End of Chapter 7...
Once again Aura saw the scene before her splinter. The sunlight, the arch, the betrotheds, the wedding party – all of them vanished in the familiar ethereal vortex that immediately seized Aura and swept her away. She couldn’t breathe. Pounding, reverberating drums overtook her senses. Light and stimuli swamped her brain. Aura could literally feel herself being ripped from one dimension and flung into her own.
But this reinstatement to reality was far less traumatic than the first. Sudden as it was, bewildering as it was, Aura had no difficulty recovering. The brilliant lights faded. Air returned to her lungs. Her senses came back online.
The first thing Aura became aware of was the shaking ground beneath her.
“Earthquake!” Nathan cried.
The forest floor was juddering. Aura tore off her blindfold, revealing a mountainous, moonlit scene that simultaneously fascinated and terrified.
The earth was…jiggling. It vibrated like wheat being shaken in a sieve. Surfaces were distorted. Rugged and deeply rooted trees trembled. Branches cracked and fell. Distant crashes resounded as rockfalls were loosed. Rumbling filled the air. The immense, immovable solidness Aura had taken for granted all her life was suddenly revealed to be as fragile as everything else.
“Aura, stay still!” Samek shouted.
Stay still! It was impossible! Aura grasped vainly for something, anything, which might be stationary. Nothing was. The most she could do was, with Ashon’s help, to struggle to all fours in an attempt to defy the treacherous instability of the land she had trusted.
“Samek, watch out!” Tor bellowed frantically. He pointed to the steep hillside on their left.
Samek and Zipporah dove out of the way as a dislodged boulder, belonging to the steep hillside on their left, plummeted right past them. It shot over the edge of the precipice on their right and smashed to bits in the valley below.
But the nearness of this sweep of death unnerved Aura far more than it did Samek or Zipporah. Aura’s heart was in her mouth.
“You are mine…”
“Nathan!” Zipporah screamed.
Tor spun around. Nathan was reeling like a drunkard. He was still blindfolded, still hazy from the drug, and he couldn’t keep his feet – and he was inches from the edge of the precipice on their right. “Help!”
Tor didn’t waste a second. He lunged forward and yanked Nathan away from the brink, flinging him to the ground, where he could fall no further. But then Tor lost his own balance. His put his foot down on a loose stone, and his leg was swept out from under him. Tor slid into the gap.
Instantly Samek, Ashon, and even Zipporah, lunged forward. Tor was clawing at the edge, desperate to stop his fall, when Ashon’s sinewy hands clamped onto his wrists. A second later Samek skidded to his knees on the brink, grabbed hold of Tor’s armpit, and together he and Ashon hauled their friend back onto the path.
The shaking had stopped.
For a few minutes everyone simply laid there, panting and grateful. Nathan was finally able to wrench off his blindfold and look around.
“Where’s Aura?” he asked suddenly.
Samek jerked upright. “Aura!”
No answer.
“She’s not here!” gasped Zipporah, glancing wildly around.
“Aura!” Nathan cried. “Aura, where are you?”
Everyone was on their feet now, searching nearby, and making the air ring with anxious cries. But the only response was the echo of their own voices.
Aura had disappeared.
Chapter Eight
Bondage
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
(Ephesians 6:12, NKJV)
Aura was running. She needed to run. She could do nothing but run.
It was her only hope of escape.
Aura had seen Tor slip over the precipice. She had watched him scrabble at the brink. She had borne witness to the fact that he was barely, just barely, pulled out alive.
At that instant, confronted by the stark imminency of death, something deep inside Aura’s being had snapped.
Out! Out! I need to get out! Just run! Run now!
Aura could not bear it anymore. Dying herself was one thing; enduring the loss of her loved ones was quite another. Zipporah might be strong enough to daily shoulder such a suffocating burden of fear and grief, but Aura knew she was not.
Miriam…Ehud…my birth parents…
Gone. All gone. Snatched away just as Tor had nearly been.
And those who weren’t lost – yet? Samek and Zipporah? Nathan? Ashon and Tor? Benaiah and his young grandson? What did the cruel world have in store for them?
King Amek…leather-hide…the earthquake…the boulder…the cliff…
The anguish could not be endured. Aura needed to run. She needed to leave them all behind, all the liabilities, even Nathan. Her heart could not endure the terrible stretching love demanded.
She needed to escape.
Aura ran madly, fueled by her roiling emotions. She neither knew nor cared about where she was going or how far she would go. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she left the pain and the suffering a long, long way behind. So long behind, in fact, that it would never find her again. Never!
Faster! Farther! Yes! Come on! Go, go, go!
The trees began to thin. Yes! Good! She could run quicker here! She hit a lane, rough certainly, yet significantly easier than the tumbled forest. Aura rejoiced at her good fortune.
Run! Run! Every fiber in her body urged. Escape!
Yes! Yes, she would escape! No one would stop her. Samek couldn’t catch her. She’d left him behind, hadn’t she?
Aura glanced back. There was only shadows and stillness. No Samek. No Underground. No pursuers.
Elation bubbled up in her soul for the first time in many, many months.
Then Aura looked ahead.
Right beneath her feet the lane suddenly dived over a steep ridge, with a brook flowing at the bottom. Aura slid on the fallen, decaying leaves and plunged headfirst down the slope.
She struck her forehead on a rock. The already dark night went completely black.
“Hello, Aura.”
Aura cracked open her eyes. Sunlight stabbed painfully into her retinas. “Uhh,” she groaned, as her hands instinctively moved to cover her face. Her fingers brushed dried blood from a shallow gash in her temple, and she winced. No wonder she had a splitting headache. “Who’s there?” she managed to croak. “Where…where am I?”
“You’re exactly where I knew you would be,” the voice answered pleasantly. It was a sweet, musical, girlish voice, and reminded Aura of delicately chiming bells. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Aura had to swallow hard before answering. Her throat was swollen and sore. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Try to open your eyes,” the girl suggested. Her tone suddenly shifted to one that hinted of cold command. “Open your eyes, Daughter of Rion.”
Daughter of Rion!
Aura’s eyes snapped open, regardless of the pain, and she was sitting up before she even realized what she was doing. Her head spun and sunlight dazzled her vision. “Who – how -” she stammered, still half-blinded, and certainly sickened with fear. “What are you talking about?”
The girl chuckled. Aura was just able to make her out now: a young woman, lithe and slender, perched on a stone less than a yard away from the bank of leaves in which she herself lay. “Royal Daughter,” the girl said, her smile revealing a mouth full of pearly white teeth, “I know most everything about you.”
Aura swallowed again. Her brain felt as though it was swimming. “I still don’t – I still don’t understand.”
“No.” The smile remained in place, but the girl’s eyes narrowed contemptuously. “No, you don’t. You, dearest pet, understand almost nothing.”
“Then start explaining!” Aura’s nausea spiked with her forcefulness, and for a brief second she thought she would faint. “Tell me who you are,” she insisted. “Tell me how you found me. Tell me what makes you think I’m a Daughter of Rion.”
“You mean aside from your blazing scarlet head?” Imia scoffed. “Really, pet, even a human couldn’t have much trouble making that connection. Do you really think I wouldn’t know?”
Even a human… Aura gulped. She did not the implications of that phrase.
Imia fanned herself delicately. “You see, sweet little calf, who I am is the answer to how I was able to find you. You think my name is Imia. It’s not. Imia’s only nineteen or twenty, but I am older than the earth itself.” Imia abruptly fastened her gaze on Aura, and Aura shrank beneath the withering keenness of those eyes. It felt as if her very soul was pierced, and was lying, naked and exposed, for this…creature…to see.
“Starting to understand now, pet?” the girl hissed.
Aura could not speak. Her throat had closed over.
“Answer me,” snapped Imia. “Show me you’re beginning to understand, human girl. Tell me who I am.”
The word was dragged from Aura’s unwilling lips. “Demon!” she choked out. “You’re a demon!”
“At last, some understanding.” Imia rolled her eyes. “Say it again, pet.”
It was another will compelled her to obey. Aura tried to resist, but she could not. “Demon!” she gasped.
“Again.”
Horror was growing in Aura’s soul. She couldn’t resist! She couldn’t fight! “Demon!” she heard herself cry.
Cruelty danced across Imia’s expression. “Again, human girl!”
Aura was panicking now. Why couldn’t she resist? Why couldn’t she fight? “You’re a demon!”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Imia sneered. “Again!”
She wasn’t going to say it again. She wasn’t going to obey! She wasn’t – “Demon!”
Imia threw back her head and laughed. “The answer’s right in your own words, you stupid girl! Again!”
“Demon!” Aura shrieked. Sobs convulsed her body. The truth was sinking in at last.
She couldn’t resist. She couldn’t fight. She was not facing a teenaged Northern dancer; she was facing powers that were utterly beyond her ken. Powers that held her completely under their sway.
They owned her.
“What do you want?” she cried out. Terror and despair were laying hold of her soul. “What do you want with me?”
“Want with you?” Imia snorted in derision. “You? A sniveling biped? I want very little to do with you. Just die when your time comes, human girl, and feed me and my brethren. Then I’ll be satisfied.” Imia’s eyes narrowed again. “Rest assured, that day will come. But not yet. Right now you are also a pawn, Royal Daughter, and you will do what we instruct.”
Aura shook uncontrollably. She could not resist, she could not fight, and she could not run. She was helplessly in bondage. Jehovah she could push away, but this creature? No. It dominated. It overpowered. It crushed. It captivated her and held her will in its keeping with ruthless strength. It owned her!
Imia’s mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “Oh, yes. We own you. We are your masters. We always have been.”
It did not surprise Aura that Imia could read her thoughts. It did not surprise her at all.
Imia uncrossed her white, shapely legs and daintily arose from her stone bench. “You see,” she said, stepping gracefully to Aura’s side and stooping down, “I knew you would come here. Oh, you took a little detour when you decided to leave Synta. But that’s over, darling child.” Imia’s hideous smirk was inches from Aura’s face. “You lost your chance to be saved from us. You know you did. What was it Zipporah said?” Imia squatted down and mockingly parroted Zipporah’s soft, motherly tones. “‘You need to be careful, sweetheart. Very careful. If you won’t let Jehovah be your Shield, then the shelter you have with us right now is just by association. It’s not complete. It’s not permanent. And it won’t save you in the end.’” Imia threw back her head and laughed gleefully. “What wonderful advice! But Jehovah won’t take you now, little fool. He saved you in Synta, and you spit in His face. Jehovah doesn’t like to be mocked. He’s done with you now, done forever, and rightly so.”
For having such attractive features, Imia’s face was now shockingly leering and ugly. She reached out and grabbed the necklace chain hanging from Aura’s neck, yanking it over her head. Aura could not move a muscle in protest. Her very blood felt frozen.
Imia straightened up and eyed the necklace pendant with satisfaction. “Very good,” she said approvingly. “It won’t be long now.” She glanced back down at the shattered Aura, and her pert nose wrinkled in disgust. “Get up, Royal Daughter,” she ordered, and Aura could do nothing but slowly get to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly and her head spun and reeled. She was still shaking.
“We’re going to see your dear uncle, King Amek,” Imia informed her captive, throwing a multicolored, beaded shawl over Aura’s head to hide her scarlet hair. “We’ll have to hurry, before you’re too sick to walk. You have leather-hide, you know. That’s inconvenient, but it really doesn’t mean much.” Imia pushed Aura forward. “Move along, Royal Daughter. It’s time to enter your destiny.”
Aura was only vaguely aware that she somehow began to walk. All she could hear was the harsh black voice she’d encountered in the pit.
“You are mine…”
Imia and Aura might as well have been invisible and insubstantial for all the attention – or lack thereof – that they attracted.
The medium boldly marched Aura down the rough lane she had been following and into the outskirts of a major metropolis. Villages, estates, farms, and homes quickly began to spring up, prosperous and densely populated. The streets were soon bustling with morning traffic.
But no one even gave Imia and her captive a second glance. If anything, the passerby seemed unconsciously determined not to notice them, especially Imia.
Aura could not imagine having trouble understanding such behavior.
“You are mine…”
Utter brokenness filled Aura’s soul.
How many of these people were as helpless as she? How many were unknowingly dominated by the creature that had melded itself with Imia? How many went about their daily business unaware of the sinister, controlling powers behind the curtain?
Aura’s neck felt strangely naked and unbalanced in the absence of the necklace that had been her constant companion. Her heart ached feebly at the loss, but her mind was still too numb to process its implications. She had no idea why Imia had taken her heirloom; she was afraid to even attempt to understand “why.” She already had more than enough evil she needed to cope with.
What moves did Imia have planned for her new “pawn”? What moves did she have planned for King Amek? None of this could possibly bode well for the Underground.
Samek’s face suddenly flashed into Aura’s mind. Her brother. Her brother who loved her dearly. Her brother who had snatched her from the Syntans’ stones, spirited her away to the most secure shelter available, and compromised his own safety for her sake. Her brother who had done all of this even while she selfishly rejected his love and denied their kinship.
Fear suddenly pierced Aura’s heart with such intensity that she thought she might be sick. Samek. Firstborn son of King Japheth. Rightful heir to the House of Rion and the throne of Saren. Leader of the Underground. Thorn in Amek’s side. Hitherto untouchable. No longer. Imia was using Samek’s weak, enslaved sister to reach Samek, and there was not a doubt in Aura’s mind that Samek would walk, open-eyed, into her trap if it could possibly win his sister’s redemption.
Horror bubbled up in Aura’s throat. This is all my fault! He’ll die – Zipporah will lose him – the Underground will be destroyed – and it’s all my fault!
Imia laughed. “Yes, it is, Daughter of Rion. It is all your fault.” A scathing smile curved her rosebud lips. “Don’t forget, this could have been very different. You could have called upon Jehovah, like your family begged you to. You could have truly sought Him that night in Synta. But you didn’t.” Imia’s eyes gleamed venomously. “You were so stubborn. So proud. So confident of your own wisdom. And now look what’s come of your choices! You stupid girl!” Imia’s chilling laughter echoed in the street – another sound the passerby deliberately ignored.
“You’re going to kill him,” Aura whispered. Devastation swept her soul. “You’re going to kill him.”
Imia’s eyes were like slits. “We kill everyone.”
“But Jehovah…” Aura sought desperately for hope. “Jehovah is their Shield. You said so yourself – you said He -”
“We kill everyone,” Imia spat. “Death is ours. Have you ever seen the believers’ precious Jehovah protect His servants from death? Have you? He let your real father die to save your mother Varyn, but then He let Varyn die too. The cold, cold river soaked into her body and stopped her heart. Oh, yes, He let her succeed in saving you. He brought you to Synta. He gave you Miriam and Ehud and Nathan. But where is Ehud today? Or Miriam?” Imia’s vicious, hate-filled face swallowed up Aura’s vision. “Death is our province, human girl,” she growled. “Pain is ours to inflict. Jehovah permits His servants to suffer – and suffer they shall!”
Aura’s stomach turned completely. She staggered to her knees at the edge of the road and threw up into the ditch. Imia stood by in disgust, averting her gaze.
“Spineless biped,” she sniffed. “Hurry up.”
Aura could not hurry up. She was blanched, shaking, and sick. Her throat was swollen and burning. Her head throbbed. Her muscles felt like limp strings. She was only vaguely aware of people glancing away from her plight and giving her and Imia a wide berth, anxious to put as much distance between them as possible.
There was no hope of rescue.
“You are mine…”
Retching sobs tore from Aura’s throat. She was a demons’ pawn being driven into the clutches of King Amek; she had willfully condemned herself to be the cause of both her brother’s death and the destruction of the courageous few who dared oppose Southern tyranny; she had senselessly spurned the grace Jehovah offered her; and now she had no choice but to abide by the disastrous choices she had already made. Could the situation possibly be made any worse?
Aura’s brain began to whirl. A cyclone of lights and images invaded the edges of her vision and spiraled rapidly inward.
No, no, no…not again…
The road, the ditch, the people, and even Imia disappeared as the eye of the roaring cyclone snapped shut with a shattering blast of light.
~ Interlude ~
Savannah was lost. And she knew it.
How was she going to get home?
Savannah swallowed hard and dug her fingernails into her sweaty palms as she turned, round and round, slowly, to survey her utterly unfamiliar surroundings. Her eight-year-old mind swam with confusion and half-acknowledged dread.
Lost! The word made her shiver.
Round and round again Savannah turned, desperate to see something, anything, she recognized. She didn’t. She’d never seen this place before in her life. The sylvan wilderness was empty, strange, and silent as a tomb. Dry, rust-colored pine needles carpeted the ground beneath her feet. A few hundred yards downslope a stony, shallow river rushed along in its course between two sharply angled rises, and granite boulders protruded from the eroded earth. The panorama had been attractive a moment ago. But now that Savannah realized her peril, everything seemed sinister and foreboding. Even the warm, shining sun and the clear, crisp blue sky overhead – the temptations that had lured her so far from home – made her feel threatened.
She was…lost.
Lost. An overwhelming rush of helplessness flooded Savannah’s heart. Instinct took over.
“Daddy!” she screamed, almost in tears. “Mommy! Daddy!”
The only response was the forlorn echo of Savannah’s own voice. Nobody answered. Nobody came. Savannah screamed herself hoarse, but there was no one to hear. “Mommy! Daddy!”
It didn’t matter. Savannah was alone. She cast herself down her knees, sobbing, and poured out her heart to the only one who could still hear her.
“Elohim!” she cried. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I disobeyed! I’m so scared. I need help. I want to go home! Oh, Lord, please, please get me home!”
There was nothing more that needed to be said. Savannah continued sobbing for a while, but her tears slowly subsided. She huddled against one of the gray, sun-warmed boulders, sniffing, rubbing her eyes, and waiting. Waiting, she knew, was the only option she had left. She couldn’t undo the past. She couldn’t get herself home. She couldn’t do anything except obey her parents’ contingency instructions – that is, to stay put and let them find her – and trust her heavenly Father to do what was best.
The late afternoon crawled onwards into evening. Hours passed, but still no one came. It had been a long day. Savannah was hungry, sore, and tired. Her eyelids began to droop. As night fell, she drifted into a heavy slumber.
It was the screeching that woke her.
Human shouts and animal shrieks shattered the midnight stillness. Savannah stared wide-eyed and frozen into the darkness, her every hair standing on end. Only one animal could make such a bloodcurdling din.
Nightshade!
Sure enough, Savannah heard the thunderous wing beats belonging to the largest species of nightshade. Terror pierced her soul as the venomous beast’s high, rasping screech tore through the darkness. She cowered against her boulder.
“Head for the trees!” A man’s shouted, urgent command reached Savannah’s ears. Heavy footsteps were pounding up her wooded hill. “Keep low! Get to the ridge!”
People! People who might be able to take her home! People who could save her from the nightshade! Wild desperation momentarily overcame Savannah’s terror. The moment the small band of men and boys came in sight, she leapt out of hiding. “Help!” she cried. “Help me!”
“What in -” A boy, swifter than the rest, lunged forward and practically tackled Savannah to the ground. “Get down! Father!” he yelled. “There’s a little girl up here!”
Four men and another younger youth were close on the boy’s heels. They sprinted to her boulder, ducking low. “Merciful Elohim!” gasped the boy’s father, their leader, as he reached for the bow slung over his shoulder. “What’s she doing here?”
“L-l-lost!” Savannah sobbed. The nightshade’s screech rent the air once again, and she buried her face in the boy’s rough leather jerkin.
“It’s circling,” said one of the men tensely. “It knows we’re here.”
“Eastarn, watch her,” the leader ordered his son, his eyes glued to the moonlit sky. In seconds he and the others had arrows nocked and ready, waiting only for a clear shot.
The nightshade shrieked and wheeled overhead, confounded by its own size. Its body was small, but its fifty-foot wingspan severely limited the spaces it could access. Savannah’s wooded slope would give the hunters just what time and shelter they needed to bring the monster down.
The beast wheeled again, coming in close as it shrilled its displeasure. Savannah held her breath.
“Now!” the leader yelled.
The nightshade was just about to abandon its too-difficult prey when the hunters’ arrows launched upward. Savannah heard the beast’s gut-wrenching screech as its flesh was severally pierced. She looked out from Eastarn’s jerkin just in time to see the saurian monster recoil, falter, and finally plunge downward to its death.
Blissful silence fell.
Relieved sighs were expelled all around as the hunters relaxed. Savannah breathed again, but she still hung on to Eastarn like grim death. She wasn’t letting him go yet. Not until she knew she was safe.
“Are you all right, little one?” The hunters’ leader asked, laying aside his bow and crouching down to meet Savannah’s saucer-sized eyes.
She nodded.
“What’s your name? How’d you get here?”
Savannah had to wet her lips with her tongue before speaking. Her mouth felt perfectly dry. “I’m Savannah,” she whispered. “I’m lost. I want to go home.”
Sympathy radiated in the leader’s expression. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “You can’t have wandered too far. I’m sure your family’s looking for you. Tell us what you can, and we’ll help get you home.”
Aura’s vision splintered and burst just as the others had, but this time, she did not wake up.
