Champions of Serenity :Gathering the Circle

Chapter 45

Jehro woke in a sweat. He wasn’t sure what woke him, until he heard a repeat of the muffled scream. Jumping from his bed, he ran into the dining room only to find the others also there in various stages of dress and readiness for battle; everyone but Tris. The scream sounded again and it came from her room. Airidon beat Jehro to the door only by a fraction. The others close on their heels.

On the bed, Tris was wound in her sheet and struggling against the cloth bonds. Her eyes were sealed shut with sleep and her mouth was twisted in pain. Airidon reached for her and was flung away with a bolt of ice from Tris’s body. Jehro tried to enter her mind, only to be thrown out by blackness as tangible as the ice that hit Airidon.

“She’s trapped in a nightmare and I can’t get in to help her out.” Jehro said as he gathered his breath to try again.

“Wait.” Meckin said and changed shape into a large shaggy wolf dog and bounded onto Tris’s bed. His tongue touched her face and she stilled a moment. Another lick and whine and the eyes relaxed from screwed tight to simply closed. Her mouth smoothed out and her limbs lost their tautness. Meckin then jumped down and returned to his own shape before she could fully waken. He shrugged, “That other voice in my head told me that I would be able to reach her when no one else could. I had to try.”

“Other voice in your head? What other voice?” Airidon asked, leading everyone out of Tris’s room. Then he ran his hand over his face and poured out a measure of wine to help calm his racing heart.

“The one that Tris said was the person from that other place. I guess in that other place I helped the leader when no one else could in the same fashion.” Meckin nodded and took the glass of wine Fini held out to him. He gave Airidon a half smile as if saying he was sorry.

Airidon nodded and drained his cup. “I’m just glad someone was able to reach her. But what could give her a nightmare?”

“Do you want me to try again to find out what it is, Airidon?” Jehro asked, still shaken with the blackness in Tris’s mind. “I don’t mind trying, but I must tell you, whatever is in there is almost as nasty as the spell we helped break a few days ago in Savine.”

“If you could, it would help to know why she was screaming.” Airidon said and sat to wait as Jehro returned to Tris’s room and to her mind.

Deciding it was better to be seated this time, Jehro sat in the only chair the room had to offer and pulled it close to the bed. He gently laid his hand on Tris’s arm and eased his way into her mind. The blackness was still there, but it wasn’t alive and didn’t throw him out as soon as he entered. Taking a deep breath, he started to push his way through the inky darkness and started to see brilliant flashes of reds and oranges. Delving deeper, he moved from reds and oranges into blues and greens and yellows and finally shapes.

Thinking he was in, he was surprised to find Tris standing next to him, tugging him back from a closed door. “Not there, Jehrones, over here.” Tris’s mental self said and led him away from a wooden door where wisps of darkness crept under the boards.

“What is in that room, Tris?” Jehro asked and found himself once again on the outside of darkness. The colors and shapes were gone, as was the mental self of Tris. He was about to give up when he heard another voice, softer and with a funny accent in Tris’s mind speak to him.

“Keep pushing. Darin did what he could as Meckin; you must do what you can as Jared did for me. Don’t let her lock that door; it will only get worse if she does. You must make her open it, no matter the pain it causes.”

Jehro didn’t know the voice and didn’t know the people it spoke of except for Meckin, but he knew it made sense. Handsome had somehow gotten close enough to Tris to cast that spell, what else had he done. Meckin’s other voice told him he could help, perhaps this was Tris’s other voice telling him he had to help. So he took another deep breath and pushed through the blackness again.

When he stood again in front of that door, Tris was there to lead him away. He held tightly to the mental Tris and made her walk to the door. “I am with you, Tris. You don’t have to face it alone.” He kept that up until Tris stopped fighting him and trying to send him back to the other side of the darkness. “We can open that door, Tris. Together, we can do it.”

Tris turned her back on the door and shook her head. “No, we can’t go there. Jehrones, please any door but that one.” The voice wasn’t very Tris like, in fact it sounded afraid, and something Jehro had never heard before in her voice.

“Tris, I’m here with you, I will help you face it.” He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there or how his body was reacting to the stress of this, but he knew he had to give all he could to help her or they would lose her to this nightmare again and again until it was real. He reached for the door handle and pushed the door open.

Waves of darkness reached for him and her, pulling them in, sucking them to the middle of a maelstrom that made the living darkness of before seem tame and calm. Jehro started to feed off of the fear from Tris and the blackness and lose himself in it. Then he remembered it wasn’t his memory, it was Tris’s and he had to help her through it. When he was able to concentrate on that, the fear and fog lifted from him. Then the true horrors began.

It was a room like any room found in an inn; a large bed, a fireplace, a table and chair, and a press for clothing. What marked it as different were the lurid shades of red and black that hung from the bed and table. A faceless man paced and a figure huddled on the bed into the furthest corner possible. Tears streamed down Jehro’s face as he recognized the form of Dina as the one huddled, naked, on the bed. The faceless man stopped his pacing and moved to the bed where he grabbed Dina and bit her breast, drawing blood. Jehro and Tris watched as once again, Dina was raped and beaten over and over by the faceless man.

“Who is the man, Tris?” Jehro asked. He turned and saw Tris huddled in her own corner watching with her eyes wide with fear. Getting angry, Jehro walked over and lifted Tris like a rag doll and shook her. “Who is the man, Tris?” When that didn’t get any response, he slapped her across the face a few times until green started to show around the edges of the blue in Tris’s eyes. “Who is the man, Tris?”

“What man, Jehrones?” The voice wasn’t mental it was vocal and Jehro opened his eyes. The sun was streaming through the window and showed him that Tris was awake and staring at him. “You can’t expect me to sleep through the mental beating you just gave me. What man, Jehrones?”

His voice sounded husky in his own ears as he responded. “The faceless man in that room, Tris; the one that keeps hurting Dina, who is he?”

Tris frowned and followed Jehro to where he was standing and he saw her pale. “No one was to know about that. How…”

“You woke everyone screaming, Tris. You almost turned Airidon into an ice sculpture and me into scrambled eggs. Meckin got you to relax enough for me to try again to help you face your nightmare. The others are outside waiting for us. But I know that until you name him and purge him from your mind, this will keep getting worse. Who is he?”

Tris sat up and pulled the sheet around her shoulders. Then she let it fall back around her knees as she drew them to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She turned her head to face Jehro and suddenly looked as young as she really was instead of the in charge woman they had all come to know and trust.

“Handsome. Savine was a favorite stopping place for him when he traveled. I was innocent and trapped in a human form. How did you get in that room? I thought I had closed it off.” Tris said finally when she realized that Jehro wouldn’t let her go without the truth.

“I think it was the one you call Debra. It was a voice that told me not to give up and let you deal with it on your own. It told me to heal you. She said that as Meckin and I help you here, she had help there from those who are our other personalities. It’s still hard to think of them, but I’m glad they are there, especially if it saves you, Leader Tris.” He teased a little using Korol’s name for her.

Tris nodded and reached out to wipe away the tears on Jehro’s face. “If we must face it, then let’s do it and get it over with. This time, I’ll be awake when we face that door and what lies beyond it.”

Jehro nodded and together they returned to Tris’s mind and the door that was once again sealed shut and bleeding darkness under the boards. Fighting through the fear and blackness wasn’t as hard this time, but the horrors were no less than before. Jehro held Tris as she faced it, tears coursing down her face and onto his shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tris. You did nothing to deserve this. It wasn’t your fault.” Jehro kept repeating over and over until Tris’s sobs slowed and she was able to face what had happened to her without pain and fear. When the two of them left the door and closed it, it didn’t seal and there was no darkness seeping from it.

As Jehro left Tris’s mind, he saw what looked like a shadow pass from her face and she seemed to brood less. A smile brightened his face as the last of the spell was destroyed. “I think you are finally free of Handsome’s spell, Tris. And by my stomach, it’s probably past lunch time. Shall we?”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes, Jehrones. Thank you.” Tris said and waited until Jehro had left before allowing herself one last sobbing fit. By the time she had cleaned up and dressed, lunch had been served and the only thing left was a loaf of crusty bread, fruit spread, and wine.

Tris noticed that everyone was watching her carefully, everyone but Jehro who was eating the last of the fired potatoes and steak. “I owe you all an apology for waking you so early. Thanks to our friend Jehrones, it won’t happen again. Airidon, are you okay? I was told that I almost froze you to death. Meckin, thank you for your aid in getting past my defenses, Jehrones couldn’t have helped if not for you.”

Both Airidon and Meckin assured her they were fine and she was welcome as she ate slowly of the bread. “Are you okay, Tris?” Airidon asked.

“Yes, thank you. It was a remnant of Handsome’s spell and thanks to Jehrones; we were able to get rid of it. Now then, don’t we have some work to do before presenting Hervin with a traveling show?” Tris answered, moistening her mouth with some wine.

“Actually, we are done.” Tyra said and murmured a few words over each of the others and they all took on new forms. Shrina was a dark haired gypsy beauty, Fini a little smaller and blond, Korol a wizened old man with a white beard, while Airidon and Meckin looked like twin brothers of the hack and slash variety. “Well, we had to do something this morning while you and Jehro were working on removing the rest of the curse.” Tyra said sheepishly when Tris didn’t say anything at first.

Tris shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, Tyrandeannah. I think it’s wonderful. When does Hervin arrive to give us our test?”

“Uh, he already saw what we had to offer so far and he took our word for Jehro and you.” Airidon said. “He liked what he saw and agreed to front us.”

Tris sat back and looked at everyone. Then a smile touched her eyes but not her lips. “I see that this group is able to stand on its own without me. I’m glad.” She then leaned forward and took another bite of her breakfast. “We’ll leave Meckadon next week, after we’ve paid back Hervin for his generosity. Until then, we need to keep to our new guises as much as possible.”

“But what are you going to look like, Tris?” Shrina asked her voice more mellow with the new guise.

Pushing away from the table, Tris stood and then shrank. Her hair darkened until it was midnight black and her eyes a doe brown. Then she pulled a lute from her cloak and sat down to strum a tune. The first was slow and sweet, of lovers parted and then reunited. The second was a dance tune that made everyone tap their toes. And the last was soft and sad with no words except those that spoke to the heart. “Will that do?”

“I’ve never heard that last one, Tris. Will you teach it to me?” Jehro asked wiping a tear from his eyes and pulling his own lyre out to try to copy it.

“It’s a song I wrote for my sister, Jehro and I would be happy to share it with you.” Tris replied before once again taking her seat and pulling an apple from her cloak to enjoy as a finishing for her meal. Shrina once again demanded to know how Tris’s cloak worked and Tris once again evaded the question by ignoring it. Things were going back to normal.

Shægnek turned from the window and wiped her own tear away. She had never had to live through what the One did, but seeing the result of it was enough to break her heart. Looking around, she threw a little fate into the mix, making Dreybrenic’s arrival in Meckadon happen after Tris had left. She had seen enough of what that little human with the stolen power had done to the group and she was tired of it.

From his own palace, Chaos felt the fate step in and smiled. He wondered if his sister would use her skills to help or hinder and in this case, do a little of both. He too wanted to give Tris and her group a little time of peace before the real battles began.

Serenity watched carefully as her champions finished gathering and she helped plant the image of Tris’s forest in Tris’s mind as the safe place to go. The magic within that forest would complete what needed to be done.

Three gods watched and waited. Three gods did their own mix of fate into the lives of the champions. All the gods would feel the outcome of the work of this day.