Dio - Onwards (1)

The ataca lifted its long head attentively, its light brown eyes scanning the surroundings. Dio remained still behind the thick bush Erta had chosen for him. No explanation had been necessary as to why she had picked that one; it was the only bush that could conceal his whole body, while its foamy leaves muffled any stray sound.

Dio never cared much for hunting, yet he had already come to know the other villagers well enough. Unfortunately, this meant he could no longer feed the blindness solely with their stories and ideas. He had been forced to join one of the pairs who regularly set out to hunt for several days, bringing back game along with materials for clothing, ingredients for special meals, and other such things. Secretly, Dio had hoped a newcomer would arrive soon so he could avoid hunting and instead get to know them before listening to the hunters’ philosophy and their methods.

He did not mind gathering materials from animals, since by now he was convinced that, like all the other nature around them, they had been formed from human experience and lacked any consciousness of their own. Still, he feared what he might learn if he studied the spears and arrows the hunters carried too closely.

Weapons—dangerous instruments. What if I learn something I was never meant to know? Dio asked himself again and again. 

Yet the emptiness had grown so strong that he could no longer avoid the risk.

The ataca lowered its head again and began licking some of the moss on the rocks with a split tongue. Erta held her bow drawn, the carefully sharpened tip trembling by less than a hair. She held her breath, lips pressed together, eyes fixed on the large six-legged creature. Even with its massive, scaled body, it would not get far if the shot went astray. Her brown hair was tightly knotted behind her head, with only a single strand falling across her face, glinting grayish in the sunlight. Her fragile-looking frame gave Dio no hint of the immense strength she displayed so often. She knew exactly what she was capable of. She accepted every compliment he gave her for a clean shot with a nod, though her eyes also seemed to rebuke him, as if to say, Of course. I never miss.

Dio had already seen her bring down several animals, and she had never hesitated to release the string, loosing an arrow precisely where she thought it would cause the most damage. Quickly, Dio shut his eyes. He did not want to see the arrow fly; did not want to watch it sink into the body to…

A hiss sounded, followed by a deep bellow that broke off with another hiss. Something crashed to the ground, scraping across moss-covered stones, thrashing in desperation, then…

Silence.

Dio blinked in time to see Erta bow her head, as the others hidden in their spots were likely doing as well. Dio had seen it every time. In their gestures he had sensed the humility they showed here, even though none of the animals had ever truly been alive.

A little later, she and Dio sat by the large carcass and gutted it, with Helsat assisting, his knife as precise as ever. While Dio kept his distance and tried to ignore the biting stench, he could not help but bring it up with Erta and Helsat.

“Why do you bow? They’re not real,” he asked hesitantly.

“No, they’re not. But they are still memories of life, aren’t they? And that is valuable. In the end, are we real? In this new world? Are we more real or less real than before? For me, it doesn’t matter. I only know that something which reminds us of life deserves respect. I may bring it down, yet its parts live on, merging with our crafts and making our lives better, even sweeter,” Erta replied.

Dio nodded, hastily turning to a broom bush where large green fruits were growing, glad to be away from the carcass.

“Maybe they’re more real than we are,” Helsat said suddenly.

Dio looked up in his direction.

The small man with silver hair and slightly greenish skin was gazing absentmindedly at the slain animal.

“Why?” Dio asked, and Erta immediately shot him a critical look.

He had grown used to her bluntness, the complete opposite of Helsat, who tended to give vague answers as if to make sure he never said anything wrong.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, pursing her lips.

Dio shook his head, and she shrugged.

“It’s not a problem, Dio. If you don’t spend much time thinking about the hunt, you probably wouldn’t notice. Maybe you’re lucky to remain ignorant. But have you ever seen someone awaken?”

Dio’s blood froze in his veins, and a dim memory rose: an arm strangling him, cutting off his breath, then suddenly loosening before plunging deep into…

“Not directly,” he said. “But I was there. When I arrived, I was attacked, and Ray… she woke the attackers. It was a misunderstanding, a terrible one, yet…”

He fell silent, turned back to the bush, and tried to hide his unease.

“Yes, many haven’t seen it. It’s something you only think about if you’ve witnessed it up close,” Helsat said, prying off a few of the black scales from the massive ataca carcass and dropping them into one of the tear-resistant bags Avee had woven for him.

Erta wiped her hand across her face and drove her knife into the animal’s guts.

“Yes. To put it simply, we vanish. Nothing left but the clothes. Just gone. Gone into… well, it can’t really be described. You have to see it, to experience it. Everything disappears, like visible breath in the cool evening air, and all that remains are memories. If there are people left who remember you…” she said, suddenly fixing Dio with an intense look.

He flinched and studied her in return, for a faint smile played on her lips, something he had never seen from her before.

“Before the Sun came, I didn’t remember much,” she admitted. “I kept very little. I remember a few who hunted with us and awakened, but many are gone. Gone from the Dream and from my thoughts. But since the Sun shines, everything is so clear. No one has awakened since then, yet the people I know stand out more vividly, and I don’t forget them anymore when I’m hunting, when I lose myself in it. Somehow, they’re still with me…”

Her smile faded, and she let out a hollow laugh.

“Enough of this chatter. I need to focus,” she said, then quickly turned back to the carcass.

Too quickly, as if Dio had caught her in something that embarrassed her.

He hardly noticed, lost as he was in his own thoughts, his fingers brushing over the fuzzy surface of the berries before him.

Yes, in the end nothing of us remains in the Dream, does it? The berries we plant in our gardens, the conversations we share with our friends and those we love… They too will fade someday. Or will they?

A distant, alarmed shout tore him out of his thoughts, and he turned in shock. Helsat and Erta had spun around so fast, weapons raised, that he almost missed it. Erta’s dark green eyes narrowed as she searched for the source of the cries, and Helsat had already vanished into the nearby undergrowth within a heartbeat.

Dio tore himself out of his daze and looked toward the direction of the shout. Two warm impressions in his thoughts—ones he had not noticed while focused on his conversation with the hunters—now made it clear that Rack and Hoto were nearby and approaching. Dio knew Erta and Helsat must have sensed them as well, yet their reactions unsettled him. Their movements carried the expectation of hostility, something he had never seen in Daw.

Out here, it really is more dangerous than I thought. Brela, you must be insane, going into the forest alone! he realized suddenly, his thoughts rushing back to her outing.

Nothing in Brela’s manner had suggested she expected danger in the forest. Yet she knew that hunters sometimes came across creatures that were far from peaceful. Dio had no time to think more on it, for in the distance, between the pines and ardentblooms, Rack and Hoto burst out of the undergrowth. The two were dragging a third man with them, limp and unconscious, sagging between them like a wet sack of pangon roots.

“Problems?” Erta called sharply, her bow aimed at the trees behind them.

“No, we just need help!” Rack shouted back, his high-pitched voice still strange to Dio given the bald man’s size.

“Found him, no idea how long he’d been there. He dragged himself a little across the ground, but when we came closer and he saw us, he collapsed in on himself!” Hoto added.

He was not much shorter than Rack, but unlike his hunting partner, his eyes darted nervously left and right, as though he expected a beast to attack at any moment. Brela had once told Dio she had saved his arm after he got too close to an argul. Clearly, the encounter had left more than scars on his body.

The two hunters reached them, and Helsat appeared at once, slipping off his fur coat and spreading it out like a mat on the ground. Soon they had laid the man upon it. His legs twitched now and then, as if they had not yet realized their owner was already deep within himself, resting and gathering strength.

Dio knelt beside him and searched for the small pouch Brela had given him. When she had heard he was going on the hunt, she had protested, but after he told her of the blindness and its return, she had begrudgingly packed him a pouch of paste.

“Does it work for me too? If I use it, I mean?” he had asked her. She had only pressed her lips together, muttered a curse, and pretended to fuss with her geraniums.

Yet on the young man lying before him, Dio could find no wound. He studied him more closely to see what the problem might be. The man’s skin was slightly yellowish but still looked healthy. His clothes were the same gray linen Dio himself had woken up in, though they were so tattered and worn that Dio was sure this man had not recently arrived in the Dream. In his face Dio saw deep exhaustion. The narrow eyes were nearly hidden beneath a black, matted mane of hair, yet on second glance there was also a pulse of energy in his features, one that spilled out again and again in the twitching of his legs.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Hoto asked, crouching beside Dio.

“No, never! He doesn’t look like he was attacked. What could be wrong with him?” Rack asked, his excitement making his voice sound even higher than usual.