Her footsteps echoed on the stone steps and she swore she could see the darkness waver as the sound reverberated. The feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach intensified until the light faded away around her and she found herself in a dark, cramped room lit by a flickering torch in the far corner.
Beneath the warm glow of the firelight, the wall was inlaid with hundreds-- thousands?-- of dim lights. She stepped closer to one side, and peered at the source of the glowing.
Each block of stone-- she had assumed they were bricks, but there was no mortar, and each tablet seemed like a separate entity, too alive to simply be part of the architecture-- held a shining shape. Here, one directly before her eyes, resembled a bow and arrow, and there, another slightly to the left, clearly depicted a sword. So these were images of weapons carved?-- burned? imprinted? into the stones. So there was some greater significance to all of this, probably, something related to whatever she had been tasked to find.
Her heartrate had not fallen since she had set out on this short journey, following the dark-haired man to this eerie place. And now she wondered why she had thought it was a good idea-- though on the other hand, she really had no other options. Some cloying mixture of dread and disappointment and heavy sadness weighed down her mind as she stood, again listening to the sound of breathing in this quiet, still room. There seemed to be a great deal of deja vu in this whole experience, a great deal of repetitive silence and hesitance and depressing resignment. But I’m not what I used to be.
It was hard to believe that such a short time ago-- what seemed short, at least, because she could no longer tell how long she had been in this world and how long she had spent entrenched in nightmares-- she had been sitting at her desk, her familiar, worn, oaken desk that smelled of ballpoint ink and yellowed papers. And she had been thinking of what to eat for dinner, what to buy Wil for his birthday... Had time passed in that world without her? Did time operate differently here; would she go back and find everyone she knew old and senile? Would they have moved on without her? Or would it be that no time had passed-- she could jump back in where she had left off and everything would be the same... If she ever returned at all. If she could return as she had left. Because however many times she stood like this, in silence, dwelling, waiting, pulling back, she had changed. She could not imagine a time before this ordeal. And whether she was braver now, she couldn’t tell, but certainly that distant self that only thought of mundane things would not have been able to make it this far. Right?
The thought brought her back to herself as she mindlessly and slowly stretched one hand out towards the closest glowing rune. As her fingertips made contact with cold stone, a shiver went through her, and a hissing chorus of whispers and cold breath whirled past her ears. Suddenly she felt that she wasn’t supposed to be here, that she didn’t belong and that whatever this was, it was telling her to leave. She took a quick step backwards, pulling the now-trembling hand back towards her side. But she was supposed to find something here, wasn’t she? What would happen if she left without it?
She envisioned the room of sleeping figures again, the aura of death that hung in the air. The chilling, disdainful stare of the man who had led her here. No, she could not leave until she had found it, whatever it was.
Slowly, she turned and made her way through the room. With a gulp, she touched her fingers to the wall again, and flinched at the onslaught of harsh whispers but continued to drag her fingers across each textured tablet as she stepped in a circle around the room. In the back of her mind she envisioned that when she came across this destined object, there would be a feeling of rightness.
And then a few steps along the wall, there was a shift in the dimly roar. Beneath the hollow hissing, a low hum began to sound in her ears, and she moved towards it out of instinct.
She found herself facing the back wall of the room; the noise seemed to be coming from a block at the level of her waist; she crouched down and began to run her fingers along the stone, tracing each crevice.
You wanted me indomitable.
The voice slipped into one ear and lingered in her mind’s chamber, settling itself down quietly as if it had always been. It seemed far away, and distant, not exactly directed towards her. She felt like she was listening in on someone else's conversation.
And have I not met your expectations?
The new voice sent a jolt through her, and she lifted her hand to inspect the tile beneath her fingers. On this tablet the stone was shaped like a spear, one with a knife-like protrusion on the end. The stone felt warm.
She thought of the stranger in the library, where this had all begun. But no, it wasn’t the same voice; this didn’t have the same chilling quality, though it shared some of the mocking tone.
“What are you?” She asked the question out loud without thinking. Could stones hear? Could this one?
What do you want me to be?
The words rang clearer this time, as if someone was whispering directly into her ear. And they were vague, too, like the man from before. Like everyone she had met on her way to this end, to this chamber. But she wasn’t sure what to expect from a stone; likely it was very magical, like everything else in this place.
I am Sakiel.
Take me. Use me. I will teach you.
The humming undertone of the voice increased in volume, and the glow seemed to become brighter as well. So this stone was what she had been sent to find, after all? She felt around the corners of the rock and began to pry it out of its crevice. The stone was small, the size of her hand. As she cradled it lightly in her fingers, the glowing grew to a bright glare, and the stone seemed to shift in shape and grow at the same time.
You were not saved in order to live, my sweet Emmaline. I will teach you how to survive.
She wasn’t surprised that it knew her name, not after all that had already happened. She nodded assent, as if the morphing shape could see her-- though it seemed that it could already hear her. It had taken on the shape of a polearm, with a spearhead on one end and a blade on the other. Feathers and beads wrapped around the shaft. It felt right in her hands, more so than the gun or any of the other makeshift weapons they had used previously. The voice fell silent for a long while, and it seemed like she had finally done something correctly. Slowly, she turned and walked out of the room.
"You wanted me indomitable" - 31 days prompt June 14 2011 from Pablo Neruda, La Muerta.
"You were saved not in order to live." - 31 days prompt June 11 2011 from Zbigniew Herbert, The Envoy of Mr. Cognito.
