Emily's House: Book 1 of the Akasha Chronicles

Chapter 40: Dughall Wakes

Chapter 40: Dughall Wakes

Dughall awoke to an impenetrable darkness. He knew he was alive by the sound of his lungs coughing and wheezing as they sucked in the first air they had breathed in over a thousand years. As he lay in the dark rasping in breath, the reality of his new situation dawned on him.

It worked. He was in his own body, alive again after so many years. But how to get out of this icy tomb?

Dughall lay quietly for a few moments and tried to use as little air as possible. He heard a sound. It was muffled and sounded faint at first but grew louder. Someone is pounding on my granite coffin.

After several minutes, Dughall heard the lid of his stony coffin opening. Fresh, cold air wafted over him. As his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he could make out the faint shadow of a tiny being. Macha.

Macha and Cian had built an underground tomb in the frozen wasteland. She had been true to her word and had put herself into a deep pixie sleep in the gruesome tomb. Besides the coffin, they buried items that Dughall would need when he arose. Warm furs to protect him when he exited the tomb; a torch and flint to light his way; cured meats and water sealed in airtight jars, and Macha herself whose magick was always of assistance to him.

“You are with the living once again,” Macha croaked as Dughall stretched his arms. For her part, Macha looked exactly like she had a thousand years before except that her skin and hair were a dull, lifeless grey. Even her wings, once a beautiful iridescent rainbow of color, had become grey and without any hint of their former luster.

“Yes, Macha, I live,” replied Dughall in a raspy voice.

“You will need to drink and eat to regain your strength. Your body is much withered from lack of sustenance.”

Dughall looked down at his hands and arms and could see that Macha was right. He still had flesh, but it was wrinkled like a raisin and clung to his bones. His skin was brown and weathered like a mummy, yet he was not a mummy. He was very much alive. But he looked like no more than a skeleton with flesh covering it.

Fear gripped Dughall, a feeling that was most foreign to him. This was not what he had expected. He could not go out amongst the humans in that condition. He looked like a monster and would be tracked down and killed. How could he achieve his deepest desire looking like a mummy?

As if reading Dughall’s mind, Macha said, “Do not worry. Your flesh will plump out again in time. With food and drink and the special cream that Cian left for you, you will look normal in a few weeks’ time.”

“A few weeks? We do not have that kind of time. I need to get out of here now!”

“You must stay in the chamber. You cannot complete your task in your present condition. Look at you,” she said. In Dughall’s mind he quietly conceded that irksome Macha was right. He could not even rise to leave his grisly stone casket.

“Eat the stored food and drink,” Macha offered. “I will go in search of more food for you.”

With that, she flew to the ceiling of their chamber and removed a large stone that had been left unsealed for their escape. Then Macha grabbed a small spade and dug furiously as she flapped and flapped her wings. It wasn’t long until Macha had a small hole, large enough for her to squeeze through and poke out the top.

Macha flew down to Dughall and handed him a jar of cured meat and a sealed jar of water. “Eat this and stay here, Dughall,” Macha said before she flew away.

Dughall had no intention of staying put, but he hadn’t the strength to raise his body out of the coffin. Cursed Cian. The old wizard had completed the spell but had neglected to care properly for Dughall’s body. Dughall had not bargained for being a cripple upon his return. He tried to scream out a curse in his rage, but it came out as a mere raspy strangled yell.

In utter frustration and with nothing else to do, Dughall opened the jar and grabbed a handful of salty cured ox. It tasted like leather that had been covered in salt. Awful. Dughall chewed and chewed, swallowing it down with the stale water from the other jar.

When Dughall’s jaw tired from chewing on the leathery meat, he lay back and envisioned his next steps. While in the Umbra Nihili, Dughall was still connected to the aether and the web of all existence. Even though he could interact with it in no way, he was able to know all that took place in all of creation.

Dughall knew well why his soul chose to come back together at this time and place. Modern humans were building a most magnificent machine. “They think they are so clever,” thought Dughall. “They haven’t even dreamed of what that machine of theirs can do. So lacking in imagination, these modern humans.”

Dughall lay in his cold, hard home of the past thousand years, smiling a gruesome smile to himself. Soon, all that I have worked for will be mine. Soon, my most beloved, we will be reunited.