The Stolen Eyes

Prologue

As I walk through the fields, the crow with the stolen eyes sits on its throne and follows me with taken cloudy pearls. A crow perched next to its nest, a bowl of bones, stained, with stolen eyes, stares. It is black and it is small, with wings pushed back, feathers sleek and glossy. The eyes are dull and white with blindness. They don’t blink.

The wind ruffles but it does not sway. The bare branch, naked in the desolate winter, dead but still attached, brown as the dirt below, filled with rotten hollowness, bent. The talons, thin but supple, tighten their grip. The break stays shut. It is grey with age. The sky above and behind and in front are grey, bleak, omnipresent. The ground where the tree has rooted itself stands on hallowed ground. It is solitary, the only object on these ashen plains.

The crow with the stolen eyes rules over all.

-Taken from an account of a farmhand who claimed to have crossed into the beyond.

Chapter 1

She stumbled through camp, shifting between her eyes. She held her right down, her left wide. Then she switched to the other. Mumbling to herself, Sosara pushed past those setting up her came and headed to her tent on the other side of camp. She kept her head down, keeping her right eye closed tight. The ground below was muddy, and her feet sunk with every step, sludge falling into her flat slip-ons. She didn’t care; she just wanted to get away from everyone. She needed to be alone.

With her eyes focused on the ground, she didn’t notice the giant of a man in front of her and promptly walked right into his barreled chest. Astius, the leader of their caravan, stared down at her, his face blank. She’d never spoken to the man, both out of fear and out of awe. He was huge, especially compared to the smaller men of the group. At the rare moments that he spoke, his voice was deep and carried across the Plains. Sosara had heard rumors about the man, some claiming he was once the war chief of an empire, leading thousands of soldiers to battle. He was named the Bear of Shouting Earth, supposedly because he had once roared at a boulder against the opposing army, launching it and crushing dozens of men. His voice certainly matched the role, but Sosara had a tough time believing it. The man, as loud as he could be, was calm. Despite his size, he moved around the camp delicately, mindful of every step, each clearly with a purpose. His face never showed anger or any emotion for that matter. He simply led the group of nomads around the Plains. Nothing more and nothing less. Always he carried a wooden bow, etched with glyphs that Sosara couldn’t make out. She’d never seen him use it.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, refusing to look him in his eyes. She began to move around him and continue on to her tent when he stretched out his arm and stopped her.

“Come here.” His words penetrated her brain, occupied every iota of space in her body. No one ever talked to her, especially not their leader. She slowly came back, head down, like a dog who’s been caught stealing food off of the table. With his massive hands, he gently pulled her face up. “Open them.” It wasn’t a command, but she knew better than to disobey. Hesitantly, she brought her eyes open. “Wider.” She did as she was told and widened her eyes.

“Hmm,” he grunted, eyes squinting directly into hers, “what have you gotten yourself into, little crow.” He knows what they call me. No one knew her name in camp, no one really cared. But they needed something to call her, and, after observing the group of crows that always seemed to follow her, gave her the nickname. It sounded less cruel coming from Astius.

She struggled with a reply, not really knowing what to say. “I...I...don’t know. I was out in the fields, and I sat down to rest, and all of a sudden I just collapsed. When I woke up, my vision was weird. My left eye, it’s normal, everything looks how it’s supposed to look, but my right eye is dark, like everything has a fade to it and the sky is distorted. And there aren’t people. I can’t see anyone.”

He just stared at her, his eyebrows furrowed. It felt like minutes had passed when he finally spoke. “Tomorrow, you will come with me to the Plains. There we will talk. Mention this to no one. Stay in your tent. Pray to your ancestors. Seek their guidance. Be awake at sunrise.” With his final words, Astius sauntered off towards a group of men drinking by the fire. Sosara hurried to her tent, stopping for no one.

---

Alone in her tent, Sosara prayed to her ancestors, ancient gods long since forgotten.Many of their names were unfamiliar to her but she always felt their presence on days like these. Rain pelted the cloth ceiling, and miles away thunder boomed, lightning striking a tree, quickly igniting it. She whispered the words of calling and closed her eyes. It took moments, but suddenly the visions filled her mind.

Atya the shapeshifter came before her, his white fur cloak swaying into existence, covering his dark skin. He was tall, abnormally so, and his shoulders were broad and wide. His torso and legs were thick and heavy, but his feet were light, making no noise. His head was shaved and beard was long. Brown eyes stared at Sosara, waiting for her to speak.

“Wolf of Bright Night, oh, ancestor of mine, I call upon you for solace and counsel. I ask only for parts of your wisdom, fragments of your years of existence. I am deeply troubled by things of this world and things of second world. They are blending together in front of me, clashing and splitting my vision in two. I see the worlds through one eye each. My left, the physical, my right the beyond. In between it is limbo. When one walks between these worlds, they disappear, reappear, sometimes blinking entirely out of existence. My mind feels corrupt and I sleep none at night. Oh, Atya, He Who Claimed the Moon, please, in all of your divinity, allow me to ask for your assistance.” She had practiced this speech carefully for many weeks, writing and rewriting in her leather-skin notebook. She wanted to sound desperate but not pathetic. Atya just stared, perhaps contemplating or ignoring. Several minutes passed and the rain had slowed its course. Atya finally spoke.

“Descendent of mine. There is nothing I can give to change your eyes, nothing I can do to remove the curse that is upon you. It was not given to you by any of your forefathers or foremothers. There is none other in our tree who possesses the anathema that you do. Even its source is unknown to us. I do not know if there is one in the physical plane nor the beyond that can assist you.” His voice was monotone, showing no emotion. His words were empty. He continued on.

“My brethren have listened to your words, silently from the beyond. Knoth, the Knife of Sun, scholar of our time, has no solution. Yetathin, the Huntsman of Earth, knows of no elixir that can lift this curse. Our Godmother, Rolasa, She Who Sees All, Knower of the Beyond, is clouded. Something obstructs her thinking, blocking her from deciphering the catastrophe that has befallen you. We offer nothing. I must now return to my place. Go forth, my child. Persist. Stand tall. Keep moving forward.” With his last words, Atya disappeared into nothingness, leaving Sosara alone in her tent.

Although dismayed, she quickly pulled her journal out and quickly began to write what the god had said. Despite never being fully trained in the magic of memory, she remembered most of everything someone said, nearly word for word. Her mother had taught her before her death, and Sosara practiced daily as a way of remembrance.

It took her almost an hour to write the words in the correct order; Sosara’s problem was that she could remember every word spoken, just not necessarily in the order it was spoken. Many of her problems in the past, especially in school, were because of this fault. Once, during her time in the schooling of conjuration, she misremembered the oath of binding for an elemental energy, accidentally summoning a Forgotten from beyond, the spirit of someone whose body was never buried. Their behavior is unpredictable including their proclivity for violence. Luckily her master, every suspicious of his young apprentice, was watching nervously and quickly banished the wraith with a few short words. Shortly after, although they claimed the incident was unrelated, Sosara was expelled from the school, left on her own to learn.

---

She rose before dawn when the sky was a faded purple and pulled back the opening of her tent. Astius was there, waiting at the center fire, hands in his lap. He didn’t turn when she approached and simply stood up and began to make his way out of camp, heading west towards the Plains’ center. Not wanting to be a nuisance, she followed a few feet behind.

The sun behind them rose and a billow of smoke began to touch the sky. Back at camp breakfast was being made. Her stomach grumbled but she said nothing. Neither spoke, their feet on the grass and the wind in their ears the only noise. They stopped at noon, the sun at its highest point, and ate. Minutes later, they were back on their feet, the sun slowly lagging behind.

Curiosity got the better of her. Once the sun pushed ahead and began its descent, she closed her left eye, releasing her right eye open. Suddenly, everything hit at once. The sky was replaced with a flat gray, the sun vanished. The grass in front of her, although tall, was green no longer, now a shade of dying brown. Everything was still; the grass stood erect. Suddenly she saw motion in her peripheral. Above her, some ten feet up, a shape of light fluttered around. Is it...dancing? Its moves were quick and sporadic; it had no plan. Soon other bits of light joined the original and they began to fly as a group. They each were shaped differently, but the leader held more animalistic features than the rest. It looked like something one could find deep in the ocean, with a bulbous head and thin tentacles falling down. It was translucent, a pale white, brighter than most things around her.

“Those are light spirits,” a sudden voice came from the front. Astius had stopped and was looking at the flock. “Do not worry, they are harmless. Playful, but harmless. They may follow us, but fear nothing.” He turned and continued on.

I can see him. Why can I see him? She thought to herself. When she had first made it back to came after she had woken up, people disappeared with they walked into her right eye’s sight. One second they were there laughing, then the next they vanished. She could still hear their voices and feel them, but they were gone. Astius was different. He was there. She faced directly towards him walking away and opened her left eye. He was there too, only different. He was split right down the middle. On the left, he was as he was. Giant, wearing a cloth shirt and pants, thin leather boots, a wool coat. On the right, he was covered by a cloak, long and a deep brown. There was a glyph on the back, but, like his bow, she couldn’t make it out.

As they continued on, the sky becoming crimson and violet, she kept her eyes open. Like fireflies, more and more light spirits came out. They played under the starless sky, weaving in and out of her line of sight. She saw movement in the distance, something large slowly moving about, but quickly looked away. Her eyes stayed focused on Astius’ back until he suddenly stopped.

“We are far enough away now,” he said nodding and surveyed the flat plains around them, “this will do.” He took off his bag and sat down on the ground, legs crossed, then motioned for Sosara to do the same. As she did, he began to speak.

“The world that you see, that other world, is the beyond. You have probably heard of it and may have even assumed that is what you are seeing. It is. The beyond is a place of spirits, a limbo between the physical and after. Many scholars have said that it is an abyss, a desolate wasteland created for the damned. This is not the case. It is our world but not.”

He paused as if waiting for her to say something. She just stared. Nodding, he continued.

“Little crow, I do not know why you have been given this curse. Nor do I know why it is only half of you. You are supposed to be only of one side. Here or there. Those given the curse to cross between worlds disappear from one when they reach the other. This is not the case for you. You are in both.”

In the distance, an owl sang in a grove of trees. The moon had come out and bats became ants on its surface. Stars began to cry out and she heard their stories. Astius joined her, staring up, his eyes filled with awe. This was the only emotion she had ever seen him show. The look of gazing into something sublime. He continued speaking, eyes fixated on the heavens above.

“You are a crosser but you are not. You touch both worlds This is something that I have not heard of in all my years. You should not exist.” His words should have hurt, but they didn’t Sosara placed no hostility in his voice, no anger. He was simply just stating what was. He waited for her to say something, clearly finished with his words.

“How do you know all of this?” She asked. There were so many questions she had, but this was the only one that she could think to ask.

“I too am able to cross. My wife had passed, some illness my town’s physician never figured out, and I was lost. I drank and fought. I abandoned those around me, and I abandoned myself. One night, drunk and wandering the Plains, I prayed to my ancestors, begging for some solution, some end, to my misery. I sat under the stars, much like tonight, and waited. I was there for hours when suddenly an apparition came before me. One of my ancestors, an ancient god, came to hear my tears. He sat and listened, saying nothing, not even nodding. Finally, after I had said all that I needed to say, he stood up, came before me, and pressed his thumb on my forehead. It burned like something I had never felt before. Then he gave me words. ‘Find her. Find her and rid yourself of this burning.’ Soon after he faded away. Ever since then, I am able to cross. It consumes so much of my energy, however. It is not any easy feat.”

This was the most she had ever heard him speak, the most emotion she had ever seen him show. His words, their rhythm and cadence, stuck to Sosara.

“Did you find her?” Immediately, she regretted her words and quickly tried to come up with an apology sincere enough to not have him abandon her in the Plains. Before she could do so, he spoke, shaking his head.

“No, I still have not. This is why I roam these plains, why I latch myself onto caravans such as ours. It allows me to be away from the memories of her I hold, the reminder of our home together, our lives. But it also allows me to keep her memory as well. It is a confusing philosophy, I know.”

“Do you still burn?” He just nodded and brought his eyes towards her. “This is why I speak with you, Sosara. Your eyes, this half-curse that has befallen you, you must find a way to reverse it. I do not know how. The very nature of its existence is something entirely beyond my scope of understanding. But, even though my knowledge is sparse, I do know it can be fixed. Somehow you will have your eyes back. You must. The beyond is dangerous. It is consuming. There are entities, spirits and shades, that feed off of crossers, but what is more dangerous is the world itself. If one spends too much time in the beyond, they eventually be lost forever, their physical form vanished. Little crow, you must become how you once were. Seek out the scholars who study the beyond. They are rarer than any other, but they hold your path.” He stood up, hoisting his bag over his back, and began the trek back east towards the village. She stood up, unsure of what to think, and followed.

“Tomorrow,” he called back, “you will leave our group. Take all that you have and go west. Go past the Plain’s reaches into the badlands, and over the peaks. There you will find a city and in it is the scholar you are looking for. They must be there.”

His form disappeared into the shadows ahead, and his words still echoed.