ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 10

“‘Zervakan het gaklai na Zervakan,’” Taran explained to Edoss, Cursh, and General Myndehr in the Speaker’s car.  “That is what I think I heard.  It’s an ancient Mystic dialect.  Now I don’t know what ‘het gaklai na’ means, but I think Zervakan means something like a ‘equal’ or ‘maker.’”

It had been several hours since the attack in Doare, and the train had not dared stop in any of the villages it passed.  For they were all destroyed or still burning.  There had been no more attacks by things similar to the Doare creatures.  But near three o’clock in the morning, while Taran was in his cabin searching his books for a translation of the madman’s shouts, the train passed a hillside a hundred paces from the tracks.  Taran saw what looked like a carpet of human limbs without torsos slithering over each other like mating snakes.  Moonlight reflected off the glistening mound, and the limbs swayed back in forth in unison—like a wheat field moved by a breeze—as the train sped by without slowing.

“Which is it?” Cursh asked.  “‘Equal’ or ‘maker?’”

“I don’t know for certain,” Taran said.  Cursh went to fold his arms, but winced as he touched his bandaged arm.  He let his arms fall to his sides again.  Taran knew he risked the ire of Cursh who seemed to have no patience for people who said I don’t know.  But the truth was the truth.

Taran put a large sheet of paper with pencil rubbings in the middle of the table, and Edoss, Cursh, and Myndehr gathered around to look at it.  Only one lamp burned in the car, giving off enough light to cast an eerie yellow glow on everyone’s faces.  General Myndehr refused to allow any more light for fear of the car being targeted again.

“I copied these pictographs from a stone tablet I found in Edellia near Sydear three years ago,” Taran said.  “They flow from right to left.  The first picture shows two beings fighting each other.  The second shows a larger being pushing the two fighting beings together so that they become one.  I believe this Zervakan must be what the Mystics called the First Cause, the creator of the universe.  The source of both rings.”

“I’ve never heard the term First Cause,” Cursh said.  “Why do the Mystics call their creator that?”

“Well there is a philosophical theory that nothing exists unless it is observed.  Taking Observation Theology to its logical conclusion, there had to be someone or something around to observe the universe before there were humans, otherwise there would be no world from which humans could evolve.  In other words, how did the universe begin if there was no one around to observe it?  This eternal being is what the Mystics called the First Cause, for it was the first to observe, and thus cause, the creation of the universe.”

Myndehr laughed.  “No wonder nobody has heard of that theory.  It’s supernaturalist gibberish.”

Taran countered, “Just because a theory contradicts current beliefs does not make it ‘gibberish.’”

“Of course,” Myndehr said, “but extraordinary claims must have extraordinary evidence to support them.”

“Spoken like a good Pathist,” Taran said.  “The rings aren’t evidence enough for you?  That thing in Doare?”

Edoss interrupted.  “Can we get back to the problem at hand?  Why was this man shouting this at us?”

“I don’t know why he would be shouting at us.”

Taran remembered the madman’s crazed glare that seemed directed specifically at him.  But it could also have been a trick of the shadows.  Taran shuddered when he thought of the man pulling bloody clumps of hair from his head and throwing them at the train.  Those were not the actions of a sane man, no matter which theory you believed.

“Somehow Angra’s touch must have driven him mad,” Taran said.

“‘Angra’s touch?’” Cursh asked.

“He had this black glow around him,” Taran said.  “A tendril of dark light came all the way down from Angra and was touching him.  It must have driven him mad.  I saw something similar in Calaman during the storm.  There were two tendrils of black light reaching down into the city, to what must have been harrowers.”

Cursh said, “We received no reports of ‘tendrils’ coming from the black ring during the storm.  Are you sure it wasn’t just part of the storm?”

“Before a few hours ago, I thought they were.  But after seeing that glow around that man…”

General Myndehr said, “And what where those creatures that attacked us?”

“I believe those creatures were once normal animals, maybe people.  But they were changed.  That’s what the harrowers did—they warped living beings into monstrosities they could control.  That man must have been a harrower.”

General Myndehr shook her head.  “One man destroyed an entire village?  Where did he come from?  I thought all the Mystics were in the Beldamark.”

Taran said, “I think we may have to accept the possibility that some Mystics are among us right now.  Maybe our next door neighbors.  Perhaps some are harrowers.”

The General leaned forward, anger flashing in her eyes.  “And we’re taking the leader of our nation right to them?”  She turned to Edoss.  “Excellency, I commend you for your bravery and commitment to this mission.  But with all due respect, there is bravery and there is foolishness.  As the Shadarlak commander, I must insist we end this mission and find a way back to Calaman.”

Edoss stared at the darkness outside the train windows.  “No,” he said quietly.  “We continue on.”

Taran interrupted the General as she was about to continue.  “General, the Mystics who contacted us are not harrowers.  The legends say that the Mystics who fled to the Beldamark were priests who helped humanity.”

“And according to your own words,” Myndehr said, “the Mystics fled to the Beldamark because humanity turned on them.  Maybe it’s finally payback time.”

“Revenge is not what they want,” Edoss said, staring at the pictograph on the table.  “I felt no hostility during my vision.  I saw a culture that only desired peace.  The only negative emotion I felt from them was fear.  Besides, if I’m to understand Dr. Abreau, harrowers cannot…call on Ahura, correct?”

“That’s right,” Taran said, pleased that at least the Speaker was beginning to open his mind.  “Your vision was prompted when you invoked Ahura.  Harrowers can not call on Ahura, or vice versa.”

Edoss looked at each one of his Ministers with a fire that matched General Myndehr’s.  “My friends, the Mystics I saw are afraid of what will happen to the world if we do not help each other.  This ‘harrower’ in Doare is only the beginning.  They are already burning our cities and turning our people into Mercy knows what.  We need the help of the Beldamark Mystics, and they need ours.” He gave Myndehr a sharp look.  “We continue on.”

The General sat back, her arms folded and her face in shadow.

The conductor entered the car, approached the table, and said, “Excellency, we must stop for fuel at the next station.”

General Myndehr said, “You’ve gone through your backup stores already?”

The conductor nodded grimly.  “We only have enough for ten more miles.  After Brehke, there is no place to stop until Kaneta in Edellia.”

Edoss nodded.  “How long until we reach Brehke?”

“Fifteen minutes, Excellency.”

Edoss looked at General Myndehr, and she nodded.  She stood and went to her Shadarlak lieutenants, issuing orders to have all men armed and ready for combat when the train stopped.  The men saluted, then rushed off toward the passenger cars where their men were stationed.  Taran hoped fifty Shadarlak Armsmen—among the best trained military units in the Compact—would be enough to hold off more of the corrupted creatures and harrowers controlling them.

Though he did not say it, he thought General Myndehr was right to be concerned for the Speaker’s safety.  He doubted the Mystics who had sent the Speaker the letter had dangerous intentions, but harrowers were now roaming the land causing the chaos and destruction they had witnessed in Doare in every village since then.  What if the harrowers were also in Edellia, a vast nation of plains and forests through which the train needed to travel for two more days before reaching the port at Sydear?

But Taran was not going to voice his thoughts.  Even if he had to march through an army of harrowers and their grotesque creations, he would do so.  This mission was Mara’s only chance for life.

The Shadarlak gathered all the train’s civilian passengers—about a dozen, including Edoss and his aids—into the Speaker’s car, then posted Shadarlak at the windows of all four of the train’s passenger cars.  As the train slowed, Taran loaded bullets into his father’s old revolver, hoping he still remembered how to shoot straight.

Ten Shadarlak gathered at the windows, five on each side.  The train began to slow for the Brehke station.  They all had their revolvers drawn, pointed at the floor.  They eyed the sparse homes that crept past the windows, searching for movement or signs of danger.

The sun had not yet risen, but it had turned the eastern sky orange, enabling Taran to get a good look at the town.  In between the Shadarlak crouching at the broken windows, he saw a town that simply looked asleep.  None of the buildings he saw were burned or damaged in any way.  But he saw no one walking the streets, nor horses tied to hitching posts, nor dogs, nor birds, nor anything alive besides the pine trees surrounding the village in its mountain valley nook.

Taran saw the platform creep by until the train lurched to a stop.  Nobody met them, nor did Taran see any bags.  Besides the hiss of steam from the locomotive, all was quiet.

Then Taran heard General Myndehr’s voice outside from near the locomotive shouting orders to her men.  Boots fell on the wood platform, and Taran saw the gold tri-corner hats of the Shadarlak rush past the windows on the station side of the train.

A Shadarlak abruptly opened the car door, making all the civilians jump, including Taran.  “Dr. Abraeu,” he said, “General Myndehr needs your counsel.”

Taran took a deep breath, holstered his revolver, then followed the young soldier out the door.  He passed Flynt and Ladak, who gave him wide-eyed stares that did not ease his anxiety over leaving the relative safety of the train.

Taran stepped down onto the platform.  The station was small, with one platform and a long, covered bench for passengers to escape the sun and rain as they waited for their trains.  A small office with a closed window and drawn shade was the only nearby structure.  Beyond it, no one appeared on the dirt road outside the stone buildings of Brehke, though the town looked to have at least a hundred residents.  For what was surely an agricultural community, it was odd that the residents were not up and about before dawn.

Taran shivered, and it was not from the cold mountain breeze.

The young Shadarlak led Taran to the right, where General Myndehr stood with her back to him and looking down at the platform.  Two Shadarlak flanked her, their eyes constantly moving.  More men stood in lines in front of the train’s engineers as they maneuvered a coal shoot above the locomotive’s fuel bin.

When he approached Myndehr, she turned, then pointed to the platform.  “Look familiar?”

Taran stared at the wood floorboards.  He knew he should not have been surprised.  Written in large, wide strokes that filled the entire platform, were the Zervakan pictographs that Taran had just shown the Speaker.  The strokes were in dark red.

“Blood,” Taran said, staring at the pictographs.

“So it would seem.”

Yes, they were the same pictographs, all up and down the platform.  Taran shook his head, wondering what had happened to the residents of Brehke.  Judging from the amount of blood—

The engineers cursed in terror and disgust.  Taran looked up to see human limbs, torsos, and heads flowing out of the coal chute and into the fuel bin.  One of the engineers immediately shut off the flow from the chute when he saw its grisly contents.

“Mercy,” General Myndehr breathed.

A sudden, maniacal howl echoed off the mountains, followed by a terrible laugh that made Taran’s hair stand.  The laugh went on and on, as if the being making the horrible sound had no need to breathe.  Taran turned around, searching tree shadows along the steep mountain incline above the train for the insane laughter’s source, but saw no movement in any direction.

A gunshot cracked from one of the passenger cars, followed by another, and then all the Shadarlak were firing in all directions.  Taran took cover next to the train as General Myndehr screamed for her men to cease fire, waving her arms above her head.  The men on the platform stopped firing, but it took another minute before order was restored on the train.

Once the firing ceased, Taran heard the laughter again, as if it had continued throughout the firestorm.

Myndehr ordered her men back onto the train, then shouted to the conductor to get the train moving again.  The train was already creeping forward before all of the men had returned, making them leap onto the car steps to scramble on board.

Taran rushed back to the crowded Speaker’s car, found everyone staring out the windows in grim silence.  Taran glanced out and saw human remains flying through the air and landing in the grass, brush, and platform with wet slaps.  The engineers were shoveling the gruesome cargo out of the coal car.

The conductor entered the car, his face tired and pale.  “We cross the border into Edellia in five miles, Excellency.  There is a town twenty miles past the border that should have coal.”

“Twenty miles?” Cursh said.  “You said we only had enough coal for ten.”

“We do, but the border is the high point of our ascent into the Perla Mountains.  Once we cross the border, we will be able to coast down hill all the way to the Edellian town of Kaneta, which has the coal.”  Looking at Edoss, he said, “But if Kaneta is lost…”

Edoss nodded.  “Do what you have to do.”

Edoss and his aids began discussing possible options for what to do if Kaneta had also been overrun.  Their discussions were drowned out by Taran’s thoughts as he watched the passing mountains and trees.

Why were there so many harrowers out here?  Where had they come from?

And were they in Calaman right now?