Nemaiza
Stories & Illustrations
The Balcony
Today, the world beyond her balcony is a vibrant forest flooded with sunlight and birdsong. It is a stark contrast to the cold wasteland of yesterday. In that world there was nothing but white and grey and pale blue reaching as far as the eye could see. There, the frost bit her nose and cheeks. It gnawed on any exposed flesh it could find and burrowed bone deep until she was numb with cold. She did not linger for long.
The world below her now cannot be more different. A verdant canopy stretches on for miles – all the way to the bluey-green haze of the horizon. The treetops sway in the breeze, great boughs bending towards one another to spread their constant whisperings. Their trunks are cloaked in rich moss and delicate ivy. Bright birds with golden feathers flit between their branches and hop amongst their roots.
She gathers her skirts and loops them over the crook of her elbow, then mounts the balcony’s marble top. A breeze whips about her legs and raises goosebumps on her arms. When she steps off, the wind steadies underfoot and lowers her down gently until her bare feet touch the soft ground. She curls her toes into the grass and the dirt. Light from two suns warms her face and shoulders.
A narrow trail of beaten grass leads into the forest, left by the regular passing of the deer who rule this world. Always have deer been wiser than the mortals of most worlds, and so she lets her skirts fall from her arm and follows their path, allowing the long hem to drift behind in the dew.
The undergrowth is thick along the trail, but here and there, mushrooms litter the forest floor and huddle together between the roots of trees. Their inky blues and bright reds are welcome splashes of colour in the otherwise endless hues of green and brown. Little doors adorn their pale stems. If she had more time, she might have paused to tap upon a door or two and ask for the gift of wisdom from whoever dwelt within.
The world flickers around her as she walks – memories of all the thousand other worlds she has walked that pass in flashes of colour and sound. There is sand between her toes and waves lap against a long-forgotten shore to soak her feet. She dusts snow from her shoulders. A whale breaches the surface of the canopy overhead. It dives slowly, its heavy body parting trees like a deer parts grass, and vanishes into the depths of the mulch beneath her feet. She hears the echo of its song in the whispers of the trees.
Always the forest remains the dominant world. It rules her today but come tomorrow it will be gone.
The trees begin to grow sparser. The trail leads into a small clearing, a carpet of wildflowers and a swathe of lush grass unbroken except for a large rock at the very centre. A gleaming sword protrudes from its mossy surface. The glint of the exposed blade is almost blinding.
She pauses in the shadow of a tree, not quite willing to step out into the sunlight just yet. Though the glade is devoid of life, she still sees the shadow of an antlered being stretching towards her from the boulder. She watches, fingers touched to the golden choker about her neck, as the creature reaches out a hand and pulls the shadow of the sword from its dark rock. The weapon itself has not moved, but she understands.
The day’s challenge is simple. Draw the sword from solid rock, and she will be free. An age has passed since the curse keeping her soul tethered to the balcony was first spoken, and she has long forgotten why she sacrificed herself to this fate, but she has not forgotten how it felt to lead her own life.
The shadowy figure fades into sunlight and the chain around her neck suddenly feels tighter than before. It is time.
She crosses the meadow and climbs up the rock, ignoring the green stains the moss leaves on her palms and her gown. She wraps both hands around the hilt. The gold threading of the grip is cold against her skin.
Failure is an old friend and a bitter foe she has no desire to meet again. She tightens her grip, plants her feet upon the rock, and takes a deep breath.
The attempt is made. Once. Twice. The sword remains, as expected, within the rock. Held firm. She tries again and again even as the sweat is pours from her brow. The two suns cross paths with one another and begin their slow descent. Only when their brilliant light begins to fade does she release the blade and slip from the rock with palms red raw.
The golden chain bites into her neck. The tears will not come; her fatigue is too deep to allow for weeping. Both forest and sword will soon be gone. Already the trees around her have lost their shape, their once-solid trunks now blurring together. The grass beneath her head turns to stone and she closes her eyes so that she does not have to see the balcony re-appearing around her like she never left.
It will not be long before she loses the last pieces of herself to her curse.
Part Two
A high wind gathers up her skirts and wraps them tight about her legs, tears through the braid of her hair and pulls loose the locks of mahogany brown. She raises a hand to shield her eyes. To her right, a crumbling path hewn from rock rises to the heavens in a slow crawl up the mountainside. To her left is a sheer drop.
Mist envelops the cliffside. It is impossible to see how far below lies the ground. She leans out over the balcony and squints up into the too-bright clouds. There is something unnatural atop the mountain, little more than a silhouette against the sky.
The climb is not an easy one. Loose shale digs into her bare feet and not for the first time does she wish for hardy boots. She would make quick work of this mountain then. Alas, her feet are unprotected, and she is slowed by the need to avoid the sharper rocks. She leaves a light trail of blood in her wake, despite her care.
The wind grows more vicious the higher she climbs. She is wrapped up in it even when she ducks behind an outcropping of rock to spend a few moments out of its sharp fangs, for the wind simply changes direction to follow her. She grits her teeth against its bite.
As always, the world flickers. The mountainside is a calm, summery meadow, a violent rapid that threatens to wash her away, a windswept sand dune throwing grit in her eyes. The sheer drop changes from side to side. On more than one occasion, her toes feel the abrupt edge beneath them, and she pauses to re-affirm her position on the mountain.
She reaches the summit with hands blue from the cold. Her head aches with it. There is no view to speak of up here; only clouds – the peak and she both wrapped in endless white that is somehow both close and impossibly far at the same time. The silhouette has features now. A colossal statue looms over her. A forgotten god? A famous warlord? A prophet from another time?
His carved beard is made longer by sharp icicles. One detaches from the stone face as she approaches and shatters at her feet. He holds aloft the hilt of a sword whose blade lies in broken shards around his feet. A crown upon his head looks to be home to a falcon of some kind. She can see the nest poking out between stone spikes.
What catches her attention most is the faint glow from behind the hand he holds to his armoured chest. Warm light spills from between his fingers. Today’s unattainable prize.
She reaches out a hand to touch the heavy boot to her right. There is no obvious path to his chest, and the stone beneath her fingers is slick with ice. She would fall to her death before she reached his knees. There is no way for her to claim her prize. Once again freedom stands before her, and she is unable to take it.
Defeat lowers her to the ground. She kneels in the thin layer of slow that makes the earth as white as the sky. Cold burrows deeper into her bones. She closes her eyes and pours all of her energy into imagining the mountainside, the snow, the statue, the cold. She imagines the warm glow growing brighter as the stone giant brings his hand away from his chest and holds it out for her to see. The image is so clear in her mind that she almost convinces herself it is real.
Then comes the sound of stone grinding against stone. She looks and sees the statue move – not in her mind now but right in front of her, the giant’s hand coming near. He looks about to kneel.
A flash of light has her shielding her eyes. A man of flesh and bone stands before her, the light from the statue looming over his shoulder now clenched in his own fist. Anger twists his features.
“No,” he roars, and hurls her prize off the mountainside. “You and I are not yet done.”
She screams. Madness and desperation have her running after the light, off the mountain. She does not fall. Instead, she slams into the rail of her cursed balcony and finds herself in a different world.
Her quest for freedom begins again.