Caesaria

V

The river led Jackson down the canyon, deeper and darker into untouched territory. Not even the hunters traveled this far. Weary of the dead, they were, and under normal circumstances, Jackson would've been too. Yet he felt welcome among the unseen souls ferried upon its waters. The hollow pit in his chest was his rite of passage. Down the river of the dead he would go, until he found his sister. Dead. Or alive.

Hours passed. Morning gave way to noon. The sun rolled higher, the air hotter, stickier. As he hobbled downriver, the current slowed to a gentle slosh, lapping, streaming along. Every step he took grew heavier. Every moment darker. There was not a single sign of Lucy, yet if she was anywhere, it would be here.

As the water's power drained, more and more branches, logs and reeds cluttered the river. There were forks in the stretch of water, little islets splitting the flow. A thousand places Lucy could've washed up.

Nestled in the cattails, beneath the fallen trees, every nook and cranny he could spot, he combed the shore. Part of Jackson considered drawing his horn to call the the nearest group of his men, but he resisted. This was his quest. Nobody would bear this burden for him.

My sister. My responsibility. My shame.

Yet there was not a single sign of her. Not even a speck. Not a limb, not armour, not hair, not blood, nothing. It was the river had wiped her form existence, and as the darkness of night drew nearer, he grew clouded, frantic. Well into the dark, he stumbled, feeling about in the reads, half questioning his own sanity. By time he collapsed, soaking and shivering upon the pebbly bank, he wondered if Lucy had been real at all. 

He dreamed that night. Shadowy and dark were the images, permeated by the maddening, trickling flow of the river. In the dream, there was fire. Fire that couldn't be doused, nor contained. Fire that consumed, hungry and ferocious. In the darkness, this blood-red wall burned, consuming all the shadows it found, building, roaring. As it grew and grew, the soft flow of the river mounted in turn, crashing, booming like the waterfall. Thundering like a stormy wave. High above him it loomed, rushing. As the thunder grew nearer, he scrambled, panicked, screamed -- he had come so far. He had destroyed everything in his wake, yet this power, this unstoppable force, barrelled toward him. His wall of bloody fire braced.

And then he woke. To the bright sun of another day, the river mindful once more at his waterlogged feet.

His stomach ached and writhed, and he supposed it had the night before; he'd been too preoccupied to notice. He hadn't eaten anything since the last morning, with Lucy slouching across the fire. He had some dried venison left from their meager breakfast. Not enough to fully sate him -- only a palm's worth -- so he chewed bits at a time. The fog of the evening cleared from his mind. But when he remembered that Lucy had indeed been real, that she was indeed dead, he felt the haze of his guilt begin to take him.

It was with a tearful, shaky breath, that his eyes fell upon the footprints. He'd caught them from the corner of his eye, messy, scattered, cast deeply into the pebbles just a dozen feet away. If the sun had been any higher, or if it had rained the night before, he'd never have spotted them.

They were across the river, half-concealed by a natural dam of boughs, branches and a single log. He hardly blinked, leaping into the river. The rocks of the riverbed were sharp and merciless, but he paid them no mind. Lucy.

He stumbled upon the bank, catching himself, crawling towards the trail. She's alive. She's alive. She's alive. The words droned in his mind, flat and broken. Part of him didn't want to believe it, for what if it was wrong? But when he finally came face to face with the heavy tracks, the pit in his stomach grew even deeper.

The prints were huge. Wide, heavy. Intentional, almost. To make footprints that deep in a bank more rock than sand, it'd have to be. They were male.

The idea in his head was building. He saw the fair haired man in his mind. Had he come here to drink? He was near, then. A dark feeling, a vicious, visceral desire began to boil inside him. Jackson had forgotten about the man. If he hadn't bounded after him like he had, if he'd only used his bow, let Lucy take the shot, even, she would still be here. Maybe the man would have escaped. For good, even. But Lucy would be by his side.

But when his eyes locked onto what lay before him, his breath caught in his chest. The grass before him was flattened. He blinked, as if he was losing his mind. They started in the grass, vanishing behind the treeline of the forest. Flattened grass, disturbed pine needles, the mark of heel and toe tilling the earth. It was a loud trail to a hunter, and Jackson could tell it had been made to follow.

And the scrap of blue fabric. Small, but laid upon a rock. Posed. It was the same as the fabric from Lucy's tunic.

He shot to his feet, facing the mouth of the trail. He peered into the darkness of the trees, knowing the path he would walk. But not without his blade drawn. He checked his revolver -- a rare enough weapon, one only the highest of Georgians kept -- counting it's three remaining bullets. There was no blood, nor signs of any struggle along the path.

He trailed the footprints until the sun was at its highest, its veiled light barely breaching the canopy. Rocks jutted out the earth, some tall, some broken. The deeper he walked, the darker the shadows. Like the mouth of giants, he remembered the hunters recite. To the east of Eugenia, where the plagued dead lie, hell lives below, jaws open wide. An old rhyme for children. A warning.

The rocks grew larger and larger, all until they gave way to the wall of the canyon itself. Roots, poplar, oak and birch alike, wrapped the rocks in their ancient grip. These woods were a haunted place, the elders told, home to ghosts of the dead. His sister may very well have joined them. If she hadn't, she soon could. Had they angered the dead by being here? Had they been the ones to send her down the falls? If they could do that there, what would they do here?

The cave entrance truly was a gaping maw, giving way to the bowels of the earth. The ravenous darkness awaited. The way to hell, he thought. The way to Lu.