The Paragon Element (Book 1)

by Jeff Hale

  She had been wearing tight leather pants, a white button-up blouse that only had a single button towards the middle buttoned, a black lacy bra, and a leather vest. She had actually worn a little make-up that evening too, which was rare for her. She had looked damned good, and she was looking just as good now.

  “You’re being awfully quiet, Rick. Something wrong?” she asked as she sat next to me.

  I shook my head again, trying to will myself out of this illusion, dream, whatever it was.

  “You’re scaring, me, Rick. What’s wrong?” She tilted her head to look at me, pale blonde hair falling across her shoulder.

  “You can’t be real,” I said. I stood and turned my back on her, walking towards the creek. I couldn’t look at her. If I did, it would be harder for me to keep to my belief that this couldn’t be real.

  “Why not? Oh. That. Look, it’s hard ta accept at first, but yall’ll find that here, ya can go anywhere, and do anything. It’s a paradise. I’m happy, and now that you’re here, we can be happy together. I know ya haven’t been happy since I… left, but we’re together now. It’s me, Rick, it really is.” She grabbed my arm and spun me to face her. I looked into those amazing eyes, the emerald now mixed with the green of the forest. Those eyes couldn’t belong to anyone else. I knew it was her.

  “Serena.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and held her for a few minutes, feeling tears threaten that I fought back, then looked down at her again. “I… I just need to tell you something. I have to say after all this time that…”

  “It’s okay. Ya don’t have ta tell me. I know. I’ve always known. Doesn’t mean that I’m not going ta destroy what’s left of yer rotten soul now anyway,” she said, her voice growing cold, a sneer of disgust marring her delicate features.

  I stumbled back as she withered in my sight, her flesh going grey and gaunt, cracking, while her eyes just grew brighter. She reached towards me with a bony hand, grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pushed me into a tree with so much force that I heard something in my back snap. I landed in a heap, and tried to get to my feet. I only made it to my hands and knees when she rushed over and kicked me full in the ribs, pain lancing through me as they cracked. I knew it was a dream, but I also somehow knew that if I died here, I died for real.

  “How does it feel, Rick? Knowing that you’ve trapped me here? All because ya couldn’t let me go! Huh?” A second kick. “How does it feel ta know that you’ve been putting me through hell?! If I ever loved ya, it’s gone now, I have nothing but loathing and hatred fer ya.” A third kick. “You’re black now, rotten through the core. You’re a liar, a murderer, and nothing that was good about ya is left!” A fourth. At this point I was starting to feel like she was practicing for an NFL field goal record.

  “I’ve watched ya all this time. I watched what ya did ta yerself in my memory. I watched what ya’ll became. Ya ain’t human anymore, you’re a monster!” One last kick, then she picked me up and slammed my head into one of the rock outcroppings.

  “Fight her, Aerick Kerensky! Fight her with everything you have in you! Fight her with your love for her,” a strange male voice sounded in my head. It was English accented and it echoed with power.

  Fight her? But she was right, wasn’t she? Maybe, but I suddenly wanted very much to live and I wanted my memories of her to remain pure. I shook my head and stood up, brushing aside the pain, both physically and emotionally, that she had just leveled onto me. I willed myself to see her as she was when she had first appeared to me here. All of a sudden she wasn’t decayed anymore, but appeared just as beautiful as I remembered her that evening.

  “Serena. I know you’re upset, but you have to listen to me. You can’t be like this. You’re a better person than this,” I told her, trying to put all the love I had for her into my voice, my eyes.

  “Ya’ll made me like this,” she insisted stubbornly.

  “No, this isn’t you. You are a better person than this, I know it. You always have been, you’ve always been a better person than me. You’ve never allowed your negative emotions to control you. You always looked to the positive. That’s what I’ve always loved about you. This isn’t you because this is what I have always feared.”

  “Loved…?” Those green eyes pinned me now, her head tilting in question.

  “Yes, Serena, I love you. Always have, always will.” They were the words I should have said that night, but I was saying them now and hoping that she heard me, believed me.

  “No! You’re just trying ta…” She seemed uncertain now.

  “Just trying to face and conquer my own fears, Serena. You are a conjuration of my own mind. I’ve always been afraid of what you would think of who I am now, always been afraid of how you would react to me. The reality is that Serena would love me no matter what, because the love she had for me was pure, and innocent. She never harbored any negativity, and never would.”

  The image of Serena suddenly smiled sweetly at me, hugged me once, and vanished. I shook my head and fell to the ground, exhaustion and pain getting the best of me. The other voice sounded in my head again.

  “Well played, lad. You’ve looked inward and conquered your greatest fear, well played indeed. To do such a thing is to know that you are on the journey of a hero,” that voice said. “And believe me, you will be a hero before all is said and done. In fact, you’ll be responsible for saving the world. But for now, rest. You’ve earned it.”

  “What just happened?” I asked the voice as I felt fatigue taking over.

  “You were Aetherically attacked within your own mind. You were vulnerable in your current physical state. Your mind is still trying to cope with the damage done to your body.”

  I drifted off then, actually sleeping rather than being plagued by an Aetherically charged fever-dream. The dream that followed was no less disturbing, even for all its difference.

  Now I was in a forest, thick and primal, one that had never seen the touch of cultivation or the woodsman’s axe. I was out of breath, and the muscles in my legs burned with strain. I felt as though I had run for half a day.

  Hooves thundered upon the ground behind me. As I turned, a fully barded horse was bearing down upon me. The human figure on its back was completely armored and held a flail in its right hand. I had a sinking feeling that the flail was meant for my head. As the flail flew towards me, I dove into a forward roll, came to my feet and quickly spun around, but the action hadn’t been mine. It was like I was watching a movie from the perspective of one of the characters.

  The horse wheeled around at its rider’s command. “What is this?” the rider demanded, voice male and harsh. The language was one I didn’t quite recognize, even though I understood him perfectly. “The coward stands his ground in the face of certain death? You have betrayed your King in an act of treason. As such, you have betrayed God. Know now that I am your executioner as sent by the King in the name of God.” With that he spurred his horse, charging at me again

  “It is the King that is wrong in this. His alliance with the Church, the creation of this Barrier, it is all wrong. He refuses the advice of his Court Wizard at his own peril, and at the peril of the world,” I argued back in the same language, lifting my right hand and conjuring a shard of ice. I hurled it at the knight and hit him full in the chest, the impact dismounting him. He fell to the forest floor with a resounding thud.

  I approached to where he was struggling to regain his feet, raising a hand again and forming shackles of ice around his ankles and wrists so he couldn’t rise. This close now, I could see the ornate carvings on the armor. It was thick and heavy plate, although the rider had carried its weight as though it had been no more than a shirt of chain mail.

  The last couple steps brought me close enough that I could reach down and take his helmet off, revealing the long dark hair and familiar boyish face of a man in his early twenties. His features were rough around the edges but I knew the ladies found him attractive anyway. Piercing blue eyes glared up at me.


  “Besides which, have not you already betrayed your King? Your dalliances with the queen are not the secret you think they are,” I said as I looked around warily, wondering where his compatriots were. “Have you come alone? Did you plan to deliver my head to him yourself, mayhap earn some trust back?” I tossed the helmet to the ground a few feet away.

  “I needed no others to kill you, Sentinel! If my abilities were stronger I would break free and run you through!”

  “Bold talk from a person chained to the ground. Join us. Your skill at arms would be invaluable in the coming fight. You know the King is not who he once was,” I offered.

  “Perhaps he is not, but treason is not the way.” He shook his head as if to deny it.

  “It is not treason if the King is an unrelenting tyrant. It’s revolution.”

  “It is the same thing, but…” He went quiet and I could see the indecision in his eyes as he wavered. “Perhaps you are right. Release me, we shall speak more. You have my word that I will not attack you.”

  I nodded and, with a wave of my hand, flames leapt from my palm and melted the ice shackles that held him. “Then let us talk,” I said, and the scene before me faded from view, only to be replaced by another.

  I was the same person from the previous dream, but I somehow realized that this event happened weeks earlier than the other. I was in a castle hallway, approaching the Great Hall. As I passed a set of heavy wide wooden double doors, I knew they led to the throne room. Yelling came from behind the doors, two voices, one male, one female, something that was a regular occurrence these days.

  This time though, one of the doors had been left partially open. Curiosity and worry got the better of me and I squeezed through. Great wood columns marched down either side of the grand aisle to the throne and I ducked behind one of these before hiding myself among the heavy curtains along the walls to watch the altercation within.

  The queen stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to the dais upon which two heavily gilded thrones sat. Color was high in her cheeks, fury making her small hands fist against the deep purple silk of her gown. The fine material clung to her curves, contrasting against the long blonde hair that rippled in natural waves down her back, and I felt my heart skip a beat at her beauty, like it did every time I looked upon her. She seemed frail, and much younger than her age, as she glared up at the man at the top of the dais, her distinct lack of height only making it more so, and I could only imagine her bright blue eyes as they flashed in anger.

  The recipient of her rage was a tall man, towering even over me let alone her. His brown hair was longish, still untouched by silver, and brushed the shoulders of his ceremonial half-plate. The ire in his own grey eyes was easily apparent and his leather-gloved left hand rested on the pommel of a sword of unparalleled craftsmanship in a sheath strapped to his hip. I knew that he never left that sword untended. Ever.

  “You know that your advisors are right!” The queen’s voice was shrill, filled with frustration. “The Church is up to something! And you play right into their hands! You have been foul-tempered and brooding ever since you visited their leader! Some say you are possessed! What happened to the man I married? What happened to his ideals of a prosperous people and kingdom? What happened to his ideals of every man as an equal? The Church would take that away from us, away from you!” She gestured to one of the tall windows that overlooked the village closest to the castle.

  “Because evil has taken root in this land for far too long! If complete control over the people is what it takes to flush this evil into the open so it can be destroyed by purging holy fires, then so be it! And if controlling my queen is the only way to stop her from whoring herself out to my knights, then that is what I will do as well!” His voice echoed loudly through the room, his hand clenching around the hilt of the sword, as though fighting the urge to draw it. “And if hanging those knights that stand against my decree is what I need to do to control them, then I will! If banishing my advisor because he questions me too much will serve as an example, I will do that as well!”

  “Banishing your advisor? You are possessed! You must be! He is your closest friend!” The queen was taken aback.

  “He seeks to overtly oppose me and the Church. He will be banished so that he cannot cause further trouble,” the king declared roughly.

  “You are only banishing him because you know you cannot kill him. You know that if you openly attack him that he will burn you down where you stand!”

  “Wrong, wench! He will take over my mind, for that is his way. Insidious like the Serpent. It is a wonder I did not catch on to him sooner, but the ways of the Church opened my eyes to his duplicity. Witchery such as his cannot be abided.” His right hand sliced through the air in front of him, as though it were the end of the discussion.

  “If it were not for him, you would not wear that crown upon your head, and your knights would not have the capabilities that they have. Also remember that your sword belongs in his world as well, and without that sword, you no longer rule. No. You are not in your right mind. This Church is controlling you.” At her words, the king strode down the stairs with blinding speed and struck her, knocking her several feet across the floor, where she landed in a crumpled heap.

  “Guards!” the king called, and two guards appeared from the side hall that led to the royal quarters. “Take the queen to her chambers. She is not to leave until I say so.” The guards rushed to obey, carrying the queen’s unconscious body towards the hallway. I took the chance to retreat from the room and make my way back to the Great Hall, disturbed by what I’d witnessed, and the vision began to fade.

  The new vision was years earlier than the last, as though I was hopping back through time. I was in the same hallway, though this time I was striding with confidence down the passage. As I reached the throne room I saw that the room was filled with people. The aisle was lined with knights in various ornamental armors. The king sat upon his throne, and the queen in hers. An older man in crimson velvet robes stood to the right of the king, just behind the throne.

  The spectacle before me had me in awe, but I kept walking forward. Once I reached the bottom step of the dais, I stopped and dropped to one knee, glancing up with my eyes. The old man was conferring with the king, their heads close together. Up close the queen’s beauty made my heart stop for a second, especially when I noticed that she smiled briefly at me, then winked. My gaze shifted back towards the king and, for some reason, I knew that I did not care for this man.

  The queen stood and spoke, her clear voice carrying across the hall. “The kingdom has called forth this man to be recognized at the recommendation of the king’s advisor. Behold now as the king, beloved by all, turns an ordinary man into a man of valor.” The queen took her seat gracefully as the king rose.

  “We see before us an ordinary man, but we have heard tales that state that he has committed extraordinary acts. Our court advisor has sworn to us that this man has saved the lives of several of our citizens, and for that we can never fully repay this man for his heroics. But this day we call him forth to recognize him as not an ordinary man, but as a man of valor.” The king slowly walked down the steps, drawing his sword as he did so. The blade flashed brightly in the sunlight that streamed into the room from the tall windows, its edges sharply defined as though it were more real than anything else in the room. “I now call all to witness, as I ask the power of this sword and the lords before me who held it, to recognize this man as a valorous man, a courageous man, and a generous man.” He touched the tip of the sword to each of my shoulders.

  I glanced at the blade as it touched my left shoulder. Runes of power ran down the length of the metal and the hilt held a cluster of gemstones: a ruby, a yellow topaz, an emerald, and a sapphire. The pommel gem seemed to be a diamond, and though it was clear in parts, it also held a swirl of smoky darkness in it. The blade was lifted away, and the king bade me to stand.

  “Arise, Sir Galeron, Knight of the Round Table! Come now, we feast
in this man’s honor!”

  I stood, nodded at the king, then looked past him to the king’s advisor. The old man had watched me save the lives of several villagers in a town not too far from the castle, using powers I had no idea I had possessed at the time.

  Merlin smiled and nodded at me and said, “Well played, lad. Well played indeed.”

  ____________________

  I awoke to pain. Searing and raw, it felt like my skin had been flayed from my body by magical energy. Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly what had happened. I opened my eyes slowly, and the light burned. I flung my arm over my eyes by sheer reflex, and pain shot from my arm and into the rest of my body, causing me to cry out. A door opened, and the sound was alien to my ears.

  “Oh no, no. You’re awake. Oh… don’t try to move. It’ll be okay. It’s not all that bad. Well, okay, it’s bad, but you’ll be okay. I promise,” I heard Raven’s voice, overwhelmed with concern, and the light went away as I heard her draw the curtains.

  I tried opening my eyes again. The darkened room was a bit easier to bear. I looked around as best I could without lifting my head and found myself in a strange room. The parts of the walls I could see were dark purple, covered in stylized pictures and posters of faeries. The dresser against the wall on my right was deep purple painted wood and black curtains now blocked out the sunlight, both on a window and on the French doors along one wall. The bedding that covered me even matched, the sheets black, the comforter the same color as the walls. Raven sat on the edge of the bed, eyes filled with concern for me.

  “Whoa. Where am I?” I struggled to sit up.

  Raven was on her feet and at my side in the blink of an eye. She placed a hand on my chest, holding me down. “My house. Don’t try to move. You’re not… you’re not well yet.”