fill the air, people talking, and walking in the sand.

  “You’re awake,” a voice said beside him.

  Rhine turned quickly to his right and looked into the face of a young boy. He had dark skin, black curly hair, and held a stick in his hands. His voice was high and filled with energy.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing a fold of Rhine’s clothing.

  Rhine didn’t move. He stood, staring at the boy, perplexed.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  The boy shook his head. “You have to come with me, it will be better this way.”

  He forced Rhine to take a step, and then another.

  “Where are we going?” Rhine asked. He was delirious in the blinding light. Slowly things were taking shape. He saw the boy clearly, saw a few other people walking by carrying baskets and staring at him. In the distance there was nothing around them but an endless sea of sand, aside from a massive mountain that rose up from the ground just beside the houses. For a moment he believed he was dreaming, that none of it was real. One thing was certain, he wasn’t in Bly.

  The houses he moved through were all like the one he’d left, and they were all partially buried in sand, some even to the point where you had to crawl to fit through the door. There were a few men working, filling buckets with sand, and hauling it away.

  Rhine followed the boy who moved so quickly across the sand, weaving in and out of houses, dodging people that he was practically running. From the mixed stares on the faces of those he passed, Rhine didn’t know if the boy was excited or scared. Should I be excited or scared?

  In the middle of the scattered houses the boy led Rhine to a particular house with a door twice as big as the others and a thatched roof. By the time Rhine caught up to the boy, he was breathing heavily. The air was dry, and even though the sun was just piercing the horizon, already hot.

  The boy motioned to Rhine, pointing into the house.

  “Go inside, he’s waiting for you now,” he said.

  Rhine peaked in through the door, but couldn’t see a thing, it was covered by a veil. “Who?” he replied, but he realized the boy had already left.

  He listened, but heard nothing. He stepped through the doorway. Just as his hand touched the dark fabric blocking his way, he saw something. In his mind, he saw a glimpse of something… a memory… or possibly the future. Whatever it was, it caused his body to freeze, caused his heart to speed up. He stepped back and removed his hand from the fabric. No… No I can’t…I can’t go in there.

  As he turned to step away, he heard a voice calling him.

  “Do not be afraid,” the voice said. Rhine turned around, searching for the source. “Please, come inside.”

  Rhine stared at the doorway. The voice had come from inside the house. Whoever was inside knew he was there.

  Rhine moved back into the doorway, pushed aside the hanging fabric, and stepped into the house. The room, like the one he’d come from, was practically empty. Just a table with two chairs in the middle and a bed in the corner. An old man, with long gray hair and a thick gray beard sat in one of the chairs, staring at Rhine. He was squinting through sagging skin with dark blue eyes. His mouth warped into a smile.

  “Welcome,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

  Rhine sat in the chair across from the old man. He felt the man scan every inch of him with his eyes, as if he were weighing his worth.

  “You must have a lot of questions,” he said. “But first, let me tell you that you are in no danger here. We have, as you must have observed already, very little here, but what we have we share. If you need anything please let us know. For now, you are a guest.”

  The man cleared his throat and coughed into his hands, then continued:

  “First, before I get to your questions, I must ask you a question.” He leaned over the table, closer to Rhine. “What do you remember?”

  Rhine tilted his head. “What?”

  The man smiled. “The desert dunes are no place for a man. The sun, the heat, and the sand, they do things to your brain. They cause you to… forget things. Who you are. Where you’re from. It’s a simple question really.” The man folded his hands and leaned back in his chair. “Let us start with the basics, what’s your most recent memory before arriving here? Do you remember walking across the dunes?”

  Rhine dropped the old man’s gaze, looking down at his hands and at the table in silent thought. An image again broke into his mind, the one he’d seen when he first touched the veil at the door. He shifted in his seat, lost his breath.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes I… I’m sorry… I can’t explain it…” Rhine turned to look at the veil now. He watched it flap innocently with the breeze. “I saw something when I first came through that doorway that I can’t explain. Something I can’t even put to words.”

  When Rhine looked up to the old man, he saw that he was smiling at him.

  “This place is not ordinary,” he said to Rhine. “It has different effects on different people, but one thing is certain, it effects everyone who comes here deeply in some way.” The man eyed Rhine with an even narrower gaze. “Let’s get back to what you remember, do you remember traveling through the desert at all?”

  “Yes. I remember the pain from the sun above. I remember my mouth being so dry I could barely breathe. And… I
remember a woman.” He looked up at the old man. “A beautiful woman with black hair, darker than the night sky, and eyes… deep brown eyes that seemed to contain the whole world within them. I remember her grabbing me and dragging me and, that is all.”

  The old man nodded at him, his smile gone. “And. What do you remember before that? Of your home, where you come from?”

  Rhine paused a moment in thought, then looked up. “Nothing. I remember nothing before that.” But he did remember. He remembered almost everything. He was a wanted man, and now an escaped prisoner. He didn’t know where he was, but he couldn’t risk the truth coming out.

  The old man nodded slightly. “Very good. You may leave now, if you wish. Unless you have questions for me?”

  A million question jumped into Rhine’s mind at once. Where am I? Who are you? What is this place? But, surprisingly, even to himself, he didn’t ask those yet.

  “Who is she?” he asked first, the words tumbling out before he knew what he was asking. “The girl who saved me. Who is she?”

  “You will know soon enough. Any other questions?”

  Why wouldn’t he answer? It was a simple question he thought. “Where am I? What is this place?”

  “This is Pillar’s Shadow,” the old man replied. “And it is a long forgotten part of the World. We are surrounded by oceans of desert. Those who come here can never leave. Come back this evening, I’d like to talk again. But for now, get some rest and food.” He motioned for Rhine to leave.

  As Rhine stood and walked for the door, he turned back.

  “What is your name?” Rhine asked.

  “Peleos” the old man said. “And yours?”

  “Rhine,” he replied.

  Just as Rhine reached the door, the man spoke again.

  “Rhine, you will tell me if you remember anything won’t you? Anything at all?”

  2 Rosy-fingered dawn appeared

  Those who come here may never leave? Rhine wondered what the old man meant by it. He couldn’t get the man, nor his words, out of his mind. Peleos was unlike any man he’d ever met before. He seemed… different somehow, in a way Rhine didn’t understand. The way he looked at you, the way he spoke, what he said.

  “So? What do you think?” a young voice asked Rhine as he turned a corner. Rhine saw that it was the boy from before.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Rhine replied.

  The boy led Rhine to a house where he could get something to eat. There wasn’t much food. Rhine was given a small jug of water and two boiled stocks of corn. He was surprised that they had food at all, how did they survive there? Only in Bly had Rhine ever seen corn being grown, and even there it was rare. The only food he’d eaten in Canyon Land was what he and his men hunted, and what they looted.

  “Where did you get this?” Rhine asked, holding up the corn.

  “A gift from the Pillar. It grows just over there,” the boy pointed to the tall and steep mountain.

  “A gift?” Rhine asked, confused.

  The boy nodded. “I’ll show you later. First you gotta eat and drink something.”

  As the boy led Rhine through the houses, Rhine again noticed that people were staring at him. Some just for a moment before quickly looking somewhere else, but others stared for an uncomfortable amount of time, a few even seemed to frown at him.

  “People get uncomfortable with strangers,” the boy told Rhine, noticing the looks as well. “We rarely get new people here and we all know each other. They’re just scared is all, probably even Peleos is afraid. That’s why he met with you. We gotta know if you’re crazy or not.” The boy shot a smile at Rhine. “Okay, come on in.”

  He led Rhine into a new house where they sat on a wooden bench, the risen sand causing their knees to bend up near their eyes. They ate in silence, or at least Rhine did, the boy couldn’t seem to stop talking. Rhine learned his name was Onyx, a unique name he’d never heard before. Onyx said, like most people there, he was born in Pillar’s Shadow.

  “You mean, others here have come from the outside like me?”

  “A few,” Onyx said, digging his teeth in for a bite of corn. “You’re the first one in a long time though. Before I was born, I think. You should really ask Peleos if you want to know about that stuff, that guys been around forever.”

  “So who is he anyway?”

  “He’s the smartest guy here, the one in charge, and as far as I know it’s always been that way. He teaches us how to survive and gives us advice. He’s the one that told me I should be your friend.” He quickly shut his mouth, chewed his food.

  Great, the only one that likes me here has been forced to.

  Onyx leaned in close to Rhine.

  “Do you want to know something about him, a secret?” he whispered even though nobody was around. Rhine didn’t know how to reply. “He can’t walk anymore. That’s why he was sitting when you came in, he’s always sitting. His legs haven’t worked since… well long ago, back when he was trying to climb the Pillar, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Rhine was going to ask what the Pillar was, but there was only one thing that made sense. They were surrounded by the desert, nothing in sight all along the horizon, nothing but a massive mountain that rose straight up from the ground. Sheer cliffs on all sides.

  “Why would anyone climb that?”

  Onyx chomped down on his second piece of corn. Rhine was hungry for food, but he felt even hungrier for answers. He stared at Onyx, awaiting his reply. Onyx chewed and seemed lost in thought, as if he were struggling with what he could and couldn’t say.

  Onyx wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I’ll tell you tonight. Tonight, when I take you up on the hill and we see the lights.”