Soul Quest
It had been four weeks since I lost the only man I ever loved. My betrothed for a mere two hours, so hopeful was I that love would be enough to see us both through. It was the Cataclysm and I did know better but I hoped anyway. That was the sort of effect Dalziel had on me.
We had not even four months together but it was enough for me to know I never wanted to be without him again. I was ready to promise him forever and I dreamed too fast of having a family again. All I have now is that he felt the same.
Except that’s not entirely true. Because of the walls Dalziel broke down, a family built up around me. Some of them died too. Jerusalem and Masada – distant cousins but closest kin, and so much more. But others lived. Megiddo lives for his wedding and he now claims me as a sister. Ki – well I claimed him as a brother but he has welcomed me to his clan as if I truly were a long lost McAylwyn. Then there’s El.
I thought I’d lost her too and she was the first person I cried for, but she held on. Just long enough to get to that moment where our lives fell back into sync and we were only going to make it through together.
We’ve been doing okay. When one of us felt we could not cope, the other was strong enough for us both. And we haven’t been alone either. Ki carries the weight of both our hearts along with his own and he channels his pain by making sure which ever of us is the strong one at any particular moment is kept strong enough. Lio helps in her way too by removing the more mundane worries from us all. I never knew before how powerful a simple apple could be.
But despite all this, I knew I was still falling. I wasn’t long enough out of that darkness from the first time I lost everything that it didn’t still have a hold of me to drag me back. But the difference this time is I know I can’t let it. Last time I thought I had nothing to lose. This time… Dalziel gave me so much more than just himself. Whatever people think I am that makes them want me to stay: that’s him. And it’s powerful enough that even I want me to stay.
So that’s why I left the warmth and comfort of Hearth and Home. As long as I was there, I knew I could get through each day. But I couldn’t stay there forever. My life still waited in Fort Hatfield. I needed to know I could make it on my own again. El needed Jerusalem’s family – those Lions that had also become hers. I wasn’t ready to go home to them yet. So while she sought the healing I couldn’t provide, I went in search of my own. I went looking for Avalon.
I didn’t actually expect to find it. Thought the whole ‘Soul Quest’ was a metaphor. Avalon being a different plane with the pathway closed and me being in Caledonia far away from even the last scattered remnants of Holy Isle… the only bit of Avalon out there was me. Turned out that was enough.
It is said that Kamyr, son of Cuthbert and Areth, was the first to make the Soul Quest when his family were washed away. It was tradition for a while – to lose oneself in solace and walk the land until Avalon heard your pain and sent you what you needed to heal. A tradition long lost by the time I was born. Avalon was in her dying days by then and many traditions were sacrificed to live just one day more. But my father loved to share the stories and so I wondered. If I lost myself out here in the wilds of Caledonia, just who would Avalon send to find me? I thought if I imagined anyone to put me back on the right path, it would be Dalziel.
I almost changed my mind. El and Ki weren’t happy about this plan of mine to go off alone in a land I didn’t know, with the first frosts on the way and the whole world still shaking from a cataclysm yet to run its course. I had to promise them I intended myself no harm.
“I survived seven years in the Void”, I said. “Besides, I promised Dalziel. I’ll be okay.”
They had to trust me. And like all families, they had to let go. But there was one thing Ki needed me to do first. He handed me a thick sash of McAylwyn tartan.
“Wear this, will ye lass? Folk ‘round here will take care o’ ye then. Or they’ll have me ta deal with.”
I pretended I was taking it just to humour him but I wasn’t fooling anyone. There is an honour so rich associated with such gestures of family that it brings both pain for the family I have lost and joy for that which I’ve found. It’s easier to pretend it doesn’t really matter. But I’m glad he knows the truth.
I told El I would see her soon, that I needed to do this, but I still needed her too. I think she understood.
It didn’t take long for me to get lost. I had a map but getting the pictures on it to relate to the landscape around, especially in the mists that are never far away; it’s harder than it looks. Ki was right. First village I found, they took one look at the tartan and made sure I was warm and fed for the night. It was there I heard the rumours that fate had to have put there for me. They spoke of an old crone in the woods – a spirit channeller they called her. They were so scared of her for surely she could not channel those who had gone to their ancestors? And truly anything else had to be a corrupt pattern? And most certainly this was akin to necromancy? I understand why Erdrejans are the way they are about death and Unliving. I’ve seen enough. But in Avalon where the land, the air, the seas are our Ancestor, the spirits of the dead did not have to be so far away. Indeed that was the point of the Soul Quest. To find them once again as Avalon became the part of itself that you most needed it to be. So obviously I had to find this woman.
I set out early the next day with a strong purpose in mind. I had learned all I could from the people of the village but it was unfortunately little more than 'out in the woods past the river'. The dreams had come again through the night. I'm sure the villagers were glad to see the back of me by the morning as they wondered just who Kianan was letting into the clan these days.
I was tired. Damned exhausted to be honest - one of the many concerns El and Ki had about my going. Truth is I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours at a stretch since losing Dalziel and that was a whole month gone by the time I set out. One quarter of the time we'd been together. We say time works differently in the Void but it does the same right here in Erdreja too. But it was the nightmares. The same nightmares I've been living with most my life - only I was getting no reprieve from them. Every damned time I closed my eyes they were there. Ki found a way to turn them, just not the most practical way. I couldn't have someone sing to me all night every night! And that was another reason I took the Quest. Maybe by doing something about my grief, the nightmares would return to their normal routine of only coming every third or fourth night.
I fully expected my mind to create the things I wanted to see so when Dalziel walked up beside me, I wasn't altogether surprised.
"Wait up, Naz", he said as he caught up with me, still strapping his last bits of armour on. Not that he needed them where he was but… well that's how I remember.
"There's something I never told you", I said as I walked that little bit faster.
"What is it?" He reached for my arm to stop me and I let him. I turned and faced him.
"I hate being called that."
I started walking again. He caught up.
"Is that it?"
"What more do you want?"
"Nazareth-"
I stopped again and let myself look at him. Really look at him. Every detail perfect. I wanted so much to believe it - to lose myself in a hallucination. What did it matter if I never returned from it? But it's hard to convince yourself your life has no worth when staring at the one person who made every second of it worthwhile. Even if they're not really there. I tried to smile but probably failed. Smiling still hurts.
"What is there to say, Dalziel? What have we to say to each other that hasn't been covered by 'Will you marry me?' and 'Yes'?"
He couldn't answer that one. So instead he shrugged and said "Okay. But can I still walk with you a while?"
Sometimes it's better to hold hands with a hallucination than walk through the deep dark woods alone.
For the next three days and nights I walked until I could walk no more, slept whatever few hours the nightmares would allow me, and walked again. Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn't. Once the Sarge joined me and asked after El. I assured him she would be okay and I hadn't forgotten about her. Just that as much as we both needed each other, there were things we both needed to deal with alone.
As is always the way with these things, it was only when I was about to give up and find a village where they could point me home, that something happened.
One of the reasons I was considering turning back - or at least finding a village, was that my food was running low. Now there have been times in the Void where we have had to make full use of the flora and fauna around us to survive, but a year in the mess halls of Fort Hatfield had softened me up a bit. I had just enough food for one last meal so set about preparing a fire. The fire was lit and the pot was starting to bubble. Which is of course when an ancient old woman came across my camp. My father was very fond of his stories and so it was that I knew when you meet an elderly person in the middle of the woods on a cold autumn night, you damn well share your food with them.
After she had gratefully accepted and we broke bread together, I finally asked her the question that was burning on my mind.
"Are you the spirit channeller?"
She laughed, but not unkindly. "A spirit channeller? And what, young lass, is one of those?"
I couldn't tell if she was being genuine or just playing with me.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend. Just I heard there was an ol… a wise woman in these woods that could bring forth the spirits of the dead."
She leaned her head to one side, all the time scrutinising me. "The spirits of the dead? Sounds like necromancy to me and not something a young girl like you should be concerning yourself with."
I shook my head, desperately wanting to explain to her that I didn't see these things with such a narrow view but the words tripped over themselves and I just couldn't explain why it meant so much to me.
"Not where I come from."
"So you hail from a land where necromancy is acceptable? Ah indeed I could tell you were not of these parts - whatever colours you might wear."
She nodded at the tartan and I looked at it. I fixated on it like there was something about it I had completely missed as it sat there staring me in the face… it continued to elude me.
"No ma'am. Necromancy is no more accepted in my land. Indeed the Land did not abide the Unliving to exist there."
Then she smiled and I'm not sure if anything has ever unnerved me more in all my life.
"So you are as I believed - a child of the Dream."
Then she did something that unnerved me more than anything in my entire life. She took my hand.
"A child of the Dream, yes. But one stuck in the shadow of the Raven."
I pulled away from her and got to my feet. It wasn't going to change what she said but I am a soldier and I do feel better when I'm able to defend myself. Even if there's no defence from words like those.
"What do you know about that? Who are you?"
She smiled patiently. "Why are you so afraid of that which you came looking for, Nazareth?"
"I never told you my name! Who are you?"
She looked right into my soul. "You know the answer to that. As surely as you know the meaning of your name."
I looked again at the old woman with whom I had shared the last of my food. She was bent over, wrinkled, grey - but her eyes were bright. Oh they had surely seen millennia pass, but they betrayed that their owner was no more of this world than I was. I sat back down.
"Areth."
She smiled kindly. "If you are to resurrect the Soul Quest on these distant shores - it seemed the least I could do."
"I'm honoured. Truly." There's no way to say those words that doesn't fall completely flat when faced with the Mother of your clan. There are no words of honour or respect that can ever capture a moment like that. Right at that moment I understood what it must have been for the Prince Bishop's Men to see Cuthbert walk amongst them. And the betrayal when they realised what Benedict had done.
Her hand touched my cheek and despite the calluses I saw, it was soft and warm. "So tell me daughter of mine, what spirit is it you seek?"
"I-" I didn't know what to say. There was someone I thought I might ask the spirit channeller for if she turned out to be real, but right now Areth was talking to me. How can you ask for more than that? "It's more than I dreamed that you are here, Areth."
"Come to me." She put her arms around me and held me close to her. It didn't seem right to resist. "I am Mother to your clan but we both know I am not the mother that is needed to mend a broken heart, don't we?"
I hadn't seen my mother in a dozen years but my memory of her was picture perfect. When I looked up at Areth she was gone, and every details was exactly where it should be - right down to the tiny scar you could only see when she was angry above her left eye where Pompeii threw his pencils at her in a tantrum when she told him I was coming. Well the next few minutes where I cried a lot and she told me I would be all right don't make very good reading.
I can't remember how long we talked. It may have been into the day and through the night again. There was just so much I needed to tell her. Everything that had happened to me since she died. How Father died and how Pei and I tried so hard to take care of each other but always failed and then he died too and I was so angry at them all that I was left alive. The person I became for seven years when I couldn't even see that I was one of the lucky ones to have so much of my clan around me or how they never left me behind though I truly deserved it. A curse that was both my escape and my prison at the same time. Then three weeks on Holy Isle where I found out just how much I didn't want to be alone.
"So when are you going to tell me about him?" she asked.
"It's hard to talk about him."
She wiped the tears already starting in my eyes. "I've never known you to run away from things that were hard, Reth. Not even when I wanted you to."
I miss being called that. I took it so much for granted that Reth would always be here. She was the brave one. Just like her mother.
"I never thought I would fall in love with anyone. And certainly not that fast. But… he got to me. And he gave me what I needed to… well, to get over myself. He made me feel like a real person again - and he made me put myself into this place where I could get hurt again - and that says everything really. Coz no one should have been able to do that."
She smiled. "Isn't that the very nature of love? That it moves you to places you never imagined? Just look around. I certainly never imagined a place like this, yet here I am!"
"But why does it have to hurt so much?"
She just hugged me. There's not really a good answer to that one.
"It'll pass, Reth. I promise."
"Maybe I don't want it to. I don't want to forget him."
"You've clearly not forgotten me. Have you forgotten your father? Or Pei? You won't forget him either."
"I don't know what to do, Momma."
At that she took my face in her hands and stared right into me again. Not like she was looking for something, but like she pouring her strength into me.
"You don't have to do anything, honey. You just have to be."
"What do I have to be?"
She smiled. "Avalon, Reth. You have to be that little piece of Avalon Dalziel Douglas fell in love with. That little piece of Avalon I raised to lead her clan and support her family - and allow her family to support her." She smoothed down the sash over my shoulder. "I think you'll be surprised just how many more people need a little piece of Avalon in their lives."
I shook my head. "That sounds lovely but it doesn't actually mean anything, Mother."
There was a momentary flicker of impatience across her eyes. It's all in the details. "Nazareth, I'm telling you you need only be who you are. You seem to have had difficulty with that in the past so I'm giving you the guidance you came all this way out here for." She leaned closer to me, gripping my face in her hands until we were nose to nose. "There's not a whole lot of Avalon left and part of it is you. So don't you dare waste it. You have a job to do at the end of this life of yours, but you've got to live first. And I'm sorry that you've got to feel the pain, but I promise you the joy is not over either. Do you understand me?"
I nodded. Well, wouldn't you?
"You will." She sat back then with a sigh. "I can't stay with you much longer. Not like this anyway. But you know I never left you, don't you? None of us did."
"I know."
"And Dalziel won't either."
"I know that too."
She made to stand but then thought better of it and looked at me sideways. "I'm sorry. I thought I could help you block your nightmares. I didn't think what would happen if…"
"If you died and you fighting my demons didn't work anymore?"
She nodded. "You can fight the real ones, why not these?"
"I don't know. They're always too strong."
She took my hand. "You're stronger. And that's what they don't want you to find out. I meant it, Reth. You were born to Dream. Why do you think the Raven haunts you?"
I still didn't really understand what she was trying to say but it didn't matter. I felt so tired and she was there. She pulled me back towards her.
"It will be all right. I know you'll be okay. But you need to sleep, honey. Don't worry. I'll watch over you tonight."
It seemed like the greatest idea in the world.
When I awoke - after what felt like many many hours asleep, she was gone. The day was bright for a Caledonian Autumn day. I picked a direction and walked until I found a village where they fed me and sent Angus to escort me back to Hearth and Home. I don't remember much of the journey, my head too full of all the things my mother had said. If I'm honest, I still don't know what to make of it. That's why I’m writing it down. Maybe one day it will all make sense. But today… I got to see my mother. And now everything is just that little bit better.
All Works are © Original Author
(OC Author - Amanda Hill)