Empyrean

Chapter 28

Chapter 28-Eris

Somewhere west of the City of Light

Sunset, 18th of Pachon, Year 612

            We have been travelling for eight days and fallen into some kind of routine about it. We travel by hovercraft during the day and rest at night. It’s solar powered so we don’t have to worry about fuel for the contraption in this godforsaken desert. I have just been riding this whole time and I am still really tired from the travel. I have blamed it on my burns to Echo, but that isn’t it. It isn’t the strict rations either. I am used to going a week or a week and a half without food without much trouble. I just feel as we get closer and closer to Balkia every day that I am going to have to face something that I was never meant to. I cannot stop from thinking of why or how Fenix knows about my father. My father, this Don Nyx, supposedly is the leader of Balkia, their king. And I will get to meet him tomorrow.

            So far on the trip I have seen so many things that I have only read about in books. Cacti, snakes, desert mice, foxes, lizards and scorpions, it has been amazing. Echo has been having so much fun I can’t believe I ever saw her as anything but the little girl that she is.

            The man who has been acting as our chauffeur’s name is Amaury. He seems to be nice enough, but whenever I ask why he is here to get us, or anything about Balkia he always dodges the question. I am surprised that he has been able to hold out for these terribly long eight days. Echo and I have had plenty of books to read from Fenix’s library. I guess fire does have a conscience. Since I have learned some more languages I can read more of them, but still the curiosity of what lays before us has all but forced us to pester Amaury endlessly with questions.

            “I think we will land soon.” Amaury says without turning his head to look at the two of us in the back seat. I have just been looking over the side of the hovercraft down the four or five meters to try and catch a glimpse of the animals in the waves of sand. Meanwhile, Echo has been reading Les Fleurs du Mal for the tenth time. I didn't even know when she learned to read French well.

            “Okay.” Echo jumps up. “I’ll help you look for a spot!” I hear, but don't respond. I don't see a reason to.

            After about ten minutes of Echo attempting to choose the perfect spot we land in a spot at least a kilometer from any signs of life. When the machine calms its hum and we descend to the ground the purple horizon is directly in front of us. I wonder, how far we have gone?

            As soon as we land Echo immediately jumps off the craft and starts rolling around in the sand, squealing and throwing sand everywhere. She is not used to having to sit still for that long, but then again neither am I. The only difference is that I am too prideful to go and roll around in the sand with her, however much I may want to.

            “You wanna join her, Eris?” Amaury asks me with the most sincere smile I have seen in weeks plastered all over his face. I can forgive his sarcasm.

            “Only if you will!” I reply instantly. He has a funny way about him, like there is no way you could possibly understand what he is thinking.

            As instantly as I had replied, Amaury jumps into the sand and rolls down a huge dune to where Echo had relocated herself. She has already taken off her shoes and is squirming trying to get her feet in deeper into the sand. Amaury is belly down in the sand and moving about in the mannerisms of a snail or caterpillar, scrunching up and then extending. This makes Echo laugh and so she then starts to use her hands to help her feet dig into the ground. While they are enjoying themselves tumbling around in the shattered rocks I just stand in place, as I have been, too serious and prideful for my own good.

            Despite my words, I don't join them. I just plop down where I am careful to grab the blanket from the bag in the craft and set it down where I want to sleep so that I don't get sand in places I don't want it. After a couple of minutes I have completely set up camp for myself and Echo and have my book ready to read.

            They finish playing about a minute after I have started reading. They walk up to the camp covered in sand. Echo has it in her hair, clothes, and even eyelashes. Amaury I don't even look at because I know that he will look ridiculous. Amaury walks up to Echo with a hair brush materialized from the ether and begins to brush the stars out of her hair. At first she is tense, as she ought to be, be after a couple of seconds she relax and her body, in a sound, purrs. “I thought you would come to join us, Eris. You are disappointing me. You’re even more stuck up than Fenix!”

            “Now that is an insult!” My eyes stay glued to the genius of Dostoyevsky.

            “Hm. That is something we haven’t talked about, right? Fenix! Love the guy. A little bit rough around the edges sometimes, but other times they’re as smooth as a ocean.”

            “What’s the ocean look like?” Echo asks.

            “Um. You’ve never seen a picture?”

            “Nope.” Amaury can’t see her face, but I can see that Echo is confused as she probably thinks there are no such things as photographs you can hold in your hand. She has only seen the ones on the side of floating billboards and other flying machines for propaganda and maybe advertisements in the City of Light. Things must be quite different in Balkia.

            “A painting?” Amaury pleads.

            “Never.” She shakes her head.

            “Okay… Have you ever seen a lake?” Amaury asks slightly frustrated.

            “I have read about them!”

            “Okay.” Amaury takes his left hand and points out in front of Echo as he continues to brush her hair. “Do you see that sand out there, those waves?” He points away from the setting sun.

            “I do. That’s a desert. I have seen one of those, this one.” She responds. I cannot tell whether or not she is trying to be sarcastic, or is tiring of the question. The look in her eyes tells me there is third option I am missing.

            “Now, Echo, close your eyes.” He puts his hand over her eyes and comes in real close whispering so that I can barely hear him. The stillness in the air is chilling. I know she wants to say something, but right now the only person who has a voice is him. “I want you to imagine, that all of that sand that you just saw, is water. All you see is water from as far as the eye can see. Waves upon waves of blue water.”

The End