The Keeper's Codex: Ashen Memories

by A. D. Wills

  “How am I supposed to understand if you refuse to tell me anything?”

  “I've been standing by, generation after generation, patiently and silently hoping that the next batch of rulers might bring about real change; true fairness and peace to the realm, only to see the same pattern occur. Bowing to the Divines, cowering like the dogs you are so as to not displease them, just so they allow you to keep your vain, and empty seats of power. I will admit however, that in all honesty, I had high hopes for you Dreymond, I truly did.”

  The scene turned to Dreymond as a young King, arriving at the Summit of Leaders with Kuxori and Tepis when the War of Regions first started. Nothing could be heard, and everything was a wispy silhouette—no one's faces visible other than Dreymond's, with Aldriss standing behind him as his escort. At the other end of the table, away from the leaders, two unknown people, completely grayed out from view, watched the proceedings,

  “You've done a fair job of trying so very hard to forget those days, haven't you?” Boroku circled around Dreymond, kneeling in place watching everything play out just as it did back then.

  Kings and Queens arguing right as the meeting started. Everything screamed chaos, black and red smudges coloring the scene. The silhouettes' mouths stretching agape in horror, shrieking points across that sounded like wailing nonsense. When two of the silhouettes leaped forward, Aldriss cut them both, gushing red all over the scene to blot everything else out.

  “Things escalated quite quickly back then, now didn't it?” Boroku continued checking in.

  Dreymond refused to say a word, and only glared back with a face fueled with hatred and sorrow.

  “It was around this time I started to realize you were just like all the others. Sure, I'll grant you were the best option, but I'm not one to settle for the lesser evil. I'm sick and tired of that excuse. Evil is still evil, no matter what kind of shiny ignorant polish you put on it."

  Boroku's calm demeanor boiled and bubbled away for a quick second, before he gathered himself.

  “I united the country—I rid it of slave drivers and tyrants. I'm on your side, Boroku, I don't like these Divines anymore than you...”

  “But there's nothing you can do?” Boroku finished Dreymond's thoughts.

  Dreymond lowered his head, looking at the fiery ground around him. “I'm just trying my best with what I have.”

  “Do you call this uniting a country? Was this your best?” Boroku stepped aside, and the scene changed once more.

  Remote villages, peaceful and harmonious, untouched by war suddenly faded into ashes, leaving nothing behind. All over the world, places forgotten, buried under ash from where they once flourished, as if they never existed in the first place.

  “This is what you and your army did throughout the war. You were no better than the Tepis or Kuxori armies. The three of you only sought consolidated power is all, but you convinced yourself you were different because you didn't have to see any of the cost up close.”

  “I didn't want it to end up this way, believe me, I didn't,” Dreymond said in shame. “I never even wanted a war in the first place, but I couldn't let those tyrants do as they pleased and longer. I couldn't let them win.”

  “There it is, using that excuse just like everyone does when pushed enough. You took the easy way out, blinding yourself to any other options. You tell yourself these convenient lies, just so you can sleep well, and pat yourself on the back like everyone else. Forgoing everything else for personal gain, veiled behind the promise of it being for the best. But in the end, I suppose you did win, right? It must have all been worth it."

  Dreymond had no words. He knew about the horrors, and felt no shortage in shame from it. All these years, he tried to focus on the good, rather than the messy past.

  “Just so you don't feel left out, I am just as guilty as you and everyone else for waiting so long, and convincing myself you all might do better eventually. But I'm finished watching you all plead ignorance. I am finished watching you all play a game with the lives of others who only ask for a place of peace in this world, free from the Divines blocking every path to success they seek.” Boroku ranted on, and coughed up a spurt of blood splattering on his hand.

  “Then what will you do?” Dreymond looked up at Boroku. “Will you seek to rule over everyone yourself, controlling everything they do? I know I am not perfect, but I at least give everyone freedom to live and grow.”

  "I don't plan on ruling over anything, because I'm not so conceited to think it's my place to do so. To think you alone are good enough to rule over anyone—to have them bow to you in fealty, it really does require quite the toxic ego," Boroku was interrupted again by a violent cough. “Sadly, it would seem our time together is running low.”

  “You can't force your ideals onto others, but only hope to lead them to a better way of living in the end. No matter what you say, I truly believe we are doing just that. It takes time, Boroku, it takes everyone to take the time to eventually come to an understanding!”

  For the first time, Boroku looked visibly frustrated, not the least bit amused. “You keep saying the same things, doing the same things—all with the same result. Every bit of this is fake, built upon something that was once real. But you're all blind to it, and it disgusts me down to my very core how foolishly ignorant you are. I don't plan to force anything on anyone, but open their eyes to reason, and how they have all been deceived and used. You're just the first step in doing so.”

  “You have no idea how this all works then, if that is what you believe,” Dreymond said in an oddly peaceful tone, knowing his time was all but up.

  “No, I understand more than you ever could,” Boroku pressed his fingers on Dreymond's neck, and veins pulsed and popped all over him—sending Dreymond into vicious convulsion.

  Dreymond looked like he was trying to say something, but before he could, his body seized up and keeled over—collapsing down onto the war torn area Boroku summoned around them.

  The moment Dreymond collapsed in the constructed illusion, Boroku awakened in the carriage across from Dreymond's limp body. He had to catch his breath, and found himself in a bit of a cold sweat, but satisfied beyond belief seeing Dreymond lifeless across from him.

  Boroku smirked, and opened the carriage door to boot Dreymond's dead body out as it fizzled away, like ashes in the wind. “Soon everything will have been worth the wait.” Looking back at the now distant Faella, the protective purple barrier was now down, exposed to the rest of the world for all to see.

  Chapter 17: Caden

  After a couple days of near nonstop travel, aside from resting their land-lizards, Caden, Zasha, Snillrik, and Sappo entered a vast gray valley that matched the clouded skies. The ground completely ripped asunder with roaring geysers shooting out from the endless cracks between giant jagged boulders jutting out all over the place. The surfaces of the boulders were so smooth, they shimmered like a field of shiny dragon scales. A beautiful, yet harrowing place that looked untouched, and ransacked all at once without anything else around this blasted land.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Sappo asked, in thin hopes Zasha would say otherwise.

  “There's no doubt, going off this map,” Zasha folded the map back up to stow away.

  Snillrik looked around with Achi chirping away, waking up from a little nap. “We should be careful going forward. The sheer force of these geysers, it's ripping away the earth itself.”

  “Yea I bet one blast from that, and we're going sky-high.” Caden held his hand up above his eyes, taking a long gander.

  “Just to be sure in case anything else morbidly worse could happen to us such as, I don't know, being melted into nothing but bones, we best be careful.” Snillrik tried, albeit poorly, to dance around the issue so as to not alarm Sappo.

  Sappo gulped, watching the constant random bursting of geysers from the massive rifts carving into the earth all around them. “And where's this place even supposed to be? I don't see it.”

  “
Go ahead and snap the reins to find out,” Zasha teased with a cold grin. “Just don't mess it up and get us killed."

  “This isn't helping!” Sappo snapped over to Zasha enjoying herself all too much.

  “Perhaps there's a sign to spot when they might burst, and make this trip a little more predictable for us,” Snillrik suggested, and pulled their monocle to extend, and observe a distant geyser until it popped.

  Moments before, it glowed a flash of white, and started to bubble before spitting up, and finally bursting into a massive plume of scorching steam.

  “Ah...” Snillrik pulled the monocle down.

  “What? That doesn't sound good?” Sappo asked.

  “There's a notable sign before it shoots off, but it's a small window. I'll do my best, but there won't be much margin of error between us, Sappo,” Snillrik explained.

  “No worries, you two have this taken care of!” Caden encouraged, climbing up to the top of the wagon, devoid of worry.

  “Whatever, just tell me when we get there,” Zasha crawled back into the wagon to continue her nap.

  “Easy for you two to say...” Sappo sighed behind a mutter.

  Slowly, but surely, Sappo directed the wagon through the destroyed valley. Geysers shot up all around them, and nearly under them too, but thanks to Snillrik guiding Sappo—quick on the draw with their orders, they proceeded ahead without issue.

  They kept at it for a little while, until a depression in the ground led to a huge crater up ahead that sank down in splitting the shelves of land in two on either side. Shimmering smooth sheet-rock that towered at least a good fifty feet above the sinking ground below, and within it, the geyser city of Qwayke.

  “There it is! I can see it from here,” Caden looked ahead with Snillrik's scope, before handing it off.

  “He's right, there it is just up ahead," Snillrik confirmed.

  Caden grew a sneaking grin, and peered over his shoulder into the back of the wagon. “Zasha's still sleeping, right?”

  “We should wake her to tell her we're here,” Sappo said, riding ahead.

  “Sure, but first...” Caden crept into the back of the wagon, and grabbed a stale bread roll.

  “What are you doing?” Snillrik whispered.

  “Just watch,” Caden sucked in his lips so as to not burst out laughing, and wake Zasha as he quietly replaced her claymore off to the side with the long roll. “Crap, there're Divines up ahead!”

  In a dazed stupor, Zasha blinked her fuzzy eyes, snapping her head around every which way in a tired panic. “Divines?” She uttered, feeling around for her sword, and grabbed the roll in rushing out to the front of the wagon, armed and ready. But nothing, and no one was there other than Sappo, and more geysers.

  “I had nothing to do with this, by the way,” Sappo admitted, looking away.

  “Go get 'em Zasha!” Caden burst out laughing, falling onto his backside he felt so weak in his knees.

  Even Snillrik wriggled their lips around, trying so hard not to draw Zasha's ire, but they couldn't help themself either—letting out a chittering high pitched laugh.

  Zasha took the bread roll with seething widened eyes, and whipped it at Caden's face.

  Snillrik looked away, suddenly capable of silencing their wriggling lips when Zasha shot her sights over to them.

  “Um..I think we're here,” Sappo interrupted the feud in the back, turning to announce their arrival.

  Caden rubbed his throbbing face, and everyone joined Sappo up at the front to take a look for themselves.

  A staggering marvel to behold, clouds of steam billowing out, almost enshrouding the city in an eerily peaceful white mist weaving around the stone homes. Most of the buildings appeared nearly identical, practically built with simple stone, and wide flat rooftops. Most notably, the geysers weren't wild and out of order like they were everywhere else. They shot off in what seemed to be an organized pattern, and never around any of the homes and other buildings in the city. Instead, wide stone vents opened up, popping the top all the way off and neatly back in place as the line attaching it retracts.

  “The ingenuity to harness this power, very impressive," Snillrik noted.

  “I wonder how high I'd get launched into the air if I jumped on one of those steam vents. I bet I'd be able to see the whole city from up there!" Caden watched the vents popping off like cannons.

  “Honestly, be my guest at this point. We're here, so you can get yourself killed for all I care,” Zasha waved off.

  “Exactly, we're not doing that because you'll get killed,” Sappo cut in. “And we should probably find out who sent the contract.”

  “Yeah good point,” Caden looked longingly at the bursting vents. “Alright, let's see if we can put the lizards in the stables, and head to an Inn.”

  “It doesn't appear there are any guards, or anyone around. Perhaps we can just enter the city?” Snillrik asked.

  “Shouldn't there be some guards with, ‘you know who’ being here?” Sappo whispered to Zasha.

  “You're not wrong,” she conceded, looking around with sharp suspicious eyes, yet, no guards in sight.

  “Everyone kinda looks fine to me,” Caden was confused too, watching the citizens wave their way for a moment, before tending to their own affairs.

  No one appeared to be particularly well-off or rich, but they all seemed happy enough. No issues like they saw in the slums of Tortsia, not even an inkling of any of that happening here.

  “Maybe it was an old contract or something,” Caden wondered.

  “No, I know there's a lieutenant here,” Zasha seemed sure of herself.

  “Alright, well, guess we should ask. Hey!” Caden shouted to a passerby.

  Zasha covered his mouth before he could blurt anything else out.

  “Yes? May I help you?” A kind old woman turned to ask them.

  “S-sorry, our friend is a little...excited at times. We were just wondering where the stables, and Inn might be,” Snillrik reccovered nicely.

  “Oh yes, just over there, and take your first left for the stables. As for the Inn, you can't miss it from there, right across the road.”

  “Thank you, much obliged,” Snillrik nervously nodded, waving her off. “Regardless how nice everything seems, it wouldn't hurt to perhaps keep our intentions to ourselves.”

  “Snillrik's right. We stay quiet unless we're approached,” Zasha agreed.

  “So you are sticking around with us,” Caden grinned, leaning in.

  “Not if you keep making faces like those...” Zasha's face squirmed, and reviled at Caden's bright beam of a smile. “For now, we have no idea what's going on here. Someone sent out a contract for help, and there's a Divine presence here. We can't forget that.”

  “Maybe we'll find someone at the Inn or something...and I wonder if they've got any good food there too,” Caden drifted back to his preferred subject.

  Sappo led them down the way the lady directed, and they arrived at the stables. They were much less impressive than those in Tortsia, but then again, any would be hard-pressed in matching them. Only one stable-keeper stood there, quietly took their wagon, and didn't even charge them a single bit of coin, lucky for them. But there weren't any other wagons hitched up either, so it wasn't as if the space was in nearly as much demand to be able to charge at all.

  The four of them proceeded a little ways down the warm stone street surging with a little bit of heat anytime the steam traveled below on its way to a nearby vent. Eventually, the Inn came into view. A building slightly bigger than the others, a sturdy stone base, and a smooth sheetrock rooftop that shone from the misty steam billowing between the outside, and the hot springs out back acting as a natural concealing curtain.

  Upon entering, the four of them were only afforded a few side-eyes, and friendly silent nods. People were scattered round stone-slab tables atop a cozy stone floor that warmed one's toes with every step. Off to the side, was a small booth with someone waiting. He stood there, scruffy beard, gray hair, and a fa
ce that looked about done with it all.

  Figuring he was the Innkeeper, they all made their way over.

  “Grumli, Innkeeper here. What can I do for you?” Grumli's insincerity was apparent.

  “We're looking for a room to stay in,” Sappo began.

  “And some food if you've got any,” Caden made sure to add in.

  Grumli took a pipe from underneath the counter, lit it, and took in a deep puff. “Yeah, sure. There's a free room upstairs, and every dinner here's on the house. Outside of that, you're on your own.”

  “And how much is a room?” Sappo cringed at hearing the cost, knowing full well Caden was broke, and didn't know how much Zasha had.

  “Twenty coin, take it or leave it.”

  Caden, Snillrik, and Sappo all slowly turned their pleading gazes to Zasha.

  “Here,” Zasha handed over twenty coin. “But now I'm broke too, so that's it.”

  “We'll figure it out, and who knows, maybe there's a coin reward...” Caden began before stopping himself, albeit a little late.

  Grumli's eyebrows raised for a second, but didn't care enough to ask what Caden meant.

  “Here's your key,” Grumli placed it on the counter, to which Zasha quickly snatched up before Caden could. “Get settled, or whatever you've gotta do, and I'll have dinner ready when you come back down.” Grumli turned to head into a back room that appeared to be a kitchen at the small glance afforded to them upon the door swinging open.

  “Oh yeah, and what about what's behind this place?” Caden asked.

  “Hot springs, feel free to use 'em if you want, I'm not stopping you.”

  Caden's eyes lit up. He hadn't ever been to—let alone seen any hot springs before. “Alright, let's get some dinner, then off to the hot springs, how about it?”

  “I suppose there's nothing else we have to do,” Snillrik conceded. “And it would be rather relaxing.”