Leith was reluctant, but he knew it was best not to anger his sister further. He had seen the way she looked at Faolan and knew she was interested in the young guardian. He figured it would be best for self-preservation if he did not push back on the matter.
Ardara faded behind them as they steadily traveled north. The night continued rolling on into the deepest hours as the moon crested the starry sky. After some time and a persistent silence, Leith gave a wide yawn and shook his head in defiance of his heavy eyelids.
“I do not believe I will make it much farther without a bit of rest,” the healer mentioned over another yawn.
Faolan glanced at Aili and noticed her yawning as well. He reluctantly, yet sympathetically, agreed to make camp.
“Fantastic!” Leith smiled in delight as he lay down. He grabbed a rock and moved it under his head to use as a pillow. The healer closed his eyes, and a couple of seconds later, he was snoring.
Faolan looked down at him in awe. “How does he do that?”
Aili gave a shrug. “He has always been weird.”
Faolan wished he could do the same. He was very tired and had not slept much since they left Lesley. His body ached from all the recent events, and it was still slightly mending from Mor. The guardian stretched his back to the left and then to the right in an attempt to alleviate some of the dull pain and then rotated his head a few times while massaging his neck.
The young leader glanced at Aili and told her, “You should sleep. I will keep watch tonight.”
She nodded in agreement but expressed concern. “Are you not going to rest?”
“No. Both of you must remain safe, and I cannot ensure your safety while sleeping,” he answered.
“But you must be exhausted. We can all take turns keeping watch,” she urged. “There is nothing in sight except parched dirt.”
“No, we cannot. Neither of you are fighters.”
“Leith has a sword.”
“He can hold it, but he is not trained to wield it. And you keep no weapon.”
She frowned at him. “You will be exhausted tomorrow. What if something should happen, and you are too busy trying to keep your eyes open?”
“Do not worry about me. I will be fine. Please, Aili, get some rest,” Faolan pleaded.
Realizing she would not be able to sway his opinion, Aili reluctantly lay down near her brother.
Faolan was less than alert, though still awake. He had not slept much since they had departed from Lesley yet he could do nothing to appease his weary body. He tried to ignore his exhaustion as he watched and listened for any signs of movement. Time passed, and the moon moved across the sky. He saw no signs of movement as it proved to be a rather quiet night above the Verdunmull Scar’s eastern cliffs.
The young leader glanced down at the twin healers and saw their peaceful expressions as they slept. He then looked away and walked over to the unconscious dwarf to inspect the newfound mage. The armor he wore was quite heavy, but they had forgotten to ask the Stoneskins to help remove the metal shielding before hoisting Ehreion onto the horse’s back. The guardian could see the dwarf was breathing, though the burly figure was sweating profusely beneath the armor. Whatever the magic was doing to the dwarf, it did not seem to be agreeing with Ehreion’s body.
Faolan remained cautious and scanned the dark horizon again but saw no movement. He sighed, though no relief came to his tense muscles as they ached. The guardian walked away from the healers and toward the Verdunmull Scar’s east cliff. The walk was short, and his last footstep fell no farther than four inches from the cliff edge. He peered across the vast chasm as countless stars dotted the clear night sky. Faolan closed his eyes and breathed in a deep breath of cool air. A sudden rush of wind came from the north and died almost as quickly as it arrived. He opened his eyes and looked in its direction. The young guardian jumped back, and his hands gripped the hilts of his swords. The sudden fright passed in a moment as his mind calmed, and his hands slowly relaxed.
“You again?” Faolan acknowledged the stranger, turning his gaze back across the Verdunmull Scar. “Should I fear you?”
No answer broke the silence surrounding the mysterious stranger as he stood stoically next to him.
Waremasu shared the Shadow Guardian’s gaze across the Scar and peered up at the stars. Then the conical hat tilted forward as he briefly glanced down at the ground and, after a moment, looked up once again. One of the man’s hands revealed itself from within the black-and-white cloak as he began drawing in the air with an orange glow that trailed his index finger.
Faolan watched as the letters held their place in the air like ink on parchment. The words I am sorry glowed brightly in the dark.
“Why are you sorry?” Faolan wondered.
Waremasu brushed away the orange words with the back of his hand and wrote in its place, Betrayal.
“I do not understand. You say nothing, and you write little. If you wish for me to understand the meaning of your words, then I will need more elaboration on the matter,” the guardian explained.
Waremasu brushed the solitary word away and shook his hat. He wrote another string of glowing orange words in the air: You must unveil your own past without my assistance.
The statement caught the young guardian’s full attention. “Past! You know of my past?”
The stranger angled away and the conical hat lifted. The man underneath peered longingly up at the night sky. Faolan looked at Waremasu with growing fear. The man’s hat no longer covered his face, yet no face could be seen beyond his high collar. In its place was an opaque fog of darkness.
“What manner of being are you?” Faolan stepped back in apprehension. He had originally thought the darkness beneath the stranger’s hat was due to shadows, but he realized the being was enshrouded in a mystical darkness his sight could not pierce.
The hat lowered, and the darkness was concealed once again. Waremasu held out his hand and wrote, What I am matters not. Fear not, for I shall not harm you. What matters is the choice you make.
“What choice?” Faolan questioned with a guarded posture.
The stranger brushed away his words. Where will you go?
“We are headed to the Four Trials,” he answered.
Waremasu shook his head and wrote, Unwise.
“Unwise how? Only the five Ikalreev mages can stop the demon that will open the First Seal. We have now found three of them. Perhaps even with just three mages, they will be—”
An eerie, skin-crawling sound cut Faolan short. It was unlike anything he had heard before. Waremasu was laughing, but the laugh was not kind and was echoed by seven other voices. The discordant laughter echoed his own, and each voice was just slightly off tempo from the voice before it. Each voice was distinct and each just as chilling as the last: a young girl’s, an older woman’s, a man’s, a little boy’s, and two beastly voices that did not match any manner of man or beast in Faolan’s realm of understanding. They were darker voices, inharmonious voices. With so many voices, the young guardian’s mind struggled to hear more than only chaos. Complete terror overwhelmed him, and his eyes began to fill uncontrollably with tears. His hair stood on end, and his ears ached from the chaotic laughter. His muscles began to spasm wildly, and he collapsed to his knees.
Faolan cried out in overwhelming fright. “What is happening to me?”
The laughter ceased, and when it did, so, too, did the odd effects on Faolan’s body. The guardian took a deep breath and wiped away the tears from his eyes. Upon standing back up, he glanced fearfully toward Waremasu and stepped back in rising concern.
The angel’s presence became ominous, and he pointed unsympathetically toward a number of words burning in the air. These he had not written; they had simply emerged from nothing:
False hopes. Unfounded beliefs. Misplaced trust.
These are what the people of this world now follow?
Perhaps he was not misguided. Perhaps this world ought to fall.
Their backs face the li
ght, while their gaze pierces the darkness.
Understand. No mortal will be prepared for the pit,
nor the beings who will emerge from it.
Assured you should be, what is coming to this world will cause all to scream in terror, just as you had, not a moment before this one.
Yet, sadly, they will find no reprieve as you have.
My cursed voice is my burden to bear.
Do not allow this world to be burdened with the curse of the six seals.
I am able to bear mine . . . the world will not.
The First Seal is where you should go.
Faolan hesitated. “I cannot stop the demon alone. It is far too powerful.”
The angel brushed away the orange writing and wrote in its place, I will stand by your side.
The young guardian thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I do not trust you.”
Waremasu wrote, Trust me, you should. I saved your life twice.
“Your voice also brought me to my knees not a moment ago. My trust is far from given. Besides, I will not go without my friends. My purpose is to lead them. I will not abandon them on the whim of a mysterious stranger,” Faolan argued.
Waremasu wrote nothing.
The guardian could not possibly be aware of the chaotic struggle raging within the angel’s soul. For Waremasu, every question bore two answers, and every thought resulted in two opposing courses of action, as if two separate minds were thinking in tandem. The intolerable struggle always raged.
Faolan was apprehensive of the stranger’s silence. “We will try to reach the seal as soon as possible.”
Again, the stranger wrote nothing on the air as his patience thinned, and the darkness within his soul began to freely weave through his veins.
“I do not wish to leave her . . .” Faolan said.
An atmosphere of unpleasantness surrounded Waremasu. The air grew heavy. It pushed down on Faolan’s body as it thickened and became hard to breathe. For the very first time, a feature of the man underneath the conical hat breached the impenetrable darkness enshrouding his face. Waremasu’s irises became visible and glowed brightly, illuminating from within and continually changing colors. They changed from yellow to green, then orange, blue, red, white, and so on.
Faolan stepped back in trepidation and gripped his swords’ hilts.
The angel’s voice of seven echoes bellowed out in vexation. “Your ignorance is beyond compare!”
Faolan’s eyes began to water, and his ears burned intensely as the angel’s cursed voice clawed at his mind.
“This world shall be torn asunder,” the seven voices echoed.
The guardian’s muscles began to spasm uncontrollably, and he collapsed to his knees, writhing in pain.
“The irrepressible fear you feel now will be eclipsed in the days to follow,” Waremasu’s voices roared.
Faolan screamed as his bones were pulled in opposing directions by his spasming muscles.
“If this is the path you choose, then the path of folly is yours to sow. All others shall bear the price of your misjudgment,” the seven voices screamed.
Faolan howled at the top of his lungs into the crisp, cool night air as his tolerance to pain was exceeded.
Aili woke to the piercing screams. “Faolan!”
She saw the ominous being standing next to the guardian’s spasming form. The healer picked herself up and raced toward them, desperate to save Faolan. The stranger’s foreboding form turned to face her, and she stopped as the air escaped from her lungs. The angel’s darkening aura overwhelmed her, and she was shocked when she saw his eyes. She had seen those eyes before in her vision at Lesley, and she froze in fear.
“Silence!” Waremasu bellowed in chaotic echoes.
Aili’s knees weakened from his cursed voices as they reached her mind, and she collapsed to the ground. All she could do was watch helplessly as her legs became numb. The angel turned his back to her, revealing the lone symbol on the back of his cloak, a symbol that mirrored the chaos within his soul.
Waremasu spoke softly to Faolan now. “The tribulations set before you and this world may be prevented by you alone, and no other.”
Faolan fell into unconsciousness as his body could not take the unbearable pain any longer, and his mind submitted.
Without further words the angel vanished into thin air, and a gale gusted over them as his wake.
The strength then returned to Aili’s legs, and she sprinted to Faolan’s side. She inspected him for injuries but found no physical wounds. She was utterly confused about what had just happened. Questions flooded her mind as she tried to understand.
“Leith!” the healer shouted over her shoulder.
Her brother did not respond to her call.
She shouted his name twice more before he woke up.
“What is the matter?” Leith shouted, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“That man from before did something to Faolan!”
“What? Who are you talking about?”
Leith rolled over and sat up as he focused on the scene surrounding his sister. Her form became clear in his eyes, and he saw their leader lying unconscious near the edge of the Scar. He was quite confused as his mind adapted from the realm of dreams to a wakeful state.
“I know not what happened, and Faolan will not wake!” she cried out.
Leith walked over with a suspicious glance. “Well, how do you know anything is wrong? He appears to be sleeping.”
She shook her head. “No! He was just shaking and screaming in pain. Things were not right. That man—that wizard—was no friend this time.”
“What wizard?” he inquired.
“The wizard who was following us out of the Mythios Woods. He still follows us, and I do not know why, but it seems he is interested in Faolan,” she explained. “This is the second time the wizard has made contact with him.”
Her brother did not fully remember the wizard that his sister spoke about as he had missed both interactions with the stranger. He had only taken a brief glance at the unusual person when fleeing from him as they entered the plains on their way to Odemar.
He knelt down and took a closer look at Faolan. He inspected the guardian’s breathing, his pulse, and his pupils. “Without knowing the specific magic affecting him, we can do very little for him.”
“Then we do nothing?” she exclaimed.
Leith noticed the more-than-concerned tone in her voice. “Haphazard cures for unknown magics may equate to unforeseen consequences. You know this Aili. Dark wizard or not, magic or not, we cannot be certain of the cure.”
“So what do we do?” she cried.
“We wait.”
Chapter 19
“Uncertainties”
“Should the road before you be obscured, worry not; perhaps it is a time of reflection before action. One should not step into a dragon’s maw without reason.”
The Ikalreev Prophecies 3:18–19
The sun rose over the horizon, and the cloudless sky brightened as the night’s frozen bite faded. A new day had begun, and the group of four remained on the Verdunmull Scar’s eastern cliff. The previous night’s events left the healers indecisive and uncertain. Their leader remained unresponsive, and his body was producing an unnatural amount of heat.
Aili tended to Faolan through the remaining hours of night. She attempted to keep his forehead cool with a damp cloth, but his temperature rose without reprieve. Much of their water had been used in her efforts to maintain his temperature. Faolan had not moved at all during the night, and over the long hours, her worry for his health had grown. She mulled over what could possibly have caused his current predicament, yet no answer revealed itself. The stranger’s magic eluded her, and its cure was unobtainable. She thought it similar to the dark magic of the south, but she was unfamiliar with the Falcarna.
The fair healer sat beside the guardian’s motionless form, slowly bending forward and touching his forehead with the back of her hand. Concern cros
sed her face, and she looked at Leith who was tending to the unconscious dwarf on top of the horse.
“Leith, he is even hotter than before,” Aili whimpered.
Her brother hesitated as his gaze shifted to the parched ground before him. Their predicament was worsening, and their solutions were dwindling. They had to keep both their patients cool in the warming sun, and they had little water to spare. The twins would not be able to move Faolan in the hopes of reaching Dragdun or doubling back for Ardara because the sun would grow too hot, and without water, they would dehydrate while carrying Faolan along Adun Gor’s edge.
“Remove his cloak and shirt,” Leith instructed her, his gaze briefly shifting to the rising sun. “The sun may be causing his fever to rise. All we can do is remove some of his clothing.”
Leith moved the tired horse near Faolan in order to block the sun’s rays and provide him with some improvised shade so the guardian would not get sunburn.
Aili did as her brother suggested and removed Faolan’s cloak, placing it off to the side. She then untucked his shirt and began to slowly slip it up and off his torso. The fair healer hesitated when the shirt reached halfway up his chest as she noticed three elongated scars. They were the same claw marks she had tended to the night after Darnum’s evacuation. After a brief pause, Aili finished removing his shirt and inspected his scars more closely. The healer touched one and slowly traced her fingers down its length as an image flashed in her mind from the first vision she had experienced back in Lesley. She had a vivid memory of Faolan with countless scars on his back and arms. Her fingers lay softly on his chest as she fell into the memory and relived its intensity.
Aili whispered, “You have so few scars as you lie before me now. Do you truly obtain so many in time, or are the visions merely hallucinations?”
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