Darkness Falls
an excerpt

“You can’t come with me,” said Olas. “I must go alone.”

“You need help, Olas,” replied Rallik. “I can help you out.”

“No!” said Olas, sounding angrier than he intended. “This is my destiny, not yours. You have a different destiny, one which requires you to still be alive when the Darkness lifts. I have nothing… no one… left. My family, well, you know all about the, um, love and support I receive from the people who live in the house that I grudgingly called home. My future would be uncomfortable, what with being a twin and the lesser, unwanted one at that. You have your family to think about. Your mom and dad would totally not forgive me if I allowed you to come along!”

“You don’t even know if the Cave of the Elders exists and if it does, you don’t know if it is there, at the end of the river like you are guessing,” said Rallik. “What are you going to do if you get there and there is nothing? What then?”

“If it is not there, then I guess I am going over the falls to my life’s detriment. But, I think it will be there. The prophecies say that the Chosen One must find a single sailboat along the Great River and use it to go to the Cave of the Elders, at the lip of the Great Falls,” said Olas. “The little boat is here, waiting, just as the prophecy says. They say that the entrance is only visible and accessible when the river is three-quarters of the way frozen. Once it becomes fully frozen or before it freezes, the entrance is not accessible. History says that the Chosen One has always gone and faced the trials.”

“But you are not the Chosen One,” shouted Rallik.

“I am all we have,” said Olas.

“What’s in the Cave anyway?” asked Rallik. “Why do you have to go there? Do the prophecies or the histories you’ve memorized tell you anything about it? Is there a purpose? Or is it just that the voices in your head are telling you to do it?”

“I told you, the voices have stopped since Asor… well, they’ve stopped,” said Olas, looking off into the darkness, “But do the prophecies say that there is a purpose? Not exactly. But it is the way it is supposed to be. It is tradition, which is just as good as being required in that you have to do it even if you don’t want to. The prophecies just say that I have to go and face a set of challenges or trials ‘to prove my worthiness’. That’s it. History does not give any indication about success or failure. Sometimes you have to do things just because you have to, Rallik, even if there is no purpose. This, for me, is quite possibly one of those times.”

“I won’t let you go alone,” said Rallik, making fists and standing up as straight and tall as he could make his thirteen year old frame go. “You’re my best friend, Olas, and I won’t let you do it. I’m bigger than you and I’ll beat you up.”

Olas stared at his friend. He could see that Rallik was absolutely serious. “You know that I could pick you up and toss you across the river without breaking a sweat, right? All without touching you. You have noticed the things I can do, haven’t you?”

“That’s not the point!” shouted Rallik.

“Actually, I think it is the point,” said Olas, slowly untying the rope that tethered the boat to the shore. “I have been given these powers, Rallik. The Fates picked me. Well, I was their second choice, but the point is that I alone have these powers. I can move mountains, Rallik, if I choose to do so! I can force people’s minds to do what I want them to do. With all of this power, what could you possibly help me with now?”

Olas saw that his last sentence had cut into Rallik in a way that was not intended. Before he could try to apologize, Rallik said, “Though I may be useless, I am at least still myself. Who are you, Olas? What are you becoming, when you are so impressed by the Powers you have?”

“Look, Rallik,” said Olas, trying to undo the damage he had just done to his best and last remaining friend, “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out like I wanted it to. You have been great and done more than anyone to help us get to where we are. But you are needed here. Think about what we’ve planned. You need to get the people focused on settling their lives back down, get the greenhouses to start producing food before the supplies run out. The people in town will listen to you. They like you. You rescued the King, which was the right thing to do even though we were probably better off without him. This is something I can’t do now because they fear me. I know you’ve seen it. They have followed me because of fear, not because of loyalty. They hated me before the Darkness came and now they just fear me.”

“No one hated you, Olas,” said Rallik. “They just never understood you.”

“Well, whatever the reality was, the new reality is that they are afraid of me now,” said Olas. “Even Headmaster Cragg has not threatened to punish me since he saw me throw the fifty Mackenar soldiers out of the school with the wave of my hand. And Cragg’s sole purpose in life was to punish me for existing.”

“Yes,” said Rallik. “I know that everyone is afraid of you.” He sighed and shifted his weight uncomfortably, his fists still clenched at his sides. “Whatever you do, do not forget who you are, Olas. Your powers may have made it possible for you to do some amazing things, but you, Olas, you were a great person before you could command the powers and you need to be true to yourself.” Removing his cloak, Rallik said, “Here, take this. It will be colder out on the water.” Olas tried to protest but seeing that Rallik was not going to be swayed from this, he accepted the cloak and thanked him quietly. Wrapping the cloak around his head and neck, Olas turned away from Rallik, hoping that Rallik had not seen the fear Olas was feeling.

“Get home before you freeze,” Olas said to Rallik. “There’s enough ice out here already, we don’t need you to become part of it.”

“I’m going,” said Rallik. “But don’t forget! The Powers are not you, Olas. Rely on yourself.”

Olas nodded at Rallik and stepped cautiously into the rickety wooden sail boat that sat on the frozen ice blocks that once were part of the river. The usual moonlight, or what little moonlight there usually was to come through the thick blanket of perpetual night, was even more mottled due to the thick, broken cloud cover and dense fog that filled the air. The wind was bitterly cold, biting at Olas’s skin despite Rallik’s cloak around his head and his own cloak which he had pulled up over his face.

The river was full of large blocks of ice. Soon it would be completely frozen. Those parts of the river which were already frozen were lumpy and unwelcoming of any means of travel, evidence of the rapid onset of the extreme cold which had come with the Darkness, the windswept water freezing in mid-wave. Only the very center of the river remained clear of ice and this clearing was a smaller and smaller swath of water each day, each hour. Olas knew that as the river passed closer to the Falls, it would free up a bit, opening a wider path, but even the falls would begin freezing soon. He used his staff to push the boat across the slippery and bumpy ice, getting to the water’s edge with effort. Pushing hard one last time, the staff snapped in half as the boat slipped off of the ice and into the sliver of unfrozen river. He had to move his weight sharply to one side to prevent the boat from crashing into the ice that was encroaching on the center of the river from the other shoreline.

Settling down with the proper orientation, Olas setup the ragged sail, beaten and torn from an unknown amount of time sitting here in the elements, waiting for the next Chosen One to come along on this journey. With the sail set and the swirling wind currently to his back, the boat made its way slowly down the river. Whenever the wind picked up, the boat tipped to one side or the other, allowing the near-freezing water to splash up onto Olas. The more water that the tiny boat took on, the more it swayed in the wind, the lower the boat sank into the water and the more water it took on as it swayed and bobbed. He was soaked to the bone within a matter of minutes. The water in his clothes was quickly frozen in the cold air and he shivered, partly from the cold, party from fatigue and partly from fear. The water that was settled in the bottom of the boat, surrounding his feet and lower legs, was freezing solid, making him even colder. He hoped that he would not arrive at the Falls so late that he could no longer get himself out of the boat for all of the ice surrounding him, but he also hoped that he did not arrive at the Falls so early as to have no way to keep from going over the falls. The timing had to be perfect for him to be able to get into the Cave. Thinking of this made him shiver even more, causing the boat to sway slightly and take on more water.

He thought as hard as he could to determine if any of the powers that had been given to him could be called upon to help him. He could call upon the fires from beneath the land to try to provide him with some warmth, but doing so would set the little wooden boat on fire; this would have the undesired side effect of dropping Olas fully into the icy water. He thought about calling the powers of the wind to push him faster, but this would cause the boat to sway further and take on more water, or it might cause the boat to careen off of one of the icy blocks in the water; either way, calling on the wind would also cause the undesired side effect of dropping Olas fully into the icy water. He toyed with the idea of calling on the power of the land to propel him and the boat high into the air, allowing him to avoid the water for a while; this would have the undesired side effect of the boat being fully submerged or broken apart upon the landing and reentry into the water near the Falls, causing Olas to fall fully into the icy water. He dared not call upon the powers of water, for water was what had him in this position.

With the realization that none of his powers would help him for this part of his journey, Olas stood, silently, holding his cloak over his face against the unforgiving wind and the water that was sprayed up by the wind and the little boat cutting through it. Though every ounce of his body wanted to, he did not weep, for any tears his eyes could muster would freeze instantly. He wanted to contact Mort’kweit to get advice, but Mort’kweit was too far away and too busy now to provide any solace to Olas. He wanted to contact Asor, but Asor… she was gone.

Olas was overcome by this thought as he travelled through the bitterly cold darkness. She was gone. His friend and mentor, the most beautiful person he had ever encountered, and she was gone, ripped from him by the Fates in one of their cruelest twists. Asor, who Olas had come to think of as a part of him, gone, not in body, but in spirit, resting for all eternity under the watchful eyes of her Caretaker. Never again to be seen by Olas.

His tears began to flow of their own volition, but Olas held them back. This is not the way of a hero, he thought to himself. This is not how Asor would want me to be thinking. Olas shook his head, not only to force the trickles of ice that lined his cheeks to break off and fall silently to the river, but also to clear his head of these thoughts so that he could focus on the task at hand.

Olas squinted through the little slit he held open between the cloak serving as an icy hood and his own cloak, the tiny sliver of space which he afforded his eyes, searching for any oncoming ice blocks, looking for the Falls and busily trying to come up with a plan for what he was going to do upon his arrival at the Cave of the Elders, assuming that he had the timing correct and that he could get out of the icy boat when he arrived at the Falls. This planning stage was where all of the knowledge that Asor had given him, all of the Powers that she had awakened for him, fell useless, for nothing was known of the Cave of the Elders except that The Chosen One must go there and face a final test. No Chosen One, in all of history, returned from the Cave of Elders with the ability to tell what had happened. Most returned and lived out the remainder of their lives in glory and luxury, but none were quite right after their experiences in the Cave.

I will have the Powers once I am in the cave, thought Olas, trying to calm himself down. I have nothing to fear so long as I have the Powers. He forced himself not to think about how this was not any different from the hundreds or thousands of Chosen Ones that had come before him. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself further, but the wet, icy cold air made his chest and throat hurt and he sputtered and coughed his way through it.

He strained his hearing, listening for the sounds of the water rushing over the falls, but all he could hear was the wind whipping past his head and the sounds of the water splashing against the boat. An occasional clunk told him that he had brushed against an underwater hunk of ice, reminding him that the river was continuing to freeze rapidly. He could no longer see the banks of the river, so he knew that the river itself was widening, even if the channel within which he floated was not. The river’s path was such that it would widen to a great distance as it reached the edge of the land, with the river then falling sharply and suddenly to the sea below. The widening of the river notified him that he was finally getting close to the Falls, even if he could not hear or see it.

The boat suddenly slammed into something in front of it and Olas was thrown forward, but not out of the boat. The ice that had surrounded his feet was cracked by the force of the collision and the strain of Olas against it, but it held and kept Olas from falling out of the boat. Olas looked out in front of the boat and saw that it had struck a large ice dam. Cursing his luck, Olas hacked at the ice around his feet with the remnants of his wooden staff until he finally was able to free himself from the ice. Holding onto the ship’s tether, he climbed carefully out on to the ice bank and dragged the boat up out of the water, dumping out chunks and shards of ice as he went. He slipped and fell several times on the ice, cutting his lip when he slammed face first into one of the frozen waves. As he finally reached the other side of the ice dam, Olas pushed the boat back into the water and slowly climbed into it.

As the boat proceeded, down the river, Olas could now hear more water flowing. At first he thought that he heard the Falls, but looking down he saw that the boat was taking on water. Apparently, the collision with the ice dam had caused a small hole to form in the boat, through which the dark, cold water was now rushing in around his feet and freezing almost instantly. Once the water and ice level reached the hole, the water stopped coming in, for the ice blocked it, but now the frozen river water was covering Olas’s feet up past his ankles and partly up his leg. He cursed at the ice as he tried in vain to free his legs once more, almost tipping the boat over with his efforts.

He heard it first, the sound of the water rushing quickly over the edge of the Falls. It was a roaring sound but not as deafening as it would have been if three quarters of the river was not already frozen solid. Olas felt the pace of the little boat quicken from the rushing current, impatient as it was to get over the Falls. He squinted hard through the darkness along the horizon to see whatever he could of the Falls, to get an idea of where he had to guide the boat in order to get to the Cave. His heart rate quickened as he spotted it – a small circular ring rising up above the water and ice on a rocky outcropping right at the edge of the falls. It was on the far side of the flowing portion of the river, opposite of where he was. Great, he thought. Now I have to get over there to the other side.

Olas flung the sail to the side to try to use the brisk wind to direct the boat, but the wind was swirling and wholly uncooperative with the effort. Olas grabbed the sail and its mast and snapped the skinny pole in half. Slamming the makeshift oar into the water, he began to turn the boat, heaving it as hard to the left as he possibly could. The edge of the falls was getting closer by the minute and the speed of the water and the boat that floated upon it were increasing rapidly. Olas felt the side of the boat thump against the icy boundary of the flowing river and bounce back out toward the center of the river. Steadying it with his oar, Olas guided it back toward the edge and then let go of the oar, watching it as the current dragged it quickly away and finally over the edge of the Falls. He felt for the remnants of his staff and for the rope which he had tied around his waist. Untying the rope from his waist, he tied the end of it to his staff and then secured the other end of it around his hand and arm.

He could now see the edge of the falls, curving inward toward where he was, just barely giving him enough space to reach the ring that stuck up along the edge. The ring was oriented perpendicular to the fall line so that Olas would be able to see through it as the boat reached it. As the boat approached its endgame at the falls, Olas leaned heavily to the side to keep it as close to the icy bank as possible, nearly tipping the boat. His feet still frozen to the bottom of the boat by the layer of icy river water, he flung the staff-end of the rope toward the ring feeling it thump heavily against the ring’s edge as it barely made it through.

He had focused so intently on the rope heading toward the ring that he did not pay attention to where he was. When he noticed, he grabbed at the rope to slow the boat’s movement, but it was too late. He shouted out as the bottom dropped out beneath his feet, the sound of his voice unheard over the roar of the water rushing over the Falls. Olas grabbed onto the rope with both hands and held tightly as the boat, with him frozen to it, fell downward. The extra rope slipped through his hands and uncoiled around him up to the part that was wrapped around his arm and wrist. He continued to fall, drenched in water and ice, until he felt the sharp upward jerk as the other end of the rope caught, the staff holding onto the ring and the rope to the staff. The force of this change in momentum threw him and the boat to the side, crashing into the rocks and water. The wooden boat shattered upon contact with the unforgiving rock wall, leaving Olas and a block of ice dangling over the side of the falls, fully submerged in the rushing water.

Olas clung tightly to the rope and kicked the ice that surrounded his feet against the rocks, once, then twice, finally shattering the ice and freeing his numb, cold feet. Fighting his way against the falling water, Olas climbed slowly up the rope along the edge of the falls, finally collapsing on the icy bank where the ring held the flimsy wooden staff.

Catching his breath as he lay there shivering on the ice, nearly frozen himself, Olas looked around and saw the cave entrance, a narrow hole just beyond the ring. He forced himself to stand and carefully walked toward it, grabbing the staff and rope that had saved his life and tucking it back into his waterlogged cloak. Then with his heart pounding and his breath coming in weak gasps, he headed toward small entrance and slipped into the dark, narrow opening.

As he entered the depths of the cave, his mind was filled with the sound of a deep, echoing voice. “We have been waiting,” it said. And Olas collapsed on a cold, hard surface, surrounded by darkness and his cold, frozen clothing.