Chapter 14 - Inar Adun

II

. . . The Realm

Chapter Fourteen

Under a brilliant blue sky and the warmth of Tiela, R’ille stood on a ledge above the banks of the river Lumen and watched the water rush eastward over roaring falls and down into the Great Chasm. She had come countless times to this overlook to watch the greatest of the waters of Illianor plummet endlessly off the edge and into the void below. The roar of the falls and the way the spray turned the sunlight into a rainbow of colors made the place seem surreal, like the edge of the world, which, for R’ille and the rest of the Illuminar, it was.

With deep sapphire eyes R’ille looked eastward past the mist and spray toward the far side, now lost from sight behind clouds that drifted up from the depths of the Chasm. She thought of her husband Brinn, whom she had lost ten centuries ago. After all this time, she still held out hope that he lived, though it brought little comfort to her since she was powerless to return to him. All hope of reuniting was lost like the rushing water that cascaded downward into the Illianor Strait over a league below.

The thoughts of her beloved were like a cork in the sea of her mind; they could never remain down in the depths for long. Through the centuries, the ache of her loss had festered like a sore that wouldn’t heal, and though she tried to forget, tried to force the memory down into a tiny recess of her consciousness, always the pain would regain strength and grow again until it overwhelmed her existence and drove her back to this place, to the cliff overlooking the strait, where the link to her lover had been severed so long ago.

Like a drunkard returning to the bottle, she returned here again. The obsession in her mind forced her here, for in her mind she was always thinking, always hoping, that this time it would happen. This time her search would end; this time she would find what she sought. This time she would find the crystal bridge restored, and Brinn standing before her.

The vision in her mind was always the same: He would be waiting for her right here, and they would rush into each others arms, reunited at last!

But alas, here she was again, and there was no bridge; there was no Brinn. She knew her dream was impossible, but she could not let it go. She could not deny the need to fill the void within, could not fight off the desire. Was it too much to want just one more touch, one more kiss, just one more glimpse of him? Not even the birth of Anoreth, her child, had eased her pain. In fact, that event had only made it worse.

And so, R’ille found herself again on the eastern edge of Illianor at the Falls of Lumen, standing on the edge of the Great Chasm that rimmed her vast land on every side. She looked out over the void that—for the last thousand years—had cut off and protected the Illuminar from the evils of the outside world. How ironic, she thought, that it has failed to protect from the evil within.

“We must go,” Dártan urged her. “Others will be looking for you and you will not fare well if they find you here.”

“Our people relish this island of Illianor,” she said, ignoring him, “where they are protected from the wrath of the Demon Lord. Yet, I feel a prisoner upon it. I long to be free from this ‘sanctuary’ of ours. I desire to be alongside the Avanyar, our mortal friends of old, battling the goblin hordes and wolf-riders, as we had in ages past. I long for our ancient home, our tall castles and bright cities, wrought amid the bountiful fields and orchards of the green land that was our home.”

“R’ille, don’t do this.”

“I long to search for Brinn.”

“I know.”

“Ár-Ádun granted us this place, this sanctuary, to be free from the hellish spawns of the Demon Lord. But are we really free?” She declined to tell Dártan of the demons that poisoned her thoughts, but he, like others, guessed that something evil assaulted her from within. He saw the hint of madness in her sapphire eyes.

“R’ille, you must return to the safety of your castle. You are hunted. You cannot allow yourself to be caught.”

“That’s the problem, Dártan. Don’t you see? I’m hunted. I have been sentenced to death for blasphemy against Illianor. That’s exactly what’s wrong with all this! Illianor is a sanctuary, yet I am unprotected within it.”

“R’ille—“

“I should have listened to Égrath. When I was young he taught me how to hear the Kalláh. Did you know that, Dártan? Did you know that, in the end, even he warned me not to follow my Kalláh and flee to Illianor? Can you believe it? Égrath telling me to ignore the very voice he taught me to hear!”

“Yes, R’ille; Brinn and I were there.”

“Though to Illianor you are led,” R’ille repeated Égrath’s words of old, “seek not solace in this place, but within your own heart! Illianor will not protect you from the Demon Lord for evil lies within the very hearts of the Illuminar, as well. Look not to Illianor for deliverance, but to the One who will rise from within it. He shall deliver you and bring you true immortality!

“I should have listened to him. I curse that blasted Nil'Ganash for killing Égrath during our retreat. Égrath would have succeeded where I have failed. Égrath would have convinced our people of this folly. He would have taught them to believe in the coming of the Messiah!”

Dártan let her speak.

“Two commands my Kalláh gave me before I lost that voice: The first was to await the Messiah, who will be proclaimed by the Seer, who is of the Avanyar. The second was to use the enemy’s weapons.”

“It’s that second one that has gotten you in to trouble, R’ille.”

She ignored him. “Long before we escaped to Illianor, when our people were at the height of their glory, I watched them falling from the grace of Ár-Ádun. Instead of worshiping Him, they held up in reverence their own creations and accomplishments. Though we have reached the safety of Illianor, we still continue on that wayward path.” She grew silent at last.

Upon reaching Illianor, R’ille had devoted her life to turning her people back to Ár-Ádun, partly out of a desire to bring them back to the Creator, and partly to forget Brinn. She preached of the coming of Inár-Ádun, who was the Messiah. She told them He would “rise from within”, but her views were seen as a sacrilege, and she was cast out by the others of her race. For that reason she hid the birth of Anoreth, a half-century ago.

What hypocrites, she thought, for they worship Ár-Ádun no longer, in truth, but Illianor instead. As they did in the old lands they do now, placing their reverence in the land and not its Creator. They have grown so rigid in the observation of rituals and rites that they have long since forgotten the One who delivered them here!

“R’ille, you must see how they view you as the hypocrite,” Dártan said. “You preach of Ár-Ádun, yet you use the Demon Lord’s magic by wielding Illinzor, the Wand of Earth.”

R’ille thought of the walled fortress of stone she had created with Illinzor, perched upon a high hill ringed by massive trees. Dártan thought of it, too, and of the forest around her abode that had become an evil place. Dark spirits dwelt there, whispering nameless horrors in the dark. It had become a place of gloom; a place where the Illuminar seldom came. But of these things R’ille knew nothing, for her mind was clouded by the demons that had haunted her ever since she had surrendered her soul to the Demon Lord. Though he had fallen into the abyss at the collapse of the Crystal Span, his demons haunted her still, bringing out in her a cruelty that she didn’t see.

Is it really a crime to just want to be free? she thought, believing that her longing for the old lands was the reason she was shunned. Is it a crime to want to be free to worship Ár-Ádun in a simple and personal way, and to fight to give others in the world the chance to do the same? A crime it apparently was, she surmised, for at that moment, while standing at the Falls of Lumen, R’ille and Dártan were discovered by a large group of Illuminar, who surrounded them and were now chanting for her death as punishment for going against the laws of their people.

“What laws have I broken? I have only tried to bring you back to Ár-Ádun!” She had done much more than that, however, and much of what she had done had been to act as one who worshipped Lucifer, the Demon Lord.

The crowd gathered closer, but R’ille held them back by brandishing the green Wand of Earth that she always carried with her. The crowd shouted out their reasons for wanting her dead, which were many. Dártan drew his Nyakil to protect her, but the crowd inched closer.

“Stand aside, Dártan,” the crowd ordered. “We know you protect her out of loyalty to Brinn; for that you are forgiven. But she has blasphemed Ár-Ádun, and for that she must pay.”

Dártan refused to yield.

R’ille had given her soul to the Demon Lord the day she had conjured up the crystal span that had led them to Illianor. The crowd realized that act had provided an escape from the Demon Lord, but they had not forgotten their shock and dismay at R’ille for swearing her allegiance to Kirin Sa’an. At that moment, although she was their leader at the time, they had begun to distrust her. They had followed her over the bridge to Illianor, but in the centuries since, she had become more frightening to behold.

R’ille often repeated aloud what she heard from the voices in her head. The whispered demons who had replaced her Kalláh had driven her to say and do much worse things than that; things that were abhorrent to her kin. R’ille had tried to stop herself from committing animal sacrifices and drinking their blood, had tried to stop obsessing over pentagrams, but at times her head was ready to burst from the madness within.

R’ille had tried to compensate by becoming a priestess of Ár-Ádun, a calling among her people that had died out eons before. Her hope had been to silence the demonic voices through fervent worship of the Creator, but her people had only seen it as another manifestation of her insanity, and it had only alienated her even more from the rest of the Illuminar. It had come to the point where they felt she was the reason that Ár-Ádun had forsaken them in the sanctuary of Illianor. Some even believed that R’ille was possessed by a demon-master, or by the Demon Lord himself. They had decided that she had to go.

R’ille addressed the crowd that had now gathered to exercise judgment upon her. She stood steadfast in her belief. “Come back to Ár-Ádun!” she shouted above the roar of the falls. “Cleanse yourself of the evil in your heart! Do not put this sanctuary above the Creator. Do not worship Illianor, with your rituals and rigid laws. Return to the ways of Ár-Ádun.”

“Do not speak to us of the Creator, for you yourself are a Killer!” they shouted back. “You are a blood drinker, like our mortal enemy the Nil'Ganash! You are in league with them!”

“No. Never. I simply seek a way out of Illianor. We must reunite with the Avanyar of old,” R’ille continued. “There we will find the one who will herald the coming of the Messiah!”

The people weren’t swayed by her talk. She seeks a way to reunite with the Nil'Ganash!” one shouted. “That’s why she wields the Wand of Earth! It is against the law of Illianor to seek the old lands again! For that you must be punished!” The crowd as one felt that R’ille wanted off of Illianor because she was trying to reunite with the Nil'Ganash. Her mad plan had driven them to the end of their rope. They had witnessed the countless times that R’ille had attempted to recreate the Crystal Span using the Wand of Earth. No crystals existed in Illianor like that which had grown the original span. Rocks and stones simply grew into larger round boulders at the wand’s command. R’ille had tried to grow trees into a horizontal bridge, but their living tissue cracked and broke before growing long enough to span the chasm to the mainland. She had sought to carve stone steps down the cliff to the sea, but the stone walls were not like the granite in their home of old, and the brittle sandstone just crumbled as it was carved. Nothing had worked, though R’ille had continued her obsessive attempts to find a way off Illianor despite the rest of her people not wanting to leave. This had only fueled their belief that she was possessed.

The crowd pressed inward as they mocked R’ille, their chants drowning out her preaching. They began throwing stones, forcing Dártan and her down to the bank of the Lumen and eventually backing them into the river itself. “How does seeking to leave Illianor bring eternal life?” One in the crowd asked over the others. “There you will only find death at the hands of Kirin Sa’an’s hordes!”

The water cleanses.

R’ille heard the voices in her mind, and they sounded like her Kalláh of old. She acted on their suggestion.

“Enter this water,” she motioned to all around her, “and be cleansed of this madness.” The demons in her head shrieked with pleasure when she uttered the command. “I can cleanse you with this water,” R’ille told the crowd, trying to drown out the voices in her head, “but One comes who will deliver a greater gift. The Messiah will cleanse with fire and the Spirit of Ár-Ádun!”

At her words, even Dártan, who had entered the water with her, turned and wondered at her words.

“Blasphemer!” the crowd began to shout, and the demons in R’ille’s mind echoed the chant. The crow continued to assault both Dártan and R’ille with rocks, driving them into swifter, deeper water.

“R’ille, you must save yourself,” Dártan begged her. “Use the wand and get to the far shore while I hold them off.”

R’ille looked to the far side of the river and saw a huge oak tree overhanging the bank. With a wave of the green wand, a large limb swept over and down, and R’ille grabbed hold. “Dártan, grab the branch!”

“No, you must save yourself. I will keep the crowd at bay.”

“But—”

“Flee!” Dártan’s command was final.

R’ille gestured once more, and the limb swept her up to shore. “Come back to Ár-Ádun!” she pleaded, though her shouts were drowned out by the roaring river. Finally giving up, she took off into the trees and was gone.

Dártan clung to a boulder. He was dangerously near to being swept over the falls, yet still he defied the crowd. They were unwilling to brave the raging whitewater to go after R’ille, and after a while they grew weary of their assault and left.

When all were gone, Dártan pulled himself half-drowned from the river. Gasping for breath, he lay face down for a time on the washed sand and gravel. Suddenly, he felt a presence above him. He raised his head a few inches and looked from where he lay at the boots of someone who stood over him. Apparently, one in the crowd had remained.

Dártan gazed up through wet locks of hair and saw Him, an Illuminar dressed in simple woolen clothes topped with a grey cloak. Shocked, Dártan tried to rise, sword still in hand.

“We are safe, Dártan. The crowd has gone,” the Illuminar said softly.

“Anoreth, you shouldn’t have come!” Dártan gasped. “If they discover—”

“That I am not your son?”

“Anoreth, You must be careful. If the people learn the truth, You will be in great danger.”

“The time approaches when all will learn who I am.” Anoreth helped Dártan to his feet and began drying him with His own cloak. “Dártan, you have been like a father to Me; you have raised Me, and you have honored my mother’s request and kept My lineage hidden. But the time draws near for our people to learn the truth: that you are not My father, but that I am R’ille’s Son.”

“You cannot reveal that, Anoreth; they will know that Brinn is not Your father.”

“And they would speak truthfully.”

Dártan’s sword fell from his hand as he swept Anoreth up in a hug. He began to weep. “Anoreth. Our people believe Your mother to be possessed. They will think that You are born of that unholy union. They will kill you!”

“Do not fear for Me, Dártan; My Father will protect Me.” Anoreth wiped away Dártan’s tears. “Do you know who My Father is, Dártan?”

Dártan’s tears fell anew.

He said again, “Do you not know who I am?”

Dártan looked for a long time at the Illuminar he had raised as a Son. In that moment, his heart was opened and he knew, and he fell to his knees with the knowledge of it.”

“Inár-Ádun. You are the Messiah!”

Again, Anoreth took Dártan’s hand and helped him to his feet.

“How could I not have known?” Dártan said, embarrassed.

“It was not yet time.” Anoreth said softly. “But now the time approaches when all will know, though it is not yet here. Dártan, you must not reveal this yet. Do you understand?”

“But R’ille was right! You have come! The people must know!”

“Dártan, you must say nothing to anyone.”

Dártan looked at Anoreth, but he didn’t understand. He had so many questions, and two that lay heaviest on his heart.

Does R’ille know?

Will she be forgiven for her crimes against her people?

Over the centuries, Dártan had watched her pain, and had grown to love her.

“Be at peace.” Anoreth said, taking His step-father’s hand, and together they walked to the edge of the cliff where the falls roared into the Great Chasm. “Dártan, now you know Me in truth. With that knowledge you have gained true immortality this day.” He smiled a warm smile, but Dártan was puzzled by his words. “I must go away for awhile, the Messiah continued. You cannot go where I go now, Dártan, but we will meet again. Remember: Do not yet reveal what you have learned.” Anoreth’s expression changed at that moment, and his face took on a look of sorrow, as if He knew something that He didn’t reveal. He hugged Dártan and turned to the edge of the cliff beside the waterfall. As Dártan watched in disbelief, Anoreth stepped right off the edge.

“No!” Dártan screamed, as he watched Anoreth fall until He disappeared from sight.

For a long time Dártan knelt in shock at the edge of the cliff, unable to believe what he had just happened. For so many years he had raised Anoreth as his son, hiding that he was really R’ille’s child. For so many years he had longed to cross this chasm with R’ille in search of his friend Brinn. For so very long he had searched for salvation for R’ille; for help with the torment he knew was in her mind. He had been torn between his love for her and his loyalty to Brinn, his lost friend. Often times he had thought about doing what the Messiah had just done; launching himself off the edge and into the void below, if for no other reason than to end the pain and the sadness in his heart. His only comfort had come in raising her Son as his own.

And now he knew the truth, that the Child without a father was the Messiah. He had come. As R’ille had predicted, He had come: The One who brought hope beyond hope; the One who could bring an end to their pain; the One who could reunite R’ille with her beloved. He had come! Yet in mere moments, He was gone again; gone where R’ille’s heart and hope had gone long before: over the cliff like the waters of the Lumen. Dártan couldn’t believe it. He lay at the edge of the chasm and wept. For a long time, he lay unmoving but for his sobs.

As he lay, he listened to the stillness that had settled around him. He lost himself in that for a time, until he realized with a start that he had to tell R’ille what had happened; had to tell everyone what had happened. She had been right all along! He forgot the Messiah’s warning about keeping the news a secret.

He willed himself to rise and turn away from the cliff. He knew now that R’ille had been right all along; he knew that she had to continue the work that had brought the people’s wrath upon her. He would run to tell the people that R’ille had been right: Inár-Ádun had come.

Dártan left the edge of the Great Chasm and the Falls of Lumen and traveled swiftly westward, before long coming upon the crowd that had departed from R’ille and him.

“I saw Him! The Messiah!” he shouted. “Inár-Ádun has come!”

The crowd turned at his voice and rushed him. He had been forgiven by the Council of Illuminar for protecting R’ille, but these new words were blasphemy, bringing a sentence of death.

“It is Anoreth! My Son! He is not my real Son, He is the Messiah!”

The crowd was incensed. Now Dártan was blaspheming as badly as R’ille. He had to be stopped. Picking up stones, they began to pummel Dártan, as they’d done to R’ille. In moments, Dártan collapsed from the brutal onslaught. Stone after stone hit with sickening thuds against his soft body. They came too fast; he couldn’t heal the wounds fast enough. The crowd saw his plight and intensified their barrage.

“I saw Him, Inár-Ádun has come.” He gasped and spit frothy blood from broken ribs as he spoke those words, and then a great stone crushed against his temple. Crumpling in their midst, he took his last breath and died.