The Stars Above

  "RUN!” echoed the voice in her ears.

  RUN! it sounded again at her back as arrows fell and horses thundered across the plains.

  Yesugei’s voice followed her long after he was swallowed by the high grass, hounding her through the woods. She urged her horse forward, iron-shod hooves trampling through lacerating shrubs and bushes as low-hanging tree branches whipped and scratched her face.

  The plains were distant now, but the screams clung to the woods all around her, grasping like fingers to pull her back into the nightmare. If she looked back, she feared she would see it all again - Yesugei crushed beneath his horse, yelling for her to run - and then the shame would crash over her all over again.

  The sensation of the horse beneath her faded, becoming as much a part of her as the familiar weight of the Shargaz resting in her arm. By the time night shrouded the dense woods, the horse’s frenzied pace slowed to an exhausted crawl, and soon it could bear her no longer. She dismounted carefully - the terror that had driven her through the fading day dissolved into an empty, hollow exhaustion. She sank to the ground - and knew she wouldn’t rise for a long while.

  High above, the skies had cleared at last. The night looked strangely beautiful after seven days of empty darkness. The moon was hidden by the trees, but she had never seen so many stars in her life. The snout of the Dragon rose near the zenith, and below it was the Scorpion with its raised stinger. There was the Stallion rearing up across the east, and the Huntsman striding out from the west, half-hidden by the canopy. The stars shone tirelessly, their cold beauty untouched by the madness consuming the world below.

  She longed to weep, but the tears would not come. The emptiness that replaced her tears was vast, and nothing could fill it. Still, the stars above shone as brightly as ever, indifferent to her sorrow.

  How can they look so beautiful? wondered Vasilisa, her thoughts growing tired and scattered.

  How can the stars look so beautiful while the world is so ugly?

  ***

  When she closed her eyes, she felt herself falling - falling endlessly through a dark, clouded sky. There was no moon, no stars, no lights to guide her sight - only the bitter cold of the wind that rushed against her face and fluttered through her hair.

  When she peered down from the clouds, the ground seemed so far below that she could only make out the vaguest outlines of the sentinel trees that rose up from the ground like spears. She could feel how fast she was falling, and she knew what awaited her when she hit the ground - even in dreams, one could not fall for an eternity. She would wake up before she hit the ground - or if it was a nightmare, perhaps she would see herself skewered by the treetops before awakening. But the pain would not come - she would always wake up before the pain.

  And what if this is no dream? A soft voice whispered, though it seemed to come from all around her as she fell.

  “It must be a dream,” she replied. She grasped at the fading wisps of her memories, and remembered how she had fallen asleep - shrouded in the misery of the world that was now rushing up to break her fall. “If this isn’t a dream - then I will die. The ground will break me into a thousand pieces.”

  How do you know you cannot fly? spoke the voice, light and mocking. Have you ever tried?

  She had come close to trying - once. When she was a little girl - no older than six - she had climbed one of the towers of the Great Hall and sat on its tiled roof. Stavr and Pyotr, boys themselves, had called her stupid for climbing so high - but they said so from a distance, lingering by the windows as they craned their heads up to look at her.

  She stayed there all through the night, and when the lights of the sky appeared she remembered how they had sung to her then - they called her to join them in the heavens, beautiful and eternal. But when she tried to reach for them - the Dragon, the Scorpion, the three Star-Maidens and all the others - she realized she was only a girl, and that she was afraid. Afraid to leap. Afraid to fly, for fear that she would fall.

  The ground rushed toward her faster, and below she saw something twisting between the sentinel trees - lurking, waiting, hungering. Terror lanced and spread through her chest as she glanced down at the waiting darkness. Though she told herself it was all a dream, she felt her own whispered words now rattled hollow.

  “Please,” she managed to choke out to the darkness of the night sky. “Help me.”

  What do you think I am trying to do? came the voice.

  A spot in the clouds twisted and darkened. The shadows took on a vivid form, swirling into the form of a man, his robe twisting and flapping violently in the wind as he descended to her level.

  Golden eyes opened to meet her own.

  “You are dead,” she muttered to Chirlan, attempting to sound sharp, but it came out a squeak.

  Am I? The sorcerer asked wordlessly, his smile twisting into a coy grin. His face glowed with life, a warmth she never saw in the waking world, yet something felt wrong. She felt as though she were peering into the mind of another, a shadow of a memory from a life lived eons ago. The Chirlan she knew was cold, lifeless, his corpse rotting alone in a cavern beyond time.

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  “I saw your corpse festering in the waters. You are dead - nothing more than a rotten spirit. Why do you torment me?”

  Aren’t I supposed to be helping you? Chirlan said, his smile turning grim. His gaze flicked to the ground below. A far greater torment than anything I can manage waits for you down there.

  His words seemed to further stir whatever lay down there in the woods. The ground trembled beneath her, and the darkness stirred with hissing, the roar of a crowd, the tolling of bells, and a bitter cry. Let go.

  “This is just a dream,” she whispered. “It must be a dream. None of this is real. And when I hit the ground, I will wake up.”

  When you hit the ground, you will die. Chirlan’s voice rang through her mind. The voice in her head was no longer mocking - she sensed the urgency in his words. She sensed his fear.

  “What am I to do?” she asked.

  The ground was drawing nearer - the darkness was growing closer. Soon it would swallow her whole, and she would either wake up, or she would die.

  I told you already, the sorcerer spoke voicelessly. Remember who you are - who you must become. Fly!

  He reached for her with a clawed hand, his golden armbands jingling as she fell faster, sucked toward the hissing void.

  Fly with me, now! he urged, fear in his eyes as the darkness surged to swallow them both. He would not leave her - they were bound. If she was to die, then he would die with her.

  Fly, or die.

  She reached for Chirlan’s hand. As soon as their fingers touched, pain shot through her as the sorcerer’s gold-tipped claws sank deep into her skin. Her fall slowed, as though she had landed into a pool of water. Below her, the dark tendrils and impaling sentinel trees faded. The ground below melted and swirled into a uniform, unbroken plane as smooth as ice.

  Her feet touched the ground gently, settling onto the floor. As she looked up to speak to Chirlan, only the glittering stars greeted her - a thousand twinkling lights, every one a dream, and every dream nurtured by a Dreamer.

  They grow fewer every passing day, whispered Chirlan’s voice from all around. The Dreamers will soon awaken. The world below rings its death knell even now.

  The heavens stretched endlessly, but as Vasilisa tried to focus on one star, a scar ripped across the night sky - crossing from one side of the endless heavens to the other. Then another crack appeared, then another, and another. Like a growing spider’s web, the cracks in the night sky spread until the heavens shattered into a mosaic of a thousand pieces.

  In the shattered sky, she saw them - the dreams.

  She saw the smoking ruins of a city as though she were a star herself - watching from high on. As she traced her eyes from one end of the city to another, the cobblestone streets and the great stone towers made themselves known to her memory. If she looked hard enough, she wondered if she could see a little girl sitting atop the roof of the tallest of the bastions.

  She cast her gaze about the city, and looked to the Elder Tree, the last of the ancient, immortal oaks that once stood upon the hill of Belnopyl. The tree was no longer there - in its place stood a giantess with skin like bark, her eyes closed, her feet rooted to the earth. Long arms stretched up to the sky - from the tips of her fingers thin boughs sprouted, and from each branch were leaves full of life. The goddess’ chest was hollow, a dark, yawning pit from which a slow, steady stream of silver water trickled. Vasilisa’s eyes lingered upon the woman’s face, but then her eyes opened with a flash, and then the dream was broken.

  She then looked towards the east, and in the glinting light she saw another dream - one of fire and choking sulfur, ash and death. A great valley was awash in a sea of flame and molten stone that poured from a broken mountain. In the midst of the flames and boiling heat were a dozen men dressed in the silks and gold of kings - and all knelt before a broken, bitter man whose heart burned through his chest. The king of kings turned his gaze to the sky, and his howl rang far and wide across the burning steppe. The shadow that stretched from his form cast a pair of dark wings upon the valley, and swallowed it whole.

  She looked away from the flaming valley, then turned her eyes north. Higher and higher she rose, past the dark forests, past the taiga, on and on. She went into the frozen waste, and saw sprawled beneath her a great lake. In the deep of night, the surface of the lake seemed like a portal to the heavens - its smooth, unbroken surface reflecting all the lights of the sky above.

  Two figures danced and twirled upon the surface of the water - one a man with a bright sword, and the other a woman, with skin like cracked stone, wielding a black knife. For a moment she thought she could make out Yesugei’s features in the grim face of the man, but then a cloud passed over both of them. When it left, the dancers were gone - and there was another vision.

  A woman, cloaked in pale suns, knelt upon the surface of the lake. Eleven motes of fire circled her brow, and a twelfth burned in her hands, searing the flesh from her fingers. Vasilisa recognized herself, weathered and broken, yet also regal and proud. A woman her mother and father would be proud to call their daughter. She raised the mote of light to the sky, then opened her mouth, and swallowed the burning star.

  The swallowed flame burned brightly in her chest, and she turned her face to the sky, lips parting in a scream of agony. Then from her mouth a pale sword erupted, burning away the earth and sky.

  The dreams began to fade, and the shattered night sky began to fall.

  The lights in the sky faded one by one as the shards fell from the heavens. As they fell, the shards became spines long and sharp, the death of the dreams leaving them darker than night.

  The Dreamers fell from the heavens, and where they pierced the ground death washed across the land in a great, suffocating wave. She saw death reaching for her, howling and screaming.

  Now you know what you must do, Chirlan’s voice whispered to her as death rushed to embrace her. Now you know why you must live. The Mother’s water, the kiss of fire, the swallowed star. The Question…the question of all mortal men…it must be yours…

  The hand of death reached out to her, and as it grasped for her the darkness shuddered and swirled around her as it ripped away like a veil.

  She saw the grasping hand was not of shadows, but of solid flesh and bone, decorated with golden jewelry. A man with light copper skin and long black hair streaked with white leaned over her. His eyes - two pools of molten gold with dark pits in their center - locked onto hers.

  Chirlan smiled. The cruel curve of his dark, dead lips sent a shiver through her.

  “You are not dead yet,” he said, his voice soft and mocking. “So live, Vasilisa. Live…and suffer.”