The Shining Orb Series

The world was dying.

Dark clouds cast shadows that covered the ground, making everything gray and dreary. Small rain droplets littered the stone path. A blessing and a curse. The rain was good to drink, but the eventual flooding would cause more damage to the mostly deserted town. Arwa held her cloak tight, not wanting the rain to hit her head. She carried a small root found along the dried riverbed, hopefully enough to sustain her family for a few days. They hadn’t had a good meal in months. Ever since the animals started dying.

She stopped at the top of the hill. Below was her home in the middle of town, where the rest of the houses were dark and falling apart, her wooden home still stood, candles brightening the windows, not as much as before when the whole house shined bright with light. Mawas better be filling the bucket before this rain stops. Lifting her head to catch water with her tongue, she saw the tree. The great tree, A Mawr Ann, grew out of the mountains. A million branches and a trillion leaves, its roots connecting to everything in this world, all the information coming back to this spot. The tree would cast its shadow over her village every night when the sun died in the west. The people praying to the leaves.

No one prayed anymore. A Mawr Ann was as dead as the world around. No leaves hung to the branches, almost no branches attached to the trunk, whatever was still on the tree sagged into the mountain. When it first began to die no one seemed to care save for the doomsayers. We should’ve listened. She couldn’t concern herself with the tree or what the world used to look like, all the colors, the singing of birds, the sounds of laughter. Now, she could only worry about her family, and hope the dihain would choose them when the time came.

Her house got larger as she made her way over the stone paths that were moss and grass covered, almost slipping a few times. The town was full of old buildings long abandoned, the places for trash and prisoners and the sick. Broken glass strewn about. The city emptied long ago, when the branches started to sag and the ground shook and split, creating new valleys and rivers.

Magwr stood in the doorway watching Mawas roll the rain barrel inside. He smiled, the candlelight from the house just barely illuminating the dark world outside. “Find anything?” She showed him the root. “A stew then.”

“Not a very big one.” 

Her husband embraced her, the water on her cloak transferring to his patch-worked cotton clothes. “I’m sorry. We knew life would be rough as everyone left or died.”

“I want better for our children.” They went inside and she saw Mawas and Inanina cleaning the shelfs of dust and leaves and spiders. 

Inanina smiled. “Mama.” Her daughter never stopped calling her that, no matter how old she was getting. Maybe it was because they were surrounded by death and destruction. “I found some berries by the river today.” She pointed to a cup full of blackberries. “And Mawas claims he saw a pig wandering beneath the mountain.”

Arwa looked at the two bows hanging above the chimney. We haven’t used those in so long. She drooled at the thought of salt pork and was happy Magwr was throwing the root into a pot of spiced water. “Good finding the berries, we’ll have to see if we can catch that pig on the morrow.” She came farther into the house, warming her hands by the fire, lowering her hood to reveal pointed ears.

Her children smiled. Even as the world ended around them they never forgot how to smile. Arwa did. The only thing that brought her joy was her family, and still she rarely smiled. Her face was too exhausted from all the crying over the years. Her friends, cousins, parents, all dying within months of each other. If Magwr wasn’t the best hunter in the region, who knows if they would’ve survived this long. Survived to be alone.

They each had one bowl of the root stew before bed. It wasn’t filling, but food was not a pleasure anymore, it was a necessity. They slept in the same room in the back of the house. Her and her husband sleeping near their swords, their children close to their daggers. No one other than the four of them had been in Idrínach in over a year. Still they worried. The villagers did not all attack one another as the world shook, but sometimes it was tempting, a family would bring home a boar and forget to share. Another hoarding onions and mushrooms. Attacking one another didn’t seem productive as the world ended.

Arwa awoke to Inanina shaking her and Magwr. “Someone is outside.” They both shot up, clutching their weapons. They stuck to the front room and out the windows were black stallions wearing gray armor. Mawas had his dagger ready, Inanina stayed near him.

Magwr held up his palm for them to wait, his face contorting with confusion, and opened the door. No one was killed. Arwa went to the door and saw two elves atop the horses. Their pale skin blinded her as it reflected the last light of their star.

Arwa and her husband bowed, tugging their children’s cloths to follow. “Dihain.” They said with the echo of their children. 

“Stand.” A deep voice rumbled.

Arwa couldn’t wait for the formalities to end. “Have we been chosen? Are we to go into the light to escape this place of death?”

The elf with the deep voice only blinked. The one next to him dismounted his stallion. “The dihain have seen the tree. We have read the leaves that have fallen and cracked the branches that once were.” His voice was melodic, sounding like her father when he used to sing her to sleep. “A Mawr Ann only tells us of its passing. Of this world coming to an end. What is on the other side of the light we do not know, A Mawr Ann only has guesses. Many have gone through and none have returned.”

“But it could be our salvation.” Mawas said from behind.

The elf nodded slightly. “That is why the dihain have come to you. The population of this world has dropped. Soon everyone will die. A Mawr Ann says of one place we can go and be safe, of elven rulers and their great kingdoms, of a world populated with life and plants and food. The dihain pass judgment. Those who are deemed worthy must step into the light and see what is beyond.” The elf cleared his throat, his stallion whinnied. “We of the dihain have traveled far to seek you out and see A Mawr Ann. We have passed our judgment and must take you with us.” 

Arwa smiled, her lips hurting from hope. “Of course I will go. I must do it for my family, for all my family I have lost.”

“Not you.” The deep voice rang out. The melodic elf pointed a finger over Arwa and Magwr’s shoulders. 

Inanina.

Arwa and Magwr both yelled out, “No,” Inanina shook her head, stepping back and clutching her dagger. “I will not.”

“She is too young.” Magwr said. “You cannot judge the heart of a child.”

“The light has only glowed brighter with each passing year since its arrival.” The elf on the ground said. “The dihain have decided to take serious action to prevent our people from dying out.”

Arwa raised her sword. “I will not let you. You may take me but not my daughter.”

The deep voiced elf jumped down from his horse, the ground shook below his metal boots. “You have no choice.”

He hit her with a blue lit weapon. A shock went through her body, she fell to the ground convulsing, but still able to see and breathe. Magwr and Mawas were next. They fell beside her. Tears streamed from her eyes as the dihain grabbed Inanina and threw her over a horse. The stallions galloped into the west. Her daughter was never seen again.

The world was dying.

Arwa patted the dirt over the seed she had planted, hoping for rain to come, for the sun to shine, and her garden to start growing. It reminded her of the graves. First her friends and parents all those months ago. She could still see the fresh dirt behind her house, not of her parents, but of Magwr and Mawas. They had died within weeks of each other, a few weeks after Inanina was taken. Arwa cried herself to sleep every night since her daughter’s capture. The tears turned to vomiting when Magwr fell ill and died of a fever. The vomiting turned to blood and bruises and scars when the floods came and she found Mawas drowned. She hoped the new graves wouldn’t be disturbed by rain.

A Mawr Ann loomed overhead. The great tree was even worse than before. The last of its branches fell off two days ago, the sound echoing in the valley. The sun had shone for the last time a week ago. Now, Arwa sat in her home in darkness. She had almost no strength to do anything. She didn’t know if it was from sadness or hunger. The barrel Mawas filled was still good to drink, and she ate a blackberry once a day to sustain herself. It wasn’t working.

When she looked at herself in the mirror, she could barely recognize who looked back. Her hair was falling out in clumps, her nails bitten off, her face sunken, eyes bloodshot. She touched the points of her ears. The dihain, those elves who knew to read A Mawr Ann, those who knew what was to come, who had full authority over all the elves in this region of the world. They stole her child. Sometimes she wondered if it was for the best. Perhaps Inanina made it through the light. Living in a perfect world with an abundance of fruits and vegetables and all the salt pork you could eat. Not having to be in this house when her father and brother died, not having to see her mother become nothing more than bones and saggy skin. 

Arwa picked up Inanina’s dagger, a small blue bead hanging from the handle. She looked in the mirror, remembering the dihain and all they stood for, and cut the points of her ears off.

She lay in the corner of the room, dried blood on her cheeks and neck. Tears streamed down her face. Portraits taken out of their frames showing her family in happier times. All together.

There was a crash that shook the world, the house moaning from the force. She dragged herself to the window and saw the great tree. The trunk had snapped in the lower half. A Mawr Ann was rolling down the mountain, crashing along the rocky cliffs, the last of the birds panicking to get away. It rolled and bounced and smashed until it broke into a thousand pieces in the valley. The world shaking. The sky getting darker than it already was.

Arwa let out a yell that sounded both sad and relieved. Her world, her home, it was near death, but maybe she would see her family again. She would die alone in this house, no one to bury her, but she didn’t have to die in front of her children or husband. She wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone.

The world stopped moving. Arwa waited. And waited. The world was still alive, holding on by a string. She hoped her death would be quick. Nothing happened. Now she let out a yell of sadness, her throat aching and her eyes bleeding from the tears. She found Inanina’s dagger. “I want to be with you.” She said to no one. She drove the dagger into her heart.

The world was dying.