| SORCEROUS SIGNALS |
| Written by Ray Yanek / Artwork by Lee Kuruganti |
| Valley of Lost Lives |
Seaton paused and used the tattered remains of a sleeve to wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes.
With his vision clear again, he took another step on the crooked path that wound through the valley.
Rocks, charred black by the flames that erupted from the ground littered the path. Seaton no longer
kicked at these stones or used his walking stick to wedge them out of the way. The screams the rocks
emitted when he did so, he could no longer take.
The thought of his weakness made him stop again. Ashamed, he eyed the fat black crow perched on an
outcropping of rock further ahead. Its yellow eyes stared at him, waited to laugh and caw at him as it
had when he flinched from the scream of the rocks. He hated that laugh and caw. Hated it, for it
reminded him of the laughs and caws of those in his village. But there were so many rocks; the path
wound so far and long…he did not believe he could do it, could succeed in the journey that legends said
so many had failed.
Yet he knew he had to try. He had so little time left.
His essence, his samskaras, was depleted. Seaton could feel it in his heavy limbs, his lack of energy, his
muddled thoughts. He knew not what the samskaras truly was, nor from where it came. His books and
scrolls had given him no answer. But he knew if he didn’t find the stone hidden in that valley he would be
left as little more than a husk. He would not die, yet neither would he live—like so many of the other
dead-eyed people in his village who had been corralled into pens and left to die. That had been his
father’s idea, corralling the Empty One’s.
The thought of his father made Seaton cringe. It should not have though, he told himself. His father was
dead now, burned on his pyre, his ashes left to the wind.
Seaton pushed on.
He uprooted no rocks, but a new sound soon halted him. Wings smacked the air around him like a war
drum, producing a breeze, hot and stale. Seaton closed his eyes, not wanting to see the creatures to
whom his books had told him the wings belonged. Mental images of twisted feminine faces, their teeth
rotted and bared, their eyes burning yellow with faggots of hate, proved terrible enough. To see their
plump, feathered bodies, to see the erupting flames glint off their knife-edged talons would destroy the
crumbling holdfast of his sanity.
The first talon pierced the flesh on his upper back and made his scream as loud as the rocks, yet he did
not move. The second claw raked his cheek and sent blood down the side of his face and neck. A third
parted flesh and clamped onto his shoulder. Bone chipped and splintered. He screamed louder. He
wavered, his grip on consciousness slackening.
"Seaton," a voice whispered, smelling of offal and excrement. "We have come for you."
Darkness engulfed him, offered to take away his pain.
"Your father," a new voice hissed in his ears. "You know how you displeased him, how you shamed him."
Again, the darkness whispered its offer with a mother's concern.
"You know how your father wished you dead."
"I know," Seaton answered.
"But you escaped that wish," another voice, reeking with the stink of the first, said. A feather brushed
against the slice in his cheek. Lice sprung from the feather to his hair.
"And we come for those who have escaped death. We collect."
Seaton forced himself to remain still, despite the pain, the stench, the terror.
"You will collect nothing," he said.
Screams, louder, more anguished than the wail of the rocks pierced his ears.
"You have arrogance," the voices screamed.
"I have truth," Seaton answered. "My Father's death wish was invalid. Had it been valid, I would already
be dead or your talons would have plucked my life before I ever heard you coming."
They screamed and beat their wings again, but the grip of the talon on his shoulder loosened.
"Invalid perhaps," the voice whispered. "But you know in your heart your death was still your father's
wish."
Seaton knew it was true. The sadness he always carried with him told him so. His knees melted, like fat
sundering in a kettle, but he summoned the little samskaras he retained and forced himself to remain
standing.
"You shamed him," the voices continued, alternating, one creature speaking the first word, the other the
next, the other the last. "You are weak. You would not fight. You would not be cruel. You let soft
emotions rule you."
His chin fell to his chest. The alternating voices made him dizzy; the truth of what they said twisted his
gut. "It is as you say."
"Then honor the wish of your father! For once make him proud. Throw yourself into the flames. Bash
your head upon the rocks!"
Seaton opened his lips to speak but could not. He contemplated rather the length of the path in front of
him and the life he would have, even if he were to do what legend said was impossible.
The darkness cooed to him, told him not to fear its domain.
"Then do it," the revolving voices said.
"No," Seaton said. He forced his eyes open and the darkness to recede. "If my fate was to die, my
father's wish would have been answered or you would have destroyed me. I am to live. The decision to
do otherwise is not mine to make.”
And the creatures vanished, becoming no more than the stench lingering in his nose and the lice jumping
through his hair. The rush of adrenaline disappeared as well. The pain in his shoulder exploded, gutting
him with agony. He fought against it, but he knew he would fail, fail because he was as weak as father
always said.
The thought spurred him forward. Letting his wounded arm hang, he leaned more heavily on his stick
and loped forward. Another stone appeared in his path. He saw it too late. His stick hit it and sent it
skittering across the ground.
The grating howl needled into his head. Seaton screamed, dropped his stick and tried lifting both hands
to cover his ears. The movement brought fresh pain to his shoulder and white plumes of light to his eyes.
Too much pain.
His body tumbled. Behind the flashes of agony he saw the ground coming to meet him. His good arm
shot forward to catch himself, but he did not have the strength. His cheek met the parched ground, the
impact jarring his vision loose from his head.
The wailing of the rock ceased, its place taken by the cackling of the crow.
Seaton tried to lift his head, but soon it fell back to the ground that was once parched but was now
soaked with his blood.
He could not do this. He yearned for his village, to be back home reclining in the shade near the brook,
lost in his books, losing his shame in knowledge and stories.
But he knew his brothers would find him. They would break his quills and tear his books. And his
samskaras was almost gone. He felt it leaking out of him like the blood leaked from his shoulder. All that
truly waited for him at home, he knew, were the pens.
He wondered how terrible it really would be to just let it all go and accept the darkness.
The crow laughed at him again.
Then, silken fur brushed against his face, his arms, his legs. A purr, soft and contented, hummed in his
ear. The desire to nuzzle into that hum, to become one with the contentment found within it, to forget
what he knew about life, overwhelmed him.
A dog's whimper accented the purrs and he knew the longing behind the animal's cry, the desire for
someone to touch him, to caress him, to love him and make him purr like the cats.
"You can have all of that, my sweet," he heard, the voice feminine and velvet. "I know the contentment
you seek. The pleasure. It is all right here."
Although Seaton did not open his eyes, the darkness parted, revealing a room draped in silks and furs.
Sweet, pungent incense smoked from censers situated in the far corners. Music, perhaps from a harp,
weaved towards him and made him drowsy with pleasure.
The purr returned to his ear, vibrating the lobe and inner workings, sending sheets of shivers over the
pain branding his shoulder. The breath of purrs touched his cheek, his neck, his throat, purrs no longer
cat-like but feminine now. Hands, tender and gentle, at least three sets, parted his tattered shirt and
caressed his chest. Warm lips soon replaced the hands. They kissed where the fingers had run. Purrs
turned to sighs as the hands reached toward his belt and the familiar ache behind it.
"They are yours, my love. All yours. All for your pleasure. They will do as you wish. They will live only to
bring you the ecstasy you desire."
He heard the whimper of the dog again and felt the yearning. But they came not from neglected mutts,
he understood. They came from him.
“Just say the word and they are yours.”
The hands withdrew, leaving his heart to race and his lungs to heave for air. Desire, molten hot, coursed
through him.
“Open your eyes, my love, to the pleasure that awaits you. End your suffering and take your release.”
He did as he was commanded and the beauty that stood before him stole his breath. Three women
shining golden in their nakedness stood before him. He focused on the one in the center. Amber locks,
wavy like his vision, cascaded along her face, tracing the curve of her neck and stopping at the valley
between her breasts. She would not look at him. Her eyes she kept to the furs at her feet.
Seaton balled his fists at the lust that pushed all thoughts from his head. The need to feel her heat, the
curve of her thigh, the suppleness of her skin consumed him. He knew though, that she would not be
enough for his appetite. The other two he would take as well. Over and over again.
“Yes. Take them, my love. They are young and fresh and innocent and will do whatever you desire. Take
them as you will.”
But the other two women would not meet his eyes either.
“Use them. Wear them thin then cast them aside if you so choose. They will remain true to you
regardless. They will yearn for nothing more than the day you decide to use them again.”
Sleek, hard nails painted scarlet, on a woman he did not know stood next to him, swept out in front of
him. In the wake of the hand, more woman appeared, lined like a legion of soldiers behind the first three,
more women than his vision could comprehend, each different, but all ravishing. Still none would meet his
gaze, to feel perhaps the lust burning inside his eyes.
His gaze returned to the woman with the golden hair. For a moment, he believed she looked at him,
watched his eyes appraise each of the women, and felt his hunger to tear through the throng of flesh.
Look at me, he thought.
Her eyes returned to the furs.
“That one,” the silken voice whispered. The hand with scarlet nails pointed to the woman he stared at.
“Take her! Take her now. Take her innocence and your fill then toss her aside and move to another as
pure as she. Make your father proud.”
He refused to avert his gaze from the woman. In the light and shadow cast by the braziers, he thought
he saw a tear fall from her eye.
Seaton pushed the lust back into the depths of his body.
“No,” he said, and shook his head. The pain flared again in shoulder. “For as those who come to collect
on death said, I am not cruel.”
A globule of hot spit smacked his cheek.
“That,” the voice hissed, “is from your Father.”
Soft gold flesh disappeared from his vision allowing a scorched and rocky path to shimmer back into
view. His shoulder burned with pain, his cheek stung from the claws and the ache at his waist and chest
threatened to burst him apart.
He knew he had to move, to push forward and occupy himself with the journey ahead rather than with
the pain of the past. He lifted his head and watched his good hand claw over the ground toward his
walking stick. When he gripped it, he used the stick to prop himself to his knees, then from his knees to
unsteady feet.
Ahead, he spied the crow, still watching, but it did not laugh. He returned the bird's cold stare then
forced himself forward. Each step drained him. The exertion sucked the air from his lungs, leaving the
heat of the valley to fill the emptiness. Acid coursed through his back and legs. His steps fell to
stumbles, the stumbles disintegrated to movements intended to only hold his balance but it did no good.
He tumbled forward again. His stick flew to the side. Rocks scattered at his feet, and their screams once
again filled the valley as his face met the path.
Seaton no longer cared, not about falling, not about the screams, not about the stone that would save
him.
It felt good merely to lie there, to rest, to maybe even sleep.
But the clomp of hoof beats kept him from repose.
"Ho, stranger," he heard, the voice deep but womanly.
He failed to muster a response. His lips weighed heavy like running legs in a dream; his tongue sat as dry
in his mouth as the ground before him.
"No place to be out for a stroll," he heard. "Come child. Come with me and you can rest a spell."
The horse trotted into his view. No more than a fat pony, its mane and tail hung full and well-kept. The
woman rode. The flesh of her arms sagged. Ample breasts threatened to snap the ties of her bodice.
Her round face sat under a mop of auburn curls. The aura of concerns she projected proved an instant
comfort.
His exhaustion doubled, tripled. His eyes fluttered, closed.
"Just rest my, boy," the woman said. "You deserve it."
Scents of roasting meat, well-seasoned venison roasting over a wood fire he believed, opened his eyes.
His stomach rumbled, telling him how hungry he was. But thirst soon overrode that hunger.
The thirst.
Around him, music fast and lively, accented with a song that elicited a chorus of hearty laughter from a
group of men he could not see, began. The odor of sweat and body order, the aroma of a day's hard
work played at his nose, but he could not see from whom it dripped. No people sat around the cluster of
round tables in the structure where he found himself.
He licked his parched lips, felt himself drop into a wooden chair and found the indention in the well-worn
seat welcoming. A clinking of bowls and tankards greeted him, but still he saw no one.
The woman he saw on the horse appeared again, her lips spread into a smile that revealed crooked teeth.
"You desire drink," she said.
"Yes."
"Then you have chosen this place wisely."
The scent of the roasting venison maddened him. Seaton feared it would take the last of his mind--until
she placed the wooden drinking bowl in front of him, then the thoughts of all else faded.
Wine, a burgundy as deep as any of the tapestries he had seen in his father's halls, splashed into the
bowl from a decanter she held.
"Well," she said, putting her hands on her thick hips. "What do you wait for? Drink deep, my friend. We
have plenty more."
"What is it?" Seaton asked, watching his hand reach to the bowl.
"Why it is all that you desire, my little waif." She blinked a black-crusted eyelash at him. "It is all that you
thirst for."
A wedge of cold parted his ribs; the shock brought enough clarity to halt his hand from taking the bowl.
It did nothing to aid his arid throat.
"What?" she mocked, putting a hand to her chest. "You thirst for your books, true? You thirst for the
worlds they take you to. You desire the chance to lose yourself from the pain of the world even if only
for a moment, am I right?"
Seaton nodded, his throat too dry to excrete words.
“Then drink,” she continued. “The liquor too will take you away and create new worlds, worlds more vivid
than words or your mind ever could.”
He was so thirsty. His lips cracked and released a drop of blood to dribble down his chin.
“Here, my love, let me help you.” He watched her dip a finger into the bowl. He felt that wet finger on his
mouth. The wine filled in the cracks of his lips like softened wax.
“There now, isn’t that better?”
It was. Beads of wine pushed past his lips and cut trails over the dust on his tongue. Every distinct
taste, in every tiny particle of every droplet became known to him. His thoughts slowed. The pain in his
shoulder vanished. His emotions dampened. His fear and shame receded. The change he felt in his eyes
and the edges of the world began to dim.
He wanted more.
“Then drink more!” she said. “Drink until your thirst is quenched. Drink so that the thirst will never
return.”
Yes. He wanted to drink.
“Imagine,” she said as she moved behind him and placed both hands on his shoulders then lowered
herself to whisper in his ear. “Imagine giving into your thirst. You can spend the days and nights in a
warm place like this doing nothing but quenching your thirst and dreaming. You can sit with your
brothers and pass bowl after bowl. They will accept you then, love you, laugh with you. No longer will
they break your quills and wipe their arses with the pages of the books you will no longer need.”
He found his fingers shaking around the bowl. Muscles in his forearm quivered as he lifted it. He licked his
lips that cracked yet again.
“Drink,” she whispers, “and you can sit in your father’s seat.”
A will he did not believe he possessed made him stay his hand before the bowl touched his mouth. He
eyed the burgundy liquid inside of it, then returned the bowl to the table.
“What are you doing, waif?” she scolded. “Drink it.”
“No,” Seaton answered, pushing the table away so he could stand. “I am not cruel. Not to women. Not
to myself. I will not loose myself in worlds that are beyond my control.”
“So be it,” she said. “So be it and rot in the shame your father felt for you.”
The air seemed suddenly hot and prickly. He realized that something was not right. He could see it in the
hate burning behind the woman’s eyes and the malice in her bared teeth when she stepped in front of
him.
“Rot,” she said and waved her hand in front of her. In the wake of her fingers, the empty tables in front
of him broke apart, cracked and scattered until the plumes of fire from the valley dominated his vision
once again.
He saw the crows then, not just the one that had watched him before, but a murder of them, so many
they covered the sky with their blackness. They cawed, hoarse yet thunderous. He started to lift his
hands to cover them, but the crows were too fast. Seaton could see their obsidian eyes, their yellow
beaks, and the stones they clutched in their sharp talons.
The stones came down upon him like the rain. He covered his head with his forearms. The impact of the
rocks against his arms and wounded shoulder brought a wave of nausea. He struggled to keep his feet
and to keep his head protected.
Then the rocks started screaming.
Seaton wailed in response, made him take his hands from his head to cover his ears. Stone pelted his
head and screamed. Seaton dropped to his knees and rolled to his side and pulled his knees into his
chest as the rocks continued to assault him, scream at him.
After all his suffering he knew death hid among the falling rocks. There were too many birds, too many
stones. There was nothing he could do. Nothing save pull his knees up tighter to his chest.
Tears formed in his eye and he believed it was the last of his samskaras abandoning the breached hull of
his body. Through the piercing screams of the rocks, he thought of his life, of the abuse he suffered, at
how his own father wished him dead, how his brothers tormented him, how he had never felt the body
of a woman. He remembered also though, the sharp scent of ink and the dusky scent of parchment and
the pleasure those scents brought him.
The rocks seemed to come down harder, each impact shaking his vision. He felt the wings of the crows
about him, some brave enough to peck at his flesh, others waiting for the stones to stop raining. Soon,
he knew, those birds would join in and feast too. Some landed on him then, their talons piercing his
flesh, yet Seaton did not cry out. He remembered his life and refused to let go of the peace that he had
somehow found amidst the screaming rain of stones.
~ * ~
In the darkness and silence that he did not recognize, something bit at Seaton’s ribs. No, not a bite, he
thought but rather a sting. But not a sting either. A peck.
The scent of sulphur filled Seaton’s nose and he remembered the plumes of flame in the Valley Of Lodin.
He remembered the murder of crows and the shower of screaming rocks. So too did he remember his
trials and the wound that had shredded his shoulder. He reached out with his senses to find that pain
but it was not there.
Another peck at his ribs, this one more forceful than the first. Seaton opened his eyes and found himself
lying between the scorched walls of the valley. A crow stood next to him, the crow that had watched him
and laughed at him. Seaton noticed that a blood ruby hung from the crow’s throat.
Stand up, the crow said to him without speaking.
Amazed, still a bit dazed perhaps, Seaton did.
The crow strutted around him, inspected Seaton as if he were a slave on the block.
You have done well, my son.
The shock almost dropped Seaton to his knees.
“Father?” he says.
The crow waddled back in front of him and stared at him with cold black eyes.
Aye. The shade of your father which is as black now as the feathers on this form.
Tears threatened but did not fall from Seaton’s eyes.
Your samskaras is still low, my son. Perilously so.
Seaton knew his father spoke truth. He could feel it.
Take the jewel around my neck. You have earned it. You have passed the tests and you will need the
stone to live. It will replenish your samskaras.
Seaton’s eyes remained locked on the stone. In the glowing facets he searched for the happiness he
once believed he would find if he were to hear the words his father’s shade had just spoken.
He did not find it. All he found was the peace he had felt when the screaming stones showered down on
him.
“I will not take your ruby,” Seaton said. “I do not want it. I do not need it.”
Seaton turned on his heels and walked out of the Valley of Lodin. He did not look over his shoulder at
the shade of his father. His only thoughts were of the peace and of the samskaras he could feel once
again filling his body.
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For some reason, Ray Yanek gravitated away from an intense love of all things fantasy and tried writing and
reading in other genres. Fantasy soon lured him back though, and he couldn’t be happier. Ray also
teaches English at the high school and college level. He lives in Illinois with his wife Trisha, his two
children, Anna and Nicholas, and a cat named Ophelia. He is currently working on compiling an epic list of
publications and awards that he would have placed here had it currently been in existence.
Visit Ray Yanek at http://rayyanek.blogspot.com/
reading in other genres. Fantasy soon lured him back though, and he couldn’t be happier. Ray also
teaches English at the high school and college level. He lives in Illinois with his wife Trisha, his two
children, Anna and Nicholas, and a cat named Ophelia. He is currently working on compiling an epic list of
publications and awards that he would have placed here had it currently been in existence.
Visit Ray Yanek at http://rayyanek.blogspot.com/