DUSKLIGHT ODYSSEY

Chapter 8

The shattered metropolis—the husk of man's heights—gave way, as the miles stretched on toward the west, to emptier and vaster desert plains. Dead civilization, entombed in dust and rubble, became sparse

Ion had never ventured far enough from the city to see the horizon laid bare without a single building to bridge the gap between the earth and the sky. There were no more monolithic concrete shrines wherewith to orient himself. Were it not for the sun and moon which rose east and fell west, Ion would have had no sense for his way. As his home—though he'd never call it that—retreated into the smog of dust behind him the further he went, he felt all the more exposed.

What would happen when there was nothing left to shelter him from the sun's heat and the shadowy spirits that roamed while it reigned? But whenever Ion looked at the girl—short in stature, immovable in spirit—and the egg she dutifully carried with her, he gained mental fortitude enough, if only for one more day of their long, arduous trek to the west.

Naim gathered the dirt-flavored roots she dubbed sun-shrooms at dawn, and Ion carved cuts of insipid meat from élafim at twilight. They slept in whatever decrepit ruin they found in their path when the sun was high, and travelled under cover of dark when the moon stood sentinel in its stead.

As Ion sat massaging his blistered feet one morning as Naim slept peacefully nearby, Ion pondered what drove him on. Was it the girl, or was it the egg? Neither, he thought. Nor was it the quest from the girl's dream. It was what the shadow on the wall had whispered to him that day in the deepest chamber of the bunker, in that anciently bloodied tomb, where the cup of fear ran over, and sorrowed spirits were eternally etched into its walls as their bodies decayed.

He thought of its words—its piercing, icy words that were not received through his ears nor placed in his mind, but scratched into his soul—which made him shiver still.

"You'll rue it, this slight. You and the Angels' Yolk; beating light of life: God's Yoke. Get you this curse: Joy runs cold. Blood rots heavy. Walk a thousand miles, live ten thousand years; each step, every moment, tainted all the more. Soured by you, soured by me. Hated by me. Defied by me. Plant that seed of heaven, and live to see it kill the world entire: soured by you, soured by me. I'm in you. And I'll see you chained by me in Hell."

Worse than the edict was the press that followed, like Ion had gained a hundred pounds all at once. Yet what the shadow spoke of—Angels' Yolk, seed of heaven—the shadow knew about the egg, and hated it. He had to see it through. Nothing was important but that the egg reached its nest beneath the western lake. He knew it. And if he didn't know it, he believed it.

Even still, ever since that day, the world was shrouded to him in heavy, miasmatic Dark. Not the lack of light, but the presence of its opposite. It was as if the shadow was now cast on the walls of his heart, with the thing that cast it at its center.

He laid down opposite from Naim on a dusty floor in a dreary ruin by the side of a road to nowhere. His heavy eyes were wont to shut, but he resisted the urge for as long as he could.

Naim dreamed of clouds reflected on the water.

Ion dreamed, too.

Ion had never slept, but now he dreamed. The day was bright. Light filled the world, and he was afraid. Afraid of what? He did not know. But his mother's fear was reason enough. She gripped his hand. It felt as if it would break. She pulled his arm. It felt as if it would be torn from the socket. They were running. The light was as a flood, and they were about to drown. She screamed. Ion couldn't recall the words. Her last words. But they were shrill, shrill enough to leave a ringing in his ears and a pit in his stomach, even now. She threw him. Mother was not strong, but strong enough to throw him then. Into the shade. A ditch of some kind, beneath some canopy. It was dark in there. Ion hit the ground. It hurt. He'd scraped his knee. He cried out. Cried for his mother. He looked up. A shadow on her throat. A shadow on her ankle. Shadows on her wrists. In their clutch. Four of them. Five. Six. More. Their hands wrapped around her. The look on her face. Mouth agape. Eyes... her eyes. Her eyes. Horror. She began to sink. No... to melt. Into the ground. They along with her. They took her. She was melting. She was ripping while she melted. Ion could see her soul leak out. Her eyes sunk deep. They stayed fixed on him. Her eyes. Cried for her son. Her son sat still, and remembered those eyes.