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Silence of the Sound

Chapter 4

It had indeed snowed during the night. A light dusting coated the ground as Lin and Tenzin guided two ostrich horses down a side road toward a path that cut through the mountain forest. A farmer was kind enough to lend them their use – after being paid a sufficient amount from the Beifong purse for both the animals and a request to keep their short journey quiet.

Lin pulled her brown jacket tight across her shoulders before putting one foot in the stirrup and hefting herself up into the ostrich horse's worn leather saddle. "So the only direction we have is eastward around the mountain," she said, trying to sound a bit more lighthearted than she felt.

"Correct," Tenzin confirmed, settling on his mount as well and urging the animal to come even with Lin's. "From the sparse information I was able to get from Eri, we'll follow this path until it ends and then just keep going east. Another smaller trail should branch from there, leading right to this man's house. Eri's mother told me he's lived there for eighty years, so the way should be pretty well traveled."

"We can hope, anyway. If all else fails, I'll just search him out with my feet."

Tenzin pursed his lips, starting to lead the way forward. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we? It's cold enough to get frostbite."

"Do you really think it will take us most of the day to get out there?" Lin asked with a frown, urging her ostrich horse onward to catch up with his when the animal stopped to poke around a bush at beetles slowed by the cold.

"It's a lot of ground to cover, so unfortunately yes."

"If only we had Oogi…"

"Don't start with that again," Tenzin warned, already weary of this trip as a whole and mildly regretting the decision to send Oogi away himself. "We'll be just fine with what we have."

Thankfully, the paths to follow were clearly cut through the trees. Clouds hung low in the sky as they traveled, hiding the sun behind their thick cover. Lin and Tenzin lapsed into silence under the bare trees, though it seemed apt for the quiet around them; even the animals grew more and more hushed the further they journeyed from the town. Eventually, after several hours just after an early dusk began to fall and a light flurry of snow flitted down from the sky, their current path started to widen into what appeared to be one that led somewhere well-used.

Lin led the way, slowing to a polite trot toward the light they could see ahead. A house rose before them on a small slope, large and old fashioned in its architecture. The structure was painted a delicate shade of green and, now faded with time, it still blended nicely with the surrounding forest. The shutters were latched against the cold, but the gate out front, still several yards away, was open and fire lamps were burning inside on the first floor. Smoke rose from one of the two chimneys.

"Let's go the rest of the way on foot," Tenzin suggested, slowing his ostrich horse to a halt and sliding from his back without waiting for Lin's response.

She paused a moment before following his actions, finding a low hanging branch to tie the mount's bridle to while they went inside. Hers immediately started sniffing at the ground, once again looking for insects to startle into view. "I hope he has food," she muttered under her breath, "that lunch we had was pitiful."

She brushed fresh snow from her hair, trailing a few steps behind as Tenzin walked through the ordinary wooden gate in the middle of the low fence around the house. She stopped behind him on the stone stoop to let him knock, looking back over her shoulder in uncertainty. An odd sense had fallen over her once they crossed through that gate, as if something were watching them. She raised her eyes to the empty windows, though nothing was there staring back. She hadn't necessarily expected there to be, even if she felt something amiss close by.

Shifting uncomfortably, she took a breath and reached out with her senses.

"No one is in the house, Tenzin," she whispered, suddenly not wanting to speak as loudly as they had been before.

"But there's a light inside, just there," he started to argue, moving to peer into one of the windows near the door. There were definitely lamps lit in the room he saw, a sitting room with plush furnishings. A fire was even lit in the large grate, giving body to the smoke pouring from the chimney. "Look, his book and tea are right on the table. He has to be here somewhere."

"He's not," Lin insisted. She took a step backward, her foot hitting the solid dirt again as it left the front stoop. The uneasiness was beginning to feel heavy in her limbs, and she wrapped her arms around her abdomen in a useless attempt to feel protected against the unknown. "Let's go. Please, let's just leave."

Tenzin, however, did not seem to notice her anxiety and would not be deterred. "What if he's injured, or needs help?" he asked without sparing a glance in her direction. He depressed the iron door handle, which gave easily for the door to open into the house. "The door is unlocked. Come on, Lin, we should check."

Against her better judgment, she took the few hesitating steps to follow him inside before he could disappear from her view.

The house was warm, the heat a comfortable change to the cold outside. Few other lights were lit, though they could see a vast staircase sweeping to the open second landing above. It was dark upstairs, a chilled breeze speaking of emptiness wafting from the rooms there before being eaten by the lived-in warmth of the rooms below. Tenzin walked slowly through the entryway – one that must have once been opulent with its finery – toward the sitting area to the left.

The space was, indeed, empty.

Weyoun was not inside, though he had been recently. The cup of tea on the table by a well used chair closest to the fire was still steaming cheerily, waiting for him to return. The room itself was filled with dark woods and smooth stone, a lovely space that must have seen much over the years.

What caught Lin's eye as Tenzin picked up the book the mysterious man had been reading, however, was a sphere of green and pink marble on the mantle. It was a decent size, small enough to cup in one's hands, but, rather than go toward it, she moved away. The marble was pulsing, aching, as if it were alive – more alive than a single piece of earth should be.

As if feeling her gaze on it, the marble shifted. But then, it wasn't the actual stone that changed. No – the surface of it was moving, a swirl of brown along the strains of green that hadn't been there seconds ago. Lin looked quickly to Tenzin, hoping he had noticed this, too, but he wasn't paying attention to what she was. This was earth of some kind, a type she had never seen before.

Suddenly, a fragment of the marble, a tiny sliver of the moving surface, defected from the whole and flew toward her.

Lin jerked backward and held her hand up in front of her face in surprise, hoping to protect herself from whatever this strangeness was. It was hot when the substance met her flesh, burning its way under her skin. She tried to gasp through the shock, but her lungs deflated too quickly when the substance seared inside her and not a sound escaped.

Lost!

It was in her mind, a voice so quiet yet so loud it almost consumed her thoughts.

Run! You are lost, you must run! Save me! Danger is here, now!

Lin grabbed Tenzin's wrist and ran, tugging him around so quickly he nearly tripped. She slammed the front door open with a chunk of stone from the foyer, completely unaware of what she was doing and of Tenzin behind her exclaiming rudeness. Blind into the dark moonless night, her skin burning and her heart pounding so quickly it almost hurt, she instinctively exposed the soles of her feet and took off into the deep woods. Even panting for breath was becoming painful, and fear was starting to cloud through her mind.

"Lin – the ostrich horses -"

Tenzin stumbled over a rock in the dark, momentarily panicking as her hand lost his wrist. He couldn't see her ahead of him, but he reached out and found her arm, clinging to it desperately as she pulled him along at her tortuously fast pace.

Branches whipped against them, brush and scrub ripping at his robes and her coat. She didn't slow down, using her seismic sense to guide them through the forest uphill and as far away from that home as she could. She could vaguely hear Tenzin calling her name, asking her what was wrong, but she couldn't make out the words or his voice. This is how they died, was all she could think through the chaos in her mind. This is how they died…

Heat was pooling under her skin, trying frantically to escape again, to find its way back to where it had been. Let me go! it cried in words she felt more than heard, tearing through her with so much agony she doubled over.

Tenzin immediately halted and touched her back, concerned, but she smacked his hand away with force not her own, already starting to run again and not caring any longer if he was following or not. The inhuman distress was growing at an alarming rate, to the point where she could feel herself – her very soul – being pushed aside.

Save me! Let me go!

Tenzin found the back of her coat and latched to it. The small part of herself still aware was relieved he hadn't been lost and, while she could still focus, she forced herself to remember that it was earth, earth, inside her, she had to bend it, force it to leave, to listen, to stop. But it, whatever it was, was purely untamable, and she could feel her strength waning quickly the harder she tried.

A cliff wall opened before them. Tenzin almost ran face-first into it, unable to see even the giant face of rock, though Lin stopped short, using what she had left to create a small cave there and shove him inside. She instantly rose the mouth closed to make sure no one would notice from the outside, leaving just a small crevice for air to flow freely through.

"Lin…" Tenzin bent over his knees, trying to catch his breath in the pitch blackness. "What in the world was that about?"

Still, she didn't answer, too intent on ripping off her coat and tossing it aside. Her skin felt as if someone had set it aflame and, unlike Tenzin's, her lungs and heart were not slowing down. She could only pant uselessly, dizzily falling to her knees as she unlatched her armor as well.

He looked up as though he would be able to see her when he heard the clang of metal against the stone floor of their created cave, utterly baffled. "What – what's going on? Are you all right?"

"I-I can't – I'm suffocating…" was all she could get out, speaking for the first time.

Her words were weak, and Tenzin shuffled forward to the sound of her voice, growing concerned in a far different manner than he had been while they were fleeing. "What do you mean?"

"I can't breathe, Tenzin…" she gasped around her short breaths, slumping down onto the ground. "I…felt something…it came in through my – my skin. What killed those…other people. It's…inside me, suffocating me."

"What? No, no you must be mistaken." Fully alarmed now, he fell to his hands and knees to shuffle across the small space until he found her. His searching fingers met her calf and he ran his hand up her leg, startled to find she was chest-down on the floor, arms pinned under her body. "Lin?"

She didn't reply, not even with a gesture or groan to let him know she had heard. Alarm turned to searing fear, and his hand ghosted up her back to find her neck. Shifting hair away, he pressed two fingers to clammy skin, hoping desperately to find her heart still beating.

It was, very quickly. Far more quickly than it should be, though she was thankfully still alive.

"Lin," Tenzin whispered, at a complete loss of what to do next. He left his hand against her shoulder, bare to the cold except for her thin-strapped shirt, and quickly went through options.

Technically speaking, he would be able to break through the mouth of the cave with the right type of air current. He and Lin had practiced that very thing when they were younger. Maybe not necessarily for a situation like this, though those lessons together had come in handy more than once. But, even if he could get her out of here, he wouldn't be able to get her to help. There were no healers back in town, and on top of that it was freezing outside. At least in here they were protected from the elements.

Decided for the moment, Tenzin slowly moved around her so he could lean against the wall of the cave before lifting her upper body up against him, her back against his chest. She was thoroughly unconscious, her weight limp in his arms and making the effort difficult.

"Come on, Lin," he murmured even knowing she wouldn't respond.

Once he got himself situated, he shifted her into his lap so her head would hit his shoulder rather than slump forward. He had no idea where her jacket had been slung to so, hoping to keep her warm enough, he tugged his heavy cloak around them both, his arms wrapping around her tightly with it, one across her waist and the other up diagonally across her chest to keep her secure against him.

For how chilly her skin was where it brushed his, she was sweating profusely, and he hoped holding her was the right thing to do. He had no idea if she would struggle later, or seize or stay still, or simply remain unconscious until…this ended, and the thought, the unknown of it all, left him frightened beyond words. More than that, more than anything, he was terrified that when the sun came up, she would be gone and he would be powerless to prevent it.

"I am so sorry." He turned his head to press his face into her soft hair, closing his eyes to the dark he couldn't see through and letting tears sting against his eyelids. The spicy scent of clove – the soap she had used for at least thirty years – pierced his senses, made stronger by her perspiration. He inhaled it deeply, a familiar comfort through the turmoil of the situation. "Lin, please hear how sorry I am. Please. I never -" He choked on the words, taking a quick breath and tightening his arms compulsively.

"Would it help if…spirits, Lin, would it help if I told you sometimes I think I made a mistake?"

He had no idea why he was doing this, spilling his heart to her now. If she could hear him, she would likely call him cowardly, with the knowledge she couldn't respond to his confession. But he wasn't able to stop himself. Perhaps it was the fear of losing her completely, or perhaps this was the culmination of the last three years of having her back in his life again, reminding him of everything he had already lost finally tipping him over.

She made no movement against him.

"There is not a day that goes by when I do not think of you," he continued quietly, the tears leaking down his cheeks a mixture of fear and remorse. "When I don't remember how happy we were. And sometimes I truly wonder why I threw all of that away, why I didn't listen to my father when he told me to just be content in my life. Why did I do that, Lin? Why was I so scared then?" He stopped speaking when a muted sob made his lungs spasm, and he took a moment to gather his thoughts back to himself.

"You have the other half of my soul, you always have. I will spend the rest of my life regretting losing you the way I did." Stifling silence fell as he lowered his head to her shoulder, letting his lips press against the skin there and aching at how clammy it was over the hard muscle. "Please don't leave me now, Lin, please."

As before, she was still and soundless, a battle for dominance over her body happening far from anywhere he could ever try help.

Instead of allowing himself to dwell on that, he continued speaking. He grasped onto anything he could, anything for her to hold to as she fought – about how he missed listening to her walking in those metal boots when she got home from work, how he could read her mood from her stride; how he missed the feeling of her body, so strong and reassuring, beside his as he slept. He recalled their first kiss, their first night together, the first day they spent in their apartment in the city. He told her how much he enjoyed their late-night dinners over the last few years, how they had come to mean so much to him.

He knew, beyond anything else, that his life would be irrevocably shattered if she died here. But somehow, he couldn't find the words to say so.