A New Night

The Golden Mask

While I always prided myself in being a priest of even-mindedness, not prone to emotional vulnerability, seeing Camolla’s mutilated wings with a string running through them was too much. I dove into the hole—feeling as though I was going to fall asleep in the air. I slashed; there was blood; a Servant screamed, and then I saw myself back at the top of the pit, pulling Camolla away. Disorientation consumed me. I looked around and tried to figure out what was happening. I knew that … my eyes were wet, and my body was trembling. Loud, clashing sounds were coming from the hole the Golem with the green visage had made.

Then, I felt Camolla wrap her mangled wings around me and heard her say, “It’s alright, my little night star, I’m alright.” Her voice was strained but, as always, she was trying to be strong … for me.

Once we were away from the hole, I began to sob undignifiedly into her. Camolla held me as she gently pulled me further from the fight.

Then, there was a loud but oddly muffled sound. I turned to face the hole and saw that the pit had collapsed. It was … entirely gone. “Where … where’s Bassella?” I asked. I looked around even more frantically than before.

Scraa leaped immediately on the hole and began to toss sand behind him as he dug. Dro was right behind him—taking a long tool the Servants had brought and throwing the soil with it.

“Go, I’m alright,” Camolla said, gently pushing me.

My legs wobbled as I hopped dizzily to the spot where Bassella was … buried alive. But before I got close, something glimmered in the sky and caught my attention. I paused for just an instant to see three shimmers in the sky. They approached swiftly and lingered right over Scraa and Dro.

“Watch out!” I shouted and pointed at the nearly invisible things that seemed … much larger than even Bassella herself.

Dro grabbed Scraa’s shoulders and leaped backward. Once away from the hole, Dro grabbed his staff and readied it against them.

However, the nearly invisible, flying things did not respond to him. Instead, they descended slowly toward the sand. They began to make a … buzzing sound. They sounded like a kind of juicy insect that comes to the Night People once a year. The previously visible glimmer of their outer edges became distorted. In this way, they floated down until they touched the sand—sending a cascade of it to all sides of them. Slowly, they embedded themselves deeper and deeper into the soil.

Dro lowered his staff gradually … and then picked it right back up as he turned around. I looked out at the ocean and saw something horrible approaching us.

It was sort of like the artifacts which the gods used to laze upon their false ocean waters. This one, however, was not colorful nor relatively small and inoffensive. Instead, it was massive … like the towering dwellings of the gods—but shiny and fallen onto its side. It was approaching the Island at a fast speed.

When it was close enough, I saw a single figure standing upon it—a Golem with a face that shone gold in the sun.

Dro looked at me and said, “This … is what you and Bassella knew would come after us?”

I nodded, though even I had not seen anything so massive. This … water-dwelling … was entirely unlike the hollowed trees that the other two Golems arrived and left by. Even with all the Hunters at our side, I wondered if we stood a chance against this.

I heard a faint sound come from behind me and then looked up at the Wall in the vague hope that I would spot a Hunter army. Instead, a pink light rose from the bottom of the Wall—filling the cracks before rising far into the sky. It was a second Gods’ Wall inside the first, made of pure light!

That meant … there was no way the Hunters would get to us. With an invisible feeling of weight, I just stared at the new Wall … then at the invisible creatures digging … then at the approaching water-dwelling.

Scraa looked at me urgently and said, “We need help! Maybe I can force the creatures we ate to help us?”

I nearly said something about how useless that would be.

However, Dro gave me the briefest glance before turning to Scraa and replying, “That seems feasible. The other islands have even more of them, however. Use the wings as I taught you to gather as many as you can from the other beaches.”

Oh … I realized what Dro was doing. He was using this chance to make sure that Scraa remained safe from what was about to happen. This meant that he did not perceive that we had much of a chance to survive, either. It made me realize how much I had hoped that the Hunter’s overconfidence would lead us to some kind of plan. But … there just wasn’t one to be made. There was no fighting ancient gods on one front and ancient devils on the other.

I realized that I too needed to protect someone. So I beckoned Scraa to me before I turned to Camolla and said, “Please go with Scraa and take care of him.”

Camolla looked at me and then arched an eyebrow suspiciously. She then studied Dro … and then Scraa. The time it took as she tried to catch up with all that had happened—glancing at the invisible pit creatures, the Hunters, the water-welling, and the pink light—was enough to make me sick. But I couldn’t tell her why I was so hurried for her to leave. Then, finally, her eyes settled back on me. “You and Bassella … you’ve stumbled across entirely new worlds.”

“Yes,” I said and nodded eagerly. “So trust me that Dro and I can fight them. I need you to help Scraa in … uhm … getting the bloodbags.”

Camolla wrinkled her lips in a way that told me that she didn’t believe a word I was saying. But, to my surprise, she finally nodded and said. “I will … if you promise me that you will not give up.”

I looked down, feeling unable to meet her eyes.

However, Camolla placed her wing gently on both sides of my head, so we were face-to-face. “It looks bad … and that’s okay. It’s even okay that you feel hopeless and may not know how to fix this. Just promise me that you won’t stop trying—really trying to fix this and then come home safely. Get Bassella free and figure out a way together. You two have shown that you can do anything as long as you are together.”

Get Bassella … somehow that idea had escaped me. Of course! It never left my mind that I needed to get her out of the hole. But I had forgotten that, when we were together, things seemed … possible. Not only that, but they seemed worth doing. Like, with these terrifying situations, she was often the one with the ideas. Sure, most of her ideas were awful, but they always moved us forward until a good plan or opportunity presented itself. Climbing the Gods’ Wall, facing the demons, befriending the demons, ascending the Sky City, fighting the Queen, befriending the Queen, and coming back home had all seemed so impossible. But we’d done them … we’d done them all.

“You’re right,” I said and faced the pit with the invisible creatures still digging.

Camolla smiled and hugged me one last time before she hopped hesitantly to perch atop Scraa’s shoulder.

“Thank you … Mother,” I said, though it felt difficult to utter this word which made me feel so uncomfortably close to yet another person I would one day lose. Still, they felt right.

Camolla smiled brightly—her eyes welling. But she didn’t get the chance to reply.

Scraa rushed with her on his shoulder to where we had left the gliders. Even though I now felt some hope, I was glad they would both be safe.

I opened my wings, hopped, and flew to Dro—who was glancing between the three invisible creatures now almost entirely burrowed in the sand. I landed on his shoulder and said, “We need to stay close to Bassella so we can help or fight those things if we need to.”

Dro nodded and stepped closer. From there, we could see that a pocket of air had formed between them, from which we saw the unmistakable Night Person ear of Bassella. It seemed the creatures were definitely uncovering her.

A horrific grinding sound suddenly startled me—like a thousand rocks being dropped on a thousand boulders. Then I noticed bits being spat out of the hole, which did not look like they belonged to Bassella. Finally, when a green chip like the eye bone of a face landed on the beach, it became perfectly clear what the invisible creatures had crushed.

Gradually, Bassella’s head and then her body were revealed. But … she wasn’t moving. I suspected that she couldn’t without risking also being crushed by the machines. Still, I found myself holding my breath as I watched.

Then, with Bassella completely uncovered, the vibrating stopped. Without a pause, one of the creatures rose into the air—the glint of sunlight now visible on it—so that the other two had room in the new pit they had made around her. A creature below opened and revealed an inner chamber like the one inside Bassella. Colorful vines filled this one, however, wriggling around like small serpents. The creature swiftly collapsed around Bassella as if eating her alive!

Vile demons! I hopped to glide toward the monsters but felt a heavy hand press me back down. It was Dro … who gently shook his head as he knelt beside me. I shuddered and tried to breathe as the two remaining pods realigned side-by-side. Our viewing was interrupted when the third pod turned horizontally and began covering the hole.

Dro took a step back, and I did my best to trust that this was okay.

From there, there were no sounds, no lights, no noise. The long minutes passed, and the wind began to feel particularly cold. Then, almost when I thought this would take days, the creature covering the hole rose into the sky—followed by the other two. They flew upward until I could no longer see them.

I looked into the hole and saw her—Bassella! She was looking at her open palm and then the back of her hand. She seemed a bit … disoriented. Finally, she looked up at us, gave her crescent moon smile, and waved. “Hello, my friends.”

I nearly dove in.

However, as I opened my wings, Bassella knelt and then launched herself out of the hole in a display of power and acrobatics I had never seen out of her. She let out a giggle and beckoned us along toward the ocean.

Dro followed behind, his brow furrowed. I poked him covertly and whispered, “What’s … happening with her?”

Dro shook his head slowly and replied, “I tried to read her … but she’s now using those horrible songs as an airtight guard. I can’t read anything from her anymore.”

“But … the same annoying songs, right?” I asked, wanting to be sure.

Dro nodded slightly, though I could tell by his face that something was happening that he couldn’t explain.

We followed Bassella and stopped when she and Dro were knee-deep in the water. From there, we faced the oncoming enemy—the Golem on its massive water-dwelling. It was no longer moving toward us. I guessed that there was not much closer it could get without dragging on the underwater sand and rocks. From here, however, I could see that it had no shortage of the smaller floating artifacts hanging along the side of his boat. It was like the Golem was just waiting for us there.

Basella gave a friendly wave in the direction of the Golem, though this was not returned by the unmoving monster. She gave a shrug—a casual-seeming gesture that triggered my apprehension at her newfound confidence. Then, Bassella took another step; it was only as she rose upward that I realized she was now standing on one of the invisible creatures which had turned itself horizontally and lowered into the water. I thought for half a moment that Bassella would go without us, but she instead turned and offered Dro a hand.

Dro paused for a moment and then took her hand so that we were all standing on the invisible creature’s back. Bassella did not release him but instead held on as she knelt forward. At first, this seemed suspicious, but then the creature began to move at a speed that would have thrown us off. Only once Dro had his footing did Bassella release his arm and turn again to face the Golem.

We made our way very quickly to the water-dwelling of the Golem. It seemed we would collide, but the invisible creature rose into the air. Once we were over the dwelling, Bassella stepped off the creature, allowing it to fly back into the sky. Now, we were facing the Golem with a gold face.

Finally, the Golem moved—turning to face us. It was quite unlike the other two Golems that I had seen. Claw-like armor covered its entire body. While one hand was balled into a fist, its other was clutched to something that looked like the rough equivalent to Bassella’s ring that fired lightning. On its shoulder was yet another deadly-looking appendage. Given the hole in the front, I wondered if it too fired lightning.

“Bassella, do you have some kind of plan?” I asked, unsure what I was supposed to be ready to do.

Bassella turned to me and just smiled for a moment before she said, “Do what your beautiful spirit leads, great Romalla. But wait until the right moment. You’ll know without a doubt when that time comes.” Her words … they were so unlike her. But before I could ask about it, she turned around and began to walk toward the Golem with the gold mask.