Bloodless

by Roberto Vecchi

  He probed into her conscious mind and found a single pathway leading to her subconscious. She felt only a small pressure inside her head as if a headache developed with the intent of finding the softest place to make its home. As he bored more deeply into the totality of her emotions and psyche, the intensity of her headache increased. When he reached the genesis of her memory, her very first, the pain was great enough to pierce her ability to comprehend rational thought. Still unable to move whatsoever, except that which allowed for her to sustain life, all she could do was increase her vocal expression to barely a whisper. But contained within it was the summative agony of hate’s brutal and unending relentlessness made alive by the hands of Jesolin at the behest of his master, Satan. And still he bore more deeply into her than the fathoms of the Endless Sea. So deep had he plunged that she died, or would have had he allowed it.

  When her mind became a molten puddle of emotional goo, he knew she possessed neither the conscious nor subconscious defensive ability to prevent him from unlocking her door. He found its psychological lock and examined it as expertly as a master locksmith. It was fascinating in its complexity, yet simple in its design. It was imperative that her mind not break during his examination. If it did, so would her lock, resulting in the mental deconstruction of the tumblers rendering any key useless. So, he tenderly, which is not to say he did so with any affection for her, fashioned a key he believed would unlock the door to the deepest part of her, the part not even she knew was present. As he inserted it slowly and applied a slight testing pressure, he found no resistance. He had done it. With a slight silent click, her mind slid open and revealed a darkened room. As he peered into it, he first thought it was empty. He had expected to find her subconscious images of Malice and Vile huddled in the back corner as if they were trying to hide from him. But when he saw a larger shadow than what the two young girls would have been able to summon, he peered more deeply and stepped inside.

  The shape was not unlike his own. It was definitely male and was definitely shrouded in darkness. As his vision adjusted to the lightless room, he saw the man had his back turned toward him and seemed to be looking out of a window. Though the scene beyond revealed a rising sun with a magnificent countryside complete with mountains, lush green trees, and a brilliantly blue river, it produced no light into the room.

  “The sun rises,” said the man, still with his back turned.

  “It will set. It always sets,” said Jesolin.

  “It will rise again,” said the man.

  “Who are you to know that?” questioned Jesolin. The man did not answer right away, rather he continued to stare silently out of the window. “I said,” repeated Jesolin, “who are you to know that?”

  Turning slowly to face Jesolin, the man answered with a single word, “Hope.”

  “Hope is an illusion,” responded Jesolin.

  “Hope is a truth,” responded the man.

  “And what is that?” asked Jesolin.

  “It is the unseen force that beckons all. It is the rising sun, the mountains that stand tall against all forces trying to pull them down, and it is the river that flows even in the deepest of droughts,” answered the man turning back to the window.

  “You speak of nothing,” accused Jesolin.

  “No,” said the man as he turned back to face Jesolin, “I speak of the Light.”

  “Then watch the light die!” he said firmly as he retrieved himself from Vismorda’s hidden chamber. He gripped her hair with his hand as tightly as he gripped her will with his power. She struggled to break free from his dual grip, but he was too strong. She reached with her hands and tried to pry his fingers apart, but soon found herself face down on the ground, the result of his power infused push. Before she could turn around, he was upon her, gripping her by the hair again. This time though, he did not pull up, he bashed her head into the cold marble floor. Dazed, she presented much less resistance when he forced her to stand.

  She was vaguely aware that he had pushed her out of the room and down the side corridor. “Where are we going?” she asked groggily.

  “We are going to train,” he answered with a slight grin.

  Though she was still battling for the return of her mind’s lucidity, she was not so dazed that she was not aware enough to correctly notice the sinister intent behind his words. While in the room, she had felt him plunge deeply into her mind, into places she did not even know she had. When the pain was beyond excruciating, when she felt as if not only her mind would break, but her body as well, when she pled for death, he simply vanished. His presence within her was gone without any of his evil lingering prolonging his enjoyment. Whatever he had seen, it provoked a change in his intentional behavior; and while some changes can be good, she was sure this one would not.

  As he continued roughly pushing her down the long corridor, she felt weakened, more weakened that she should have been. “Can you feel that:” he asked her, “the sapping of your strength?”

  “What are you doing?” she asked struggling to stay on her feet and keep up with his aggressive pace and handling.

  “Exactly what I said. We are going to train,” he said as she miss-stepped almost falling. Had it not been for the strength of his grasp, she would have.

  After he painfully jerked her to her balance, she asked, “What more can be done to train me? I am broken.”

  “Oh, my dear Vismorda, I never said I was going to train you,” he said ominously.

  “No!” she said with a gasp. “You cannot train them! Not yet! They are not ready for you!” she said, trying to shout. Had she not been under the influence and control of his power draining her strength, she most certainly would have. But as it was, her elevated urgency was capped at a level just above her normal speaking voice. What had he seen within her to provoke such a response? Her mind could not help but race to all the potentials for her little raven’s training. Yet as strongly as her mind was searching for anything that might prevent the inevitability that was quickly approaching, her body and her power would be unable to execute it even if she found it. When they both reached the door to the girls’ room, within which they would be peacefully sleeping, she tried one last time to connect to her flow of power. But it was useless. He had her firmly under his control, and in her weakened state, her resistance was futile.

  “Open it,” he commanded her.

  “No,” she responded.

  “Open it,” he said again.

  “I will not,” she refuted.

  After a short pause, her drew close enough to her that she could feel his breath upon the skin of her ear, “You will open it or you will not be the only one I have this night.”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “Open it,” he said again.

  “No. Please,” she whispered again, refusing to believe that the once sickly boy she rescued from a certain fate of death could have become the embodiment of absolute atrocity. But when he repeated his command for her to open the door again, this time laced with a resolute finality, she slowly and weakly placed her hand on the door latch, applying just enough pressure to fulfil his demand. As the door slid slowly open, her tears began, tears that would not stop.

  “Wake up, my little Ravens,” said Jesolin strongly, “Your education begins now.”

  She had been vaguely aware of their cries when they both witnessed him bludgeon the side of her face with his opened palm. She was also vaguely aware of the pain and blood that began to drip from the open wound on her cheek. As she tumbled against the footboard of one of their beds, she felt the swelling being instantly. As she stood to face him, barely able to see, she felt another open palm blow against the other side of her face. Again, she was sent reeling and landing face down on the other bed.

  Come, she heard a voice within her mind say.

  As Jesolin mounted her, she barely felt the pressure of his body behind her.

  Come, said the voice again, bidding her to follow inside of her own mind.

  As she to
ok the first mental step toward the bidding voice, all conscious awareness of Jesolin faded into a long hallway with a single door at its end. Was this what Jesolin had found? She took a few steps closer. The nearer she drew to the door, the more she was drawn to it. When she was only a few paces away, the door unexpectantly opened, as if her presence alone had caused it. The room within was dark. As she crossed the threshold, she saw a man standing inside peering out of a window, though the window offered no light to the interior of the room.

  “Welcome,” said the man.

  “Who are you?” she asked him.

  “Hope,” he said turning toward her.

  There, standing in front of her, face to face, was the man with whom she had battled. There was the man who spared her life and the man whose life she had spared in return. She had thought, after retrieving the girls, that his presence would be done; that he would fade into a forgotten memory and dissolve away with the rest of her hope. She had never expected so see him again in the physical world and certainly not in her mind. But there he was, standing as bold as brass and as confident as the sun offering her that which she no longer had. But how could he offer her that? “Why are you here?” she asked him.

  “I am here,” he said as he stepped closer to her, “for you.”

  He reached up with his fingers. She was powerless to prevent him. As much as she was bound in the physical realm by Jesolin’s power, she was equally bound here. But what bound her from action in her mind was not the darkness of his or anyone else’s fountain of liquid hate. Instead, she was bound by her own hope. A hope that longed to feel a touch as tender as she had witnessed. A hope that longed for something warm and soft in her dark, cold and hate-filled life. A hope that screamed of understanding. When his fingers landed upon the very spot he had once kicked as an act of life-sustaining mercy, a piercing light engulphed the totality of her; a light so bright and warm and tender it could only be called love.

  Resniak

  (Severed)

  “Graloralynn?” said Rony as he slumped against the outer doorframe. “That seems like a fitting name.”

  Both Zyndalia and Liani quickly turned their heads and collectively breathed a sigh of relief when they saw him awake and without permanent harm. Xunmerco slowly limped up to him and nuzzled him affectionately prompting Rony to respond in kind by scratching the large wolf behind his ears. Zyndalia stood up and hurried over to where Inglorca still lay motionless on the ground. She knew Inglorca was alive because her bond with the large female wolf was still intact, but that did not mean she was without injury. As she knelt down and began stroking Inglorca on her snout, the large wolf lazily lifted her head and grunted quietly.

  “Is she going to be ok?” asked Liani as she, too, stood up and walked over to them.

  “Yes, she is going to be ok. She was struck hard, harder than she’s been struck before; and I think it stunned her more than harmed her. But yes, she should be fine,” answered Zyn as she continued comforting Inglorca.

  “That is good to hear. Xunmerco will be well too. I think he twisted his ankle when that demon sideswiped his leg and threw him into the tree. These are certainly tough wolves,” added Rony.

  “They need to be,” said Liani, “Have you noticed that these demons, or whatever they are, are getting stronger as more time passes?”

  “What is happening?” asked Zyndalia. The previously unspoken question hung in the air for a length of time that seemed even longer than the span between now and when it had first begun as a thought. “The lands, the animals, the demons and monsters,” she added. “What is happening to Avendia?”

  “I do not know, Zyn. Perhaps we will never know,” he said the way he often did when he accepted the burdens and responsibilities of things greater than him.

  “Perhaps we will not, but there is another question we still need answered,” said Liani still visibly fatigued by the encounter.

  “What is that?” asked Rony.

  “What is happening to us?” Again, none of them had any answers, at least none that were worth discussing. “And also, why is it happening to us?” asked Liani.

  “I do not think any of us knows the answers to any of those questions. And I am not sure we should pay heed to them even if we did,” he said to Liani.

  “What do you mean?” asked Zyn. “Why we should not heed them?”

  “I only mean to say that there is nothing we can do about it,” he retorted.

  “Rony, we need to help in any way and every way we can” she said as she stood up. “And in case you have not noticed, we are able to help where and when others cannot.”

  “Help? Help? Help who?” he asked as he walked a few paces closer to her.

  “Who?” she asked showing her exasperation. “We need to help everyone, anyone. We need to do whatever we can to help Avendia.”

  “Are you serious, sister?” he asked her accusatorily.

  “Rony,” she said, understanding the inherent slight behind his question.

  “No!” he shouted before she could continue. “No! I will not hear it! We have been fighting these monsters, or demons, or whatever they are for longer than we ever should have. And for what? What have we received but more doom and more gloom? We have rid this world of at least seven demons that we know of and probably more than that. And yet, we are pursued by the very people we are protecting. And now, when we finally return home to be reunited with our mother, we find another demon in her place.”

  “That does not mean,” she started to say.

  “She is dead, Zyn,” he shouted. “Our mother is dead!”

  “You do not know that!” she yelled back.

  “No, I do not. I do not know any of it! I do not know what is going on with Avendia, or the monsters, or us.”

  “Then how can you say she is dead?”

  “Zyndalia! Did you not see what that demon was?

  “Rony,” she pleadingly said.

  “No Zyn! I have had enough of this!”

  “Enough of what?” she asked.

  “Of this! This life, this evil, this curse! I am sick of all of it and I want none of it any longer,” he shouted.

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want home,” he said, tears welling inside his eyes. “I want to be home with you and mother. I want things to be as they were before we left. I want to watch the sunsets again after a long day of hunting. I want to wake up early in the morning to the sounds of our life before all this and string my bow just like father had taught me,” he said to her.

  “Rony,” she said again, tears now welling in her eyes too “I want that too.”

  “Then why can we not have that? Why can we not live here, just the three of us, and forget about everything else?” he asked as he stepped close enough to her to reach his hand out and wipe the tears from her face.

  “You know why,” interjected Liani with a steadiness of voice betraying the emotions of the moment.

  “What?” asked Ronialdin, but Liani remained silent and steady. “What did you say?”

  “You heard what I said,” she told him flatly.

  “No, I do not know why?” he retorted squaring his shoulders in her direction. “Please enlighten me.”

  “Do you believe in coincidences?” asked the small woman.

  “What does that have to do with anything? Why does it matter what I believe,” he asked attempting to dismiss her question.

  “Well, do you?” she asked again.

  “I do not see your point, or rather, the point of my belief as having anything to do with what is happening and what we should or should not do,” he retorted.

  Liani looked to Zyndalia, almost silently asking for assistance to which Zyn responded only with, “Do not look to me. This is your argument.”

  “Fine,” said the small woman as she continued, “First, you embark on a quest to find a new home. Shortly after that, you get apprehended by goblins and are ultimately saved by some mysterious wolf pups that have some sort of mystica
l bond with you and your sister. Then you save me, but are trapped again by the goblins. Then, we are all saved by a group of mercenaries that just happened to be in the area at the very moment you were going to be killed. We were trained and became rather formidable warriors ourselves all the while your bonds with the wolves, who are now absurdly large for ordinary wolves, continued to grow. And then, when I was threatened by one of the mercenaries, who turned out to be some otherworldly monstrosity, you transformed into some type of beast yourself and emerged victorious. But let us skip everything else and all the other demons we battled, who all seem to be familiar with you and know more about what is happening to you than even you do, and talk about the events of the last few weeks. Now, I am also bonded to a wolf and I too underwent the same type of alteration you did just in time to fight another monster, who just happened to be impersonating your mother. And do not even let me begin talking about our elevated abilities,” she finished leaving him speechless. “Does that all not seem too much to be considered a simple coincidence or something directed by chance and chance alone?”

  “What is your point, Liani?” he asked her.

  “What is my point?” she said almost yelling. “My point is that we have been chosen by something greater at work, something that has deemed it necessary to combat whatever is happening.”

  “Then it chose wrong. I cannot do it,” he said.

  “Yes, you can,” Liani said in return.

  “No, I cannot!” he yelled. “It is too much,” he said resigning to a weakness he still felt he possessed within.

  “Rony, you are the only one who can!” she persisted.

  “No!” he shouted again and stormed over to where Liani stood. “Enough of this! I have had enough! I will hear no more of demons or powers or anything else! I am done!” he yelled; his voice thick with an exhaustion driven rage. Tears welling in his eyes once again, he tried to look compassionately at her, but was too tired to see he had another emotional option in this moment. Equipped with only his doubt induced anger and fear, he turned around and briskly walked inside their childhood home, slamming the door.