Eyes of the Sleeper
Waking Stones
Thuy pulled the fur lined cloak tighter around her. The Prince had called it ‘toft’, a gift. She had been reticent to accept a gift from her captor but as a prisoner, she wasn’t able to refuse, and as the chill winds of the cliffs set in around her, she appreciated it even more.
“Is the rumor about the queen true?” Thuy asked.
“Which one?” Prince Thelm asked, “There are so many of them that it’s hard to keep track.”
“That she... copulated... with a god.”
The blonde armored warrior to her left turned to her and waved his hand in front of his mouth, a universal signal to be silent. The prince turned in his saddle to look at his prisoner and the warrior quickly regained his former demeanor. The prince faced forward once more before speaking.
“I do not know,” the prince said flatly, “It was before I was born.”
Motion to her left drew Thuy’s attention and she turned to the blonde warrior once more. He was folding his arms and making a rocking motion as if cradling a baby. He then pointed to the fur cloaked back of the prince. The story was revealed to her, why the prince was the youngest, why he didn’t share the physical attributes of his fellow warriors or those of his siblings. She also got the message that it was not a topic to be discussed, at least not while she was being escorted as a prisoner to the northlands.
“Surah, that is your name, yes?” Thuy addressed the blonde warrior.
Ice blue eyes stared straight into her own, a notion she was not yet accustomed to. As a princess of the Golden Valley only her family members looked her in the eye and yet every one of these soldiers persisted in meeting her gaze, she felt they were measuring her with each moment and that somehow, she was disappointing them. She would never admit that it reminded her of her father.
“Aye, Sor Thuy.” Surah responded.
Thuy pondered the honorific he used, “What can you tell me of the noble beasts we ride, Sor... Surah?”
“It is Hor, a man’s honorific,” Surah corrected her, ignoring the snickering from the others behind them, “And there is no need for pretty speech. You are a prisoner in name only. The reason you are with us is because your father abandoned you when you lost your duel to Prince Thelm, and the prince is too much of a tenderfoot to do the same.”
Thuy’s eyes lowered being reminded of her current circumstances.
“And these dogs are hardly noble,” he said scratching behind the ear of his wolf mount. The wolf for its part paid the attention no mind, “They sleep and rut in the dirt like any dog would, they just happen to be bigger.”
“Is there a reason why the prince’s is so large?” Thuy asked.
“Hah,” Surah laughed, “Indeed there is. It is the beginning of the legend of our young prince.”
“Do not fill her head with nonsense,” Prince Thelm called back.
“You refuse to tell us what happened so we shall tell the tale of what we know. Do not lose your manners and interrupt a man’s storytelling,” Surah chastised.
Surah leaned in conspiratorially and Thuy found herself mimicking the motion, “You see it is a rite of passage of warriors, royalty included, when they come of age to find their first mount. Their first comrade in arms. Now if you’re a normal person you go out to the pens, bribe a matriarch with some meat and take one of her pups.”
Surah began grinning as he continued, “Not Thelm, you see. Thelm goes and disappears for five days, and he never tells us what happened. You must understand he was named ‘Ill Wind’ because of...” Surah made the cradling motion again.
Thuy nodded her understanding and Surah continued, “Now an ill wind isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a warning, it’s only bad when it stops blowing. So, when he disappeared, everyone was raising a fuss.”
“Then what happened?”
Surah made a big smile, “Thelm returned, traipsing up the side of the mountain in the snow up to his waist, dragging a sled behind him. And on that sled is a giant ball of fluff. As we watched him ascend the slope, his first mount was so big we all thought what a fool he was to go and find a wild full-grown wolf. Then he got closer, and the ball of fluff raised its massive head, and we realized what it was, not full grown but in fact a pup.”
Thuy made a face of confusion.
“Beyond the northern shelf is a barren wasteland of ever-frost where the snow and ice never melt. In that wasteland the animals grow large as they did in an age long passed. Among them are the Yu’ka, giant wolves that stand twice as tall as a man and hunt the giant worms, digging them out of the ground. Everyone in the empire knows the legends but they are rarely if ever seen and hardly believed. A story to frighten naughty children. And this madman comes back with one of their pups,” Surah began laughing in earnest as did some of the riders behind him.
Thuy looked towards the beast the prince rode, the one he had called Mui. To her surprise, Mui looked back at her, long ears twitching and fangs overhanging its lips in a mockery of a wry grin. Something about the stare and the expression it was making made Thuy think it was aware they were speaking of it. Surah also noticed and didn’t hide his thoughts from Thuy.
“Yes, she is. I have also received that look,” Surah said as Thuy turned to him, “Legend says the Yu’Ka are smart things. That they possess the ability to speak. I have yet to hear her speak but I know she understands the words that cross our tongues.”
Prince Thelm held up his fist high in the air and the column of mounted soldiers slowed as weapons were drawn. Thelm pointed at the rocky cliff face where a long and thin crack appeared showing a demarcation between the types of rock. He opened his fist and cut the air close to his neck.
Surah leaned towards Thuy once more, “Single file behind me. Do not speak, do not make a sound and if you must breathe, do so as if you are hiding from childhood nightmares.”
Curiosity and fear crept into Thuy, but she didn’t question the warning. The wolf she rode needed no instruction, as if by instinct it fell in line behind Surah as they moved forward at a crawl. The cliff face ahead broke away as if splintered by the wind, giving way to turn into an open pass. The pass itself was wide with the splintered shards of the cliff dividing it into many paths. The fragments of the shattering dotted the area and upon one of those fragments sat a stone man.
As the column approached the man grew in scale until the column passed within fifty feet of it and it seemed to tower over them. Thuy’s eyes were transfixed upon him. At first it appeared to be a statue of a man, but the limbs were too long, the chest an unfamiliar shape to men and the face was featureless. It sat upon its boulder as a man does, waiting for ages. This stone man was not carved, she had seen statues bear the weathering of the wind and time, yet this statue bore no marks of the crafter’s blade, as if it was formed from the very rocks itself.
Giants, spirits of the earth, the enemy of the wind gods. Thuy was familiar with the myths but never even dreamed she would see the body of one. The wind danced through the pass carrying the voices of things unseen, they surrounded the column whispering secrets and temptations of madness into their ears. The soldiers clutched shield and blade with eyes darting in all directions. The wolves had slowed to a creep and every strand of fur stood on end turning them into walking cotton balls.
Thuy was mesmerized by the stone man. Her gaze traveled from its bald head down to its toe-less feet and back up again. There was a shared interest. As her gaze traveled back to its face, she saw the eyes had opened to reveal two brilliant sapphire orbs focusing solely on her. Fear froze her in place and though she felt her mouth open she was incapable of making sound. The eyelids lowered to half slits, then closed altogether, and the column marched on to the other side of the pass.
It wasn’t until the last rider cleared the pass that the men stowed their blades and shields, and the fur of the wolves lay flat once more. It was shortly after that Thuy recovered enough to speak.
“Was that...?” she trailed off.
“The old enemy? Yes.,” said Surah flatly.
“It has many names,” he continued, “The Sleeper, The Waiting Man. When the enemy are defeated, their shells are broken, and their cores are shattered if they don’t escape. That one remains, defying the wind. Waiting.”
“What does it wait for?” Thuy asked.
Surah shrugged, “Who knows. As long as this pass has been open, hundreds of years, maybe thousands, it has always been here and not once has it ever stirred. As you saw for yourself the wind in that place is infected with madness. There are stories of those who go missing and no tale of what happened to them.”
“Why do the Gods allow it to remain?”
“I am not a mouthpiece of the Gods, nor a holy man. I do not speak for them nor am I in the habit of knowing their interests. So I cannot tell you why they have allowed it to remain. But I imagine they either don’t care, or it serves the means to an end they have foreseen as beneficial to them.”
Silence settled between them as they continued down the path. Thuy had no more questions, and she was left thinking about she saw. She didn’t dare bring it up. Truthfully, she questioned whether she truly saw it or if it was the madness of the many voices whispering in her ear. Her thoughts were going nowhere, and the memory of those eyes disturbed her inner-spirit and so she spoke to banish the thoughts in her head.
“Do the Northmen always travel with an army?” she asked.
“Army?” Surah asked.
Thuy turned to the column of soldiers marching behind them, “One thousand soldiers to guard the prince. One thousand soldiers marched ahead of us to guard the queen.”
A few soldiers behind her were silent then slowly gave into snickering.
Surah showed some confusion, “Princess. I don’t know what you consider to be an army, but this isn’t even half of the royal guard. The soldiers the queen brought were just those who were already ready or fast enough to come along.”
A small distortion of metrics passed between them.
“Princess. I don’t think you understand how vast our empire is. The queen’s army is actually the smallest of all those in the empire and it boasts at nearly one hundred thousand strong.”
One army, One hundred thousand strong. Thuy didn’t believe him for a moment. The army of the west was bursting at fifteen thousand. And it was just one of many. The scale was beyond her comprehension.
“We’re coming out of the pass, see the snow building up. Once we pass the bend, you’ll see for yourself.”
They passed the cliff face, and the blinding white landscape spread out before her. A valley of snow three times the size of the Golden Valley like the white linen tablecloths at banquet. And around the table the gilded chairs were replaced by craggy mountains stretching into the sky. All along the rocky outcrops the smoke from dozens, even hundreds of fires could be seen and as Thuy squinted through the snow-glare she could see small villages surrounding the rising smoke.