Alisiyad Chapter 17 ~ For No One But Me (Part 2)

Liseli opened her eyes.  She was lying in the dust, face on the ground, limbs in a tangle.

She lifted her head and looked around.  The ground was hard and flat beneath her, the dirt cracked into flakes.  She spit dirt from her mouth, but everything around her was dry.  She choked and coughed.  Her eyes were filled with grit.  Gingerly she pushed herself up, squinting.  She sat back, feeling battered and dizzy.  She shook her head and tried to focus.  She was sitting in the dust.  Yes, she knew that already.  On either side of her rose sloping walls of green, and above her the sky was blue.  Before her in front and back stretched a brown road.  She realized then where she was.  She was sitting at the bottom of a dried up riverbed.

Liseli pulled herself to her feet and stumbled to the side.  She blinked rapidly, trying to see through the blinding dust.  With a cry she caught sight of the jug; it was smashed into a thousand pieces lying scattered across the riverbed.  She dropped to her knees again and tried to pick the pieces up and put them together.  But when she touched them they disintegrated into sand and fell through her fingers.  Soon she was floating in a cloud of sand, trying desperately to find a foothold on the bottom.

“Liseli, what are you doing?”

She looked up, and saw Alisiya standing above her on a rock jutting over the riverbed.  The Child’s clear black eyes watched her with a wry expression.  Alisiya folded her arms over her thin bare chest, and tapped them with her fingers.

Liseli made a sound like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.  She hadn’t known she could make that sound.  It just came out.

“I told you,” said Alisiya, shaking her head with a sigh.  “I told you that you couldn’t do it.  You could be resting now, you should be resting; instead you are here.  What are you doing here?”

“Where is the water?” Liseli rasped.

“It’s gone.  I sent it away.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Can’t I?”  She raised her eyebrows and smiled thinly.  “I can do anything, Liseli.  Almost anything.  There is only one thing I cannot do, and you know what that is.”

“It’s not fair.”  Liseli lowered her head, feeling as if she were crying.  But there were no tears.  There was nothing but sand in her eyes.  “It’s not fair.  You can’t stop me.  You can’t.”  She held out her empty hands, looking at the blood clotted with sand upon them.  “Bring the water back.”

“Why?  So you can bring him back to life?  It’s too late for that.  I told you not to try.”  Alisiya frowned.  The sunlight glinted off the smooth dome of her head as she shook it.  “Don’t you understand?  It’s fate.  You cannot change that.  Why do you fight against it?”

Liseli closed her eyes, willing the world to be put back together when she opened them again.  But it wasn’t.  The sand still choked her.  “I . . . ” she drew in a shuddery breath.  “I won’t listen to you.”

“You can do nothing else.  Look at you.  You’re trapped down there.  And what is the use of climbing out?” Alisiya lifted her arms in a shrug.  “Why didn’t you stay with him?  You could have been there when he died.  I think now that you should have.  If you loved him.  If you even cared at all.”

“Stop it.  S-stop it!”  Liseli wavered as if struck.  It’s true.  It’s true, you know.  It is.

Alisiya smiled faintly, but said nothing.

Liseli turned in a circle, searching for a spot where the ground did not slope up so sharply.  She could find none.  But what was the use?  The jug was gone.  The water was gone.  Russ was gone.  She couldn’t feel the dogseye burning anymore.  She lifted a hand to her throat, and felt the cold lump hanging around her neck.  When she looked down she saw that it was black, like a chunk of coal.  Utterly spent.  She turned back to Alisiya.  There was only one thing in the world to do.

“You . . . you’re going to die.”

Alisiya laughed.  “Not me,” she said.  Then her face turned grim again.  “Not us.  It is not our destiny, not just yet.”  Liseli stiffened.  She heard two voices speaking in unison, one was a woman’s and one was a child’s.  Both came from Alisiya.

“I’m going to kill you,” Liseli said through her teeth.  She could feel her hands around the small neck already.  It would feel good to squeeze.

“No.”  The voice was only the Child’s again.  Alisiya shook her head sadly.  “No.  You’re going free me, and yourself.  This . . . this is a mess.  But it will pass.  You will see.”

“I’m not going to move until you bring back the water,” Liseli said, staring hard at the ground.  She could see each dry, crusted crack of the earth at her feet.  “I’ll never take you anywhere if you don’t bring back the water.”  Maybe it didn’t matter.  Maybe it was too late.  Maybe it wasn’t.  She couldn’t listen to Alisiya.  She shut her mind down hard.  She could feel Alisiya trying to get in.  No, out.  Alisiya was trying to get out.  She was already inside.

Where am I really?

“It will do you no good anymore.  You heard Halla.  Even if you had the water, do you think it would matter?” Alisiya sounded concerned.  Liseli would not look at her.  Her voice was like a river of sympathy, only frustrated that Liseli would not listen to reason.  “He has bled to death.  Please, Liseli.  Stop trying to fight it.  You have already lost.  Fate has won, it will always win.”

“You killed him.”  Liseli clenched her fists.

“Not I.  Those were my father’s dogs.  It is the same as before.  You know the story.  You know what he does to rivals.”  Alisiya’s tone became bitter.  “And did you not wonder what it was that saved you from the dogs?  They were sent for both of you, one for each.  But you could not die; it wasn’t your destiny to die then.  Don’t you understand?”

Liseli looked up slowly.  The sand had settled back down around her, and the air was crystal clear.  There was no breeze.  It was like being under a glass dome.  There were no sounds but Alisiya’s voice.  “But if you could save me you could have saved him.  You just didn’t want to.  Because you wanted him to d-die.”

“I—”

“You said so!” Liseli screamed out sharply, balling up her fists against her temples.  Alisiya was taken aback for a moment.  She paused, watching, and Liseli felt herself begin to choke again.  She flattened her palms against her face.

“I said it had to be,” Alisiya shook her head, clasping her hands against her chest.  “It had to be because that is what I foresaw—I foresaw the future, which is fate.  One person.  Only one person would take me through.  Anyone else was in the way, not in my way, but the way of the future.”  Alisiya’s voice was measured and patient.  She held out her hands, and tilted her head to the side.  Her eyes were earnest and pleading.  Understand.  Understand me.

“It was the dogseye stone that marked you as safe, and stopped the dogs from harming you, not I.  As for Russ — you simply had to be freed of him, whether it be you, I, or my father’s dogs who did it.  Do you think that if I could write the way the world goes that I would needlessly kill?  Do you?  Then you don’t know me.  But you don’t need to.  All you have to do is lead me through the Gate, that is all I have seen.  What you think of me means nothing.”

Liseli clamped both hands over her ears.  She wanted to scream again, but her throat was too dry.  It was cracking like the dirt.  Soon she would crumble into dust like the jug.  Don’t tell me what to do!  She didn’t have to say it.  Alisiya heard it.

“You will do as I’ve told you in the end,” she replied.  “You’ll see.”

“Never.”

Alisiya sighed, and cast her gaze skyward.  A small white cloud appeared out of nowhere and expanded into a haze.  “This is all a mess.  If I had not seen my vision I would despair; your attitude is impossible.  Do you want the water?  Do you think that there is still time to save him?  Honestly?  Here.  Take it.  Have it.  All the water you want.  But water isn’t what he needs, is it?”

Liseli looked at her feet.  “It h-helped h-him before,” she said, closing her eyes and feeling each little grain of sand prick and grate against them.  “It heals.”

“Can water bring back blood?” Alisiya’s voice was in her ear.  “Can it?”

“Go away!” Liseli suddenly felt tears coming.  They were wet and hot, turning to mud on her face.

“Can it?” Alisiya insisted.  She stopped.  Liseli could feel her eyes upon her.  When she spoke again there was new urgency in her voice.  “Liseli . . . ?  Liseli, wake up.  Wake up, Liseli.  Do it now.”

“No,” Liseli opened her eyes.  But she wouldn’t wake up.  She looked at Alisiya.  Alisiya was worried now.  She realized that if she did not wake up she would die.  And then where would Alisiya be?  “I won’t.  Not until you . . . not until you . . . .”  Her voice drifted off as she saw something bubbling up underneath the dry crust of the earth.  The cracks began to swim with thick red liquid.  It swarmed up through the ground as if wellsprings of life were everywhere.  Liseli’s feet were wet.  Her chest felt wet, and she saw in shock that blood was running down her chest.  A heart hung from the chain around her neck.  It was the size the dogseye stone had been — the size of a baby’s or a small child’s heart.  It was perfect, each atrium and ventricle proportioned just right.  It pumped away; pumping out blood which ran over Liseli down into the dirt.

“The answer is yes, Liseli.”  Alisiya’s voice drew her attention away.  “The Chaiorra can bring back blood.”

Liseli looked up as the Chaiorra began to flow around her ankles, red and warm.  Alisiya crouched on the rock, leaning forward.  “Wake up, Liseli,” she raised her voice, yelling now.  “You are drowning.  Don’t you understand?  You are dying. You can’t die.  Not yet.  Wake up before you drown.  There is your water.  It has always been there.  Take it and go!”

Liseli looked back down at her feet.  It wasn’t water; it was blood.  “If I die it’s your fault,” she said slowly, unable to care.  So this was dreaming.  This was drowning.  This was dying.  It was true what they said.  She didn’t feel anything, now that she knew.  But the heart labored on.

“No.  You won’t wake up.  You’re doing this on purpose.”  Alisiya was angry.  She was helpless.  She reached out a hand, all the way from the rock.  It reached Liseli and touched her head, but Liseli shook it away.

“Go away.  Leave me alone.”

“No!” Alisiya reached out again, seizing her head between both hands.  She pressed together, and made Liseli look into her eyes.  They were no longer black, they were a pale blue, almost white.  As Liseli stared, locked into them, the color shifted to dark blue and azure, but always remained the white blue, somehow.  Liseli couldn’t turn away.  Alisiya spoke:  “You won’t die, not now.  Look around you.  This is my river, this is my blood, all of this is mine.  You drank from this river and now you are mine.  You are mine, Liseli, and you won’t die for him.  I am Alisiya, and you will die for no one but me.  Don’t you understand?”

Liseli closed her eyes, but she felt herself falling again.  She was falling out of the dream.  Falling fast.  The beating heart dragged her down.  But she wouldn’t wake up.  The dream would end and death would begin.  Yes.  She would die, and Alisiya would lose her.  It was all clear.  Nothing could make her wake up.  I will drown, and it will all be over.