Saving The Dark Side: Book 1: The Devotion

by Joseph Paradis

  Cole didn’t want to know what a Corpulant was. Its terrible moan still rang in his ears. “What do you mean when you say light side or dark side? Isn’t it dark here now?”

  “True, but we see the local stars on this side as we pass by them. On the Dark Side, they never see the suns. We move into the next house before the sun can fully rise over there.” Seeing that Cole still wasn’t getting it, Habbad stopped and carved two circles in the dirt with his foot. “This circle is your planet, and this one is your star. Think of Aeneria as having a back side and a front side. It appears in a reality, then moves in-between the local planet and its star.” Habbad then illustrated the point by dragging his foot in between the two circles. “Aeneria travels without rotating, and just as the local star’s light touches the dark side, Aeneria leaves that reality and appears in the next. The back side, or Dark Side, will only ever see a sunrise for but a moment.”

  “I think I get it now. Aeneria shifts into another reality before the sun gets a chance to shine on the back side.” Cole watched Lexy twirl and dance ahead of them in the tunnel. “How old is everyone here? You and Lexy would pass for children on my planet.”

  “We are considered children here on Aeneria. I am just shy of my second cycle and Lexy just went through her first with the passing of Terra. No one knows how old Kreed is, as we Underkin only live for about ten cycles. He has been in charge of Costas for all of our recorded history. Books of our past are locked up in Kreed’s home, where they are combed and approved by him before we are made to learn them.”

  “What do you know about your history?” Cole asked. Aenerian history sounded much more interesting than his own. Cole stifled a pang of homesickness, wishing he could talk to his mom about all this.

  “I know very little. Though after having spent time in Kreed’s house, I do know more than most. Aeneria used to be a peaceful planet, except it was only the Aenerians and they didn’t know how to use their magic at first. Eventually a war started when the Dark Ones began using evil magics. Almost all of the Aenerians were killed off from the fighting. The Light Side was winning and trapped the Dark Ones on Aeneria’s back side. Victory was certain for the Light Side; however, the Dark Ones had learned many uses of magic, and they used a tainted form of Wisdom to change the rules on Aeneria. They banished the rest of us to the Light Side. The dark side is much smaller than the light side, so we have had room to flourish and recover since the banishing. In their madness, the Dark Ones trapped themselves on the back side and have been festering ever since. Since the banishing there has been a barrier keeping the Dark Ones trapped, and no one has Traveled between the local planets. No one since you.” Habbad gave him a significant look.

  “Didn’t you say all the Dark Ones were banished to the back side? What about their leaders and that Decreath guy?’ Cole asked, eyeing Habbad as the Underkin pulled a blade from his wrappings and started cleaning under his nails.

  “I don’t know how the magic of the Dark Ones works, but they managed to keep their most powerful generals on the light side. The Three, as they are called, have been growing in power ever since, feeding and preying on the inhabitants of the Light Side. They are Grotton the Hungry, Decreath the Feared, and Sorronis the Hated and Despaired. They’ve been here so long that they’ve worked their way into our governments. I believe Kreed has been working for them for some time now. I spied him communicating with Decreath in his chambers. Luckily, Decreath is far away or else he would already have you. Kreed thinks that you hold a secret that will allow the Dark Ones to escape their prisons and infect all of Aeneria as they once did. That is why Decreath’s Corpulants are after you.”

  Cole was silent for a moment, rolling another question around. “Why did you help me escape? You risked Lexy’s life to help me. If we get caught…” Cole’s chest flooded with chilled dread. “Why would you risk Lexy? What if Kreed makes you kill her like that lady killed her kids? That was stupid!”

  Habbad didn’t answer. He watched his sister dance up ahead. His crinkled cheeks stretched into a little grin as she plucked a blade of grass and waved it around like a ribbon. “I was aware of the risk, and so was Lexy. It was her idea in fact. When I was trapped in Kreed’s home, I disobeyed him. He wanted me to do something disgusting, but I refused. He could have forced me with magic, but he wanted me to do it on my own. He locked me in a chest in the pillow room and told me to listen carefully, because he was going to teach me something important. He seemed happy, and for a moment I thought I wasn’t going to be punished, that perhaps the chest was just another test to bring out my Wisdom. I waited and listened. Finally they popped through the door. I could hear my parents and Lexy, as well as Kreed. In that moment I knew it wasn’t a test. I was being punished like the woman under the markets. Kreed placed me in that chest so that I could hear everything he would do to them, but not see it. I listened. I still listen to it every time I shut my eyes for too long.”

  “Habbad, I’m so sorry.” Nausea bubbled in Cole’s stomach.

  “Don’t be sorry for me. Be sorry for Lexy. She had to watch it,” Habbad turned his head and looked into Cole’s eyes. “That is why we risked saving you. We have set ourselves against Kreed and The Three. You are special. They would use you to hurt more people. We cannot let that happen.”

  Cole watched Lexy farther down the grassy tunnel. He felt a newfound level of respect and empathy for his new friends. “You would never know by looking at her. She always seems so happy.”

  “She hides it well. That is why she never stops singing and dancing. She says it keeps her full of good thoughts so the bad ones will have no room to grow…I think we should change the subject.”

  Lexy’s whimsical dancing had twirled her within earshot. She took Cole’s and Habbad’s hands in each of hers and swung them back and forth as she hummed a tune.

  “So Cole, what is Terra like? We know little of our own planet, and nothing of the local ones. I am curious,” Habbad asked, cracking a small smile for his sister.

  “Yes Cole, tell us about Terra and your family. They must miss you so.” Lexy nuzzled her cheek against Cole’s hand. Her face was cool to the touch.

  “Well, I have a mother and a grandmother, and I never knew my father.” Cole didn’t want to talk about his other family member just yet. “I have a few friends at school, which is where we send our children to learn things before they become adults. My mother works every day, real hard, just to support us - I mean me. She’s tough on me sometimes, but it’s usually because I’m being lazy. My grandmother is tough on me all the time though, but she does it because she loves me.” Cole looked up with watery eyes at the foreign stars through the grass. “I have a friend at school, her name is Ashley. I’ve loved Ashley since I was a kid like Lexy, but she never seemed to feel the same way until recently. She finally chose to be with me, but then I came here. I just disappeared and left her and everyone else.”

  “So you don’t know how you came to Aeneria? No memory at all?” Habbad’s eyebrows went up.

  “No idea at all. I remember a dream with lots of lights and a river moving through the sky. When I woke up I was here, in the woods not too far from where you found me.” Cole looked to Habbad, hoping this might reveal some answers. Habbad showed no reaction, however.

  “Ashley must be an interesting person to catch your eye, no?” Habbad asked.

  “She must be pretty too!” Lexy giggled, looking up at Cole with big, fluttering eyes. She was cute, even with her wrinkly little face.

  “Ashley is the prettiest girl I’ve ever met.” Cole smiled down at Lexy, who was overcome with a fit of laughter. “And yeah, she’s interesting. She…” Cole wracked his brain, he had never thought about what exactly made Ashley so intriguing, “She can play a couple musical instruments, she’s really good with sports, and when I’m with her I feel really full inside, like I have a piece of me that I was missing. She’s also one of the few people that are nice to Josh-… she’s just nice to everyone.” From the corne
r of his eye, Cole felt Habbad staring at him.

  Lexy’s eyes shimmered with wonder as the starlight poked through the grass, dancing across her lined face. “I hope I fall in love someday.”

  Habbad let her statement hang for a moment. “And what of Terra? What can you tell us about your home planet?” Cole was grateful that Habbad changed the subject.

  “I haven’t seen much of it to be honest, not even one percent. Terra spins so our days are much shorter than what you have here. It also travels around our sun, and when it completes a full orbit we call it a year, which I guess would be like your cycle. Our location around the sun gives us our seasons due to Terra’s tilted axis that it rotates on.” Seeing that Cole was quickly losing Habbad with his rudimentary astronomy, he changed the subject: “We have over six billion people and all kinds of different plants and animals. Our people live in different countries which all have their own government. They fight sometimes, actually it’s more like all the time. There’s always war going on someplace or another. We also have technology. We create machines that allow us to do all kinds of things like talk to each other from any distance, fly, build things, or cook food. I wish I could show you some of the stuff we have, it looks like Aeneria hasn’t advanced too far with technology yet.”

  Habbad released Lexy’s hand and tucked his knife back under the wrappings around his middle. “We have technology, but only Aenerians are allowed to use it. When permitted, we use magic for menial tasks like trimming the gardens, but we are primitive in Costas compared to the bigger cities. Sometimes other Aenerians come to Costas riding machines that fly and carrying weapons that kill.”

  “Why aren’t you allowed to use technology or magic?” Cole asked.

  Habbad’s eyebrows twitched together. “Kreed says it is because the Underkin aren’t smart enough and we will end up hurting ourselves. I think it’s because it makes us easier to control.”

  “Why doesn’t your government do something about Kreed? He must answer to someone? Can’t somebody report him?” Cole asked.

  “He is the government in Costas. Besides, would you risk your family to report him?” Habbad took Cole’s silence for an answer. “We could try to leave, but the nearest city is very far away and no one knows how to get there. The only ones that travel between the cities are the big people on their flying machines.” He pointed down the trail. “We are near the end. We should not talk if we can avoid it. Kreed may send soldiers out to patrol the main roads.”

  Cole nodded and Lexy stopped her humming. When they reached the end, Habbad placed his head low to the ground before peeking out from the grass. Once he was satisfied that the way ahead was clear, he motioned for the others to follow. The walk back to where they met seemed longer to Cole due to the lack of sunlight and his crippling hunger. Even though Habbad had altered his vision for the darkness, Cole had a hard time seeing through the shade of the trees.

  Cole blinked with wide eyes. “Habbad, I can’t see a thing. Can you change my eyes some more?”

  “I cannot. It’s taken all of my focus to maintain the spell for this long. My mind and body are weary from it.” He rubbed his forehead and grimaced as if he had just picked up a whiff of something foul. “I must release it now, from all of us. The spells have gone sour. I’ve never maintained three spells at once. There should be enough starlight for us to see anyway.”

  They halted on the trail, blinking and rubbing their brows. From his eyes Cole felt a great relief of pressure only now apparent due to its absence. Habbad’s weariness lifted from his face as Cole’s vision brightened, revealing the starlit trail and trees around them.

  “This is the place where I attacked you.” Habbad walked over to the edge of the trail and picked something up, tossing it to Cole. “This is yours.”

  Cole snatched the object. His fingers embraced his sharpened stone like reuniting with an old friend. Tucking the stone under the wrappings behind his back, Cole looked at the surrounding area. “Thanks. Yeah there’s the bush I was hiding in. Hey I’m sorry by the way, for hurting you. I shouldn’t have thrown you.”

  “It was necessary. If you hadn’t defended yourself I would have killed you. Lucky for you I was too startled to use Wisdom. The Dark Ones may have been banished from this side, but they have been rumored to cross over. I’ve never actually seen one, but you looked so strange that I thought you were one of them.”

  “You were foolish, Habbad,” Lexy chimed in. “You always tell me to think first and act second. You should apologize you know.”

  Habbad looked to Cole and shifted his feet uncomfortably. “I…I did what was necessary at the time. For all I knew he was a Dark One. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to hurt us. I regret nothing.”

  Lexy crossed her arms. “That’s not how mother and father taught us to behave. Even if he was a Dark One you should have given him a chance to be nice first.”

  “Well, mother and father are not here anymore, are they?” Habbad’s voice was robotic and cold.

  Lips quivering, Lexy looked as if she wanted to respond, but couldn’t find the words.

  Cole bent down and put his hands on their shoulders. “No apology needed. You made the right choice, Habbad. You two have to look out for each other.” He gave Lexy a gentle shake, “And it looks like I’m stuck here so there’s three of us now. I’ll take care of you like you’ve taken care of me.”

  Lexy’s face stretched into a toothy grin. “You are in our family now, Cole. You are our new big brother.” She threw her arms around Cole’s middle and squeezed him tightly.

  Habbad gave Cole an approving smile. “So, big brother, where are you leading us?”

  Leading them from the trail, Cole found the woods were difficult to navigate under the starlight as everything looked different. They went slowly at first but eventually Cole found a familiar game trail and they quickened their pace. Fortunately this trail also had a few edible flowers, though Cole felt somehow even hungrier after eating a few. When they finally reached the base of the hill where the cabin was, Cole broke into a run, eager to see if Goran was waiting for him.

  “Goran!” he shouted outside the cabin. “Goran I’m back! Are you in there?”

  There was no response.

  “Who is Goran?” Habbad asked when he reached the cabin a moment later.

  “Goran’s my friend. He’s an animal, I’m not sure what kind though. Maybe you can tell me when you see him. Goran are you in there?” Cole pushed his face into the door and popped through.

  Cole flicked on a few mushrooms and discovered the cabin was empty, though the nut bowl was full. Habbad and Lexy popped through the door and looked in wonder at the glowing mushrooms.

  “Oh my stars! These mushrooms look like lanterns! They are beautiful aren’t they, Habbad?” Lexy stroked one of the glowing blue bells.

  “Don’t touch it!” Habbad slapped her hand. “They might be poisonous.”

  “The glowing mushrooms? Really? They’re harmless as far as I can tell. I mean, I wouldn’t eat it but…well go ahead and flick one, like this.” Cole snapped his fingers over a rubbery mushroom close to the ceiling.

  Lexy gasped in wonder, then ran around the cabin touching every mushroom she could reach. Habbad squinted as his eyes adjusted to the bright turquoise lights. After grabbing a handful of nuts, Cole offered the bowl.

  “Those I recognize. They are deka seeds. How did you get them?” Habbad asked as he sniffed one of the seeds.

  “Goran climbs up and throws them down to me,” Cole replied through a mouthful of seed.

  “The animals on Aeneria are typically feral. How did you train one to get food for you?” Habbad asked.

  “I didn’t train him. If anything Goran’s been training me. The first day I appeared here I got myself good and stuck in that door. We don’t have anything like that on Terra, so it scared me and I tried to pull myself out. Don’t laugh, Lexy! I didn’t know any better!” Cole gave Lexy a playful swat. “Goran heard me yelling and showe
d me how to get myself unstuck. He kind of saved my life. I saved his life too from a huge bug. We’ve been inseparable ever since. We hunt together, he collects dried-up ferns so I can build a fire, and he shows me what plants are good for eating. I miss him for sure. He was my first friend out here. He’ll probably be back soon. He’s the one that filled the bowl.”

  Habbad looked suspiciously at Cole. “You are more special than I thought.”

  “What do you mean special?” Cole asked as he laid himself down on the sleeping mat.

  “It seems as if you have bonded with this animal. There are no creatures with that sort of intelligence on Aeneria, unless they are bonded through magic. This relationship sounds like a kind of magic. Are you sure you don’t remember any more about how you came to Aeneria?”

  Cole yawned. “Definitely not. It may have been by magic, but not from me. I’m as gifted as that chair is. We don’t have magic on Terra. My dreams were the only thing out of the ordinary. I guess I could tell you more about them, but that’ll have to wait till after I’ve had some sleep. I’m spent.”

  “I will hold you to it,” Habbad said as he and Lexy joined Cole on the large sleeping mat, which Cole now realized was for an Aenerian.

  Cole slept deeply and solidly for the first time since coming to Aeneria. He couldn’t remember his dreams however, even when he was woken by something nudging him in the back. He flipped over to see Lexy tossing and turning in what was left of the mushrooms’ glow. She was whining and crying softly. Cole reached a hand out to wake her.

  “Don’t touch her,” Habbad whispered from the shadows. “It is much worse if you wake her. She will deal with it in her dreams.” Habbad’s face suddenly appeared with a soft thump as he flicked a mushroom above his head.

  “Is she dreaming about…you know…your parents?” Cole asked.