by Heath Pfaff
"If that were true, do you think I'd be brining you lunch?" Merrywin asked. "You're no more a monster than any of them. Black eyes or not, they're all basically human. I've learned that over the years of working with them." I could hear the smile in her words. I realized that she thought I was worried that the black eyes made me look like a monster and I lapsed back into silence. As good a person as Merrywin was, she wasn't in a position to understand what had transpired. In truth, I didn't believe that she even knew exactly what transpired in the creation of a Knight. I really wanted to believe that she didn't know what tortures were carried out in the basement of Fell Rock Manor because if she knew and could still smile and tell me that I wasn't a monster, then she was not the good natured healer I thought she was. She did not stay long when she realized that I was done talking. I ate my meal, not hungry, but needing to do something to make the time pass. My limbs responded hesitantly to my instructions, screaming in angry pain as they were forced to move against a body that was still changing on the inside. I had one more day, maybe two, before my eyes- Kye's eyes- would be working again, if what Merrywin said had been accurate. Until that time I was in no position to do anything, but what would I do, I wondered, once I was able to see again? Could I, in good conscience, stay with the Knights? What would Kye want? I thought that she would tell me to stay. She had believed in the cause. Indeed, she had given her life freely to the cause. Though she had, I reminded myself, not had any choice in the matter. She had been bound by pact. I was not so bound. I had free will and that meant I must choose a path.
I lay back in my bed. The pain was beginning to subside, though I still hurt everywhere. I ignored the screaming of my body and thought of the future. That was no easy task. Without Kyeia, what did the future really hold for me? Would I stay as a servant to a man who killed the innocent to craft weapons or would I run away from it all and be killed, never doing anything with the gift Kye had given me? If I did stay, could I ignore the horror that stood at the root of the Knights of Ethan? There was no clear cut choice, no good and evil sides from which to choose. I was at a loss. The logical side of me said that I should stay and serve my king and country, carry out the future that Kye had intended for me. That seemed the easiest choice of all, but a deep rage burned in my heart. My king allowed a young girl, one who I loved greater than my own life, to die so that I could wield a sword better. My life was now a sick half-existence forged of two lives and my king would have me be no more than a puppet set to preserve the peace. I balled my hands into fists, sending fresh waves of pain through my arms, into my shoulders. I unclenched them and sighed.
What was I to do? In the perpetual darkness of my sightless world, there was little for me to do but fall back into my pain and sleep away existence, hoping clearer answers might present themselves in the morning.
The darkness of sleep was quickly and shockingly thrust into the darkness of being awake as an earth shaking explosion knocked me from my bed to the cool stone floor of my room. I scrambled to my feet, looking about in vain, before remembering that my eyes were still bandaged and healing. Another explosion tore through the air and I almost lost my footing as the ground jumped beneath my bare feet. Distantly I could hear the sound of voices raised in alarm and the groan of rock walls crumbling. There was a chill on my skin and I realized that I wasn't dressed. Not wanting to face whatever disaster might be beyond my door without my clothes, I made my way blindly to my wardrobe and felt within for clothing. My hands passed over the stack that should have been my shirts and encountered an unfamiliar fabric. It was smoother than the rough shirts I'd had since arriving but upon further probing with my fingers I discovered that it was indeed a shirt and if it was in my room, it was likely intended for me. I felt my way around the shirt and eventually determined the front from the back, pulling it on over my head. My body was still sore, aching all the way to the bone, but I ignored it as I found my pants and drew them up, fastening the clasps at the waist with some difficulty. The pants, too, were different from my normal attire and it was difficult to fasten a clasp I had never seen. As I worked, dressing as quickly as I could without my sight, I noted a sharp increase in noise beyond my room. Voices were raised in anger, and I could hear the sounds of weapons clashing in the yard beyond my walls. I didn't know what was happening but I suspected that we were under attack. Even as I finished fastening the lace of my final boot, another explosion tore through the air with such percussive force that I was blasted from my feet and thrown against the north wall of bedroom, the one furthest from the outside wall of Fell Rock Post. Shrapnel hit me, small pieces of rock ripping gashes in my flesh and larger chunks pelting me roughly. A breeze followed the debris, and I realized with alarm that the outside wall to my room had collapsed entirely.
"Lithe?" I called, hoping someone might be around to tell me what was happening. "Malice?" There was no answer. To be alone, blind, and lost amidst an alien chaos, is a terrible feeling. A great roaring suddenly filled the air, a bestial yell so loud and terrifying that I immediately shut my mouth and went as still as I could manage to make myself. The chaos of weapons clashing and screaming stopped for a moment as well, at the monstrous roar that had so filled the night.
"To arms, to arms!" I heard someone yelling but I didn't recognize the voice and didn't dare call out again lest I bring down upon myself whatever evil lay outside.
The air about me was filled with a sulfurous smell, acrid and bitter, that I took to be the sign of some man-made explosive. I had encountered similar smells at the sky fire festivals held in Danivil during the summer every year. There the explosions had been smaller and created to entertain but even then my mind had considered the possibility of applying the same basic formula, in greater quantities, for use as a weapon. I had, at the time, thought it merely a foolish flight of fancy. I stumbled forward, tripping over the debris lined floor of my room, looking for the door that would lead me back out the front of my building. Had I been able to see, I probably could have exited through the hole in the side of my room and traveled faster, but I dared not risk such a thing with my eyes still blind. My hand closed on the handle to my door and I turned it and pushed it open. There was an unsettling breeze traveling down the hallway beyond my room, unsettling for the fact that there were no windows in that hallway.
"Lithe?" I called quietly down the length of the hallway. There was no answer. Somewhere distant, a deep thump shook the ground, followed by another in a slow but rhythmic pattern. Another roar sundered the air, so loud I moved my hands to cover my ears, and again the fighting outside seemed to subside for a moment, only to return a few seconds later. The rhythmic thumping came again, drawing nearer with every quaking pound of the ground.
Beyond my room I heard someone yell, "Lantern Eye, at the south wall!" Other voices followed, and then the sounds of battle were everywhere and I could hear nothing again. I knew not what a Lantern Eye was, but the roaring and the thumping that I took to be footsteps had come from the direction of the south wall.
I made my way cautiously down the hallway towards the door, occasionally calling for Lithe, who should have been at my door, on guard duty. I stayed close to the right wall, guiding my hand along it and using it as a guide. I was afraid to call too loudly, not wanting to attract unwanted attention and after a short time I stopped calling at all. If Lithe had been there, he would have heard me by that time, especially with his sensitive hearing. I took another step and hit my foot on a crumbled section of wall. I tried to picture how far I'd come down the hallway. I thought I was near the end, the door should have been just a step or two further away. I slid my foot forward, cautiously looking for a safe place to set it down, but everywhere I tried was covered in debris. I moved to the opposite wall, tripping once or twice on loose rocks in my path. Once I had reached the opposite wall, I probed my foot forward, searching for a way to advance, and once more finding that my foot seemed to encounter rock or broken wood everywhere I searched. I grit my teeth, angered by the situati
on. I reached up and began unfastening the bindings on my head. Healing be damned, I would probably die if I couldn't see so I decided the risk of uncovering my eyes was less than that of stumbling blindly through a war zone. The bandages were secured by a knot that took some dexterity to clear, but in a moment I had the knot free and was able to begin the process of unwinding the cloth from my head. While I unwrapped my head, I took note that my hands still felt human. I hadn't grown claws and fur like some of the Knights had. Neither had my legs changed, at least outwardly, for all that I could tell. I wondered what that meant, but I really didn't have much time to think about it then, for I had finally managed to slip the last layer covering my eyes. I immediately had to squeeze them shut as the world seemed to burst into a field of light.
I gasped aloud, and had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from making any further noise. I hadn't expected the pain, or the brightness. I moved the hand from over mouth to cover my eyes instead, and noted that I couldn't feel any noticeable scarring or damage in the area around my eyes. At least the flesh had finished healing. I opened a small gap between my fingers and tried just barely opening my right eye. Pain assailed me, like knives being stabbed into my brain and I had to close the eye immediately. I had seen vague, formless shapes and color but nothing else before I'd had to snap my eye shut. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself. Another terrible roar blasted through the air, coming from the vicinity of the south wall, where the sound of battle was the loudest.
I forced myself to peer out between my fingers again, and again the pain was intense so that I could only look for a short time. I managed to make out some patterns through the blurs, but not enough to feel confident about moving forward. The best that I could judge, from the little I had glimpsed, was that the front of the building was mostly caved in, including the door frame and part of the first set of rooms. I would need to climb over the rubble to extract myself from the building, otherwise I would have to risk going to my room and hoping that there was a safe way out through the hole that had been blasted there, and I couldn't even be certain that the hole there was large enough to exit. I grabbed up my bandages from where they lay at my feet and went to work tying them, in a single layer, over my eyes. That done, I tried opening my eyes again and found that while I still encountered terrible pain, the significant dimming of the light through the fabric was enough to allow me to leave them open. The trade-off was that I could barely see anything through the fabric and what I could see was distorted by the cloth, as well as blurry and full of artificial halos of light that I took to be an effect caused by the incomplete healing of the eyes I possessed. I felt a pang of guilt as I recalled the source of my new eyes but I forced it away. Grief would have to wait, for now I needed to find myself some place safer, and someone to tell me what was going on. I moved carefully to the pile of rock that had been the entryway to my building. The going was slow and once I began the process of climbing it was slower still. Often I would place a foot only to find that the rock I stood upon was not stable where it lay and then I would tumble back down the crumbling remnants of what had been my home for the last four months. I was near the top of the pile when I heard voices coming towards me, speaking in quiet tones. I stopped my climb and listened.
"...explosions came nearer this area than we thought." One voice said.
Another answered, but it was quiet, and I couldn't make out anything the second voice said.
"Yes, in this building. He should have been in the room with the broken wall, but..." The voice broke off as the rock beneath my right hand slipped from my grip and fell back behind me. I had to struggle to keep myself from following it. I hadn't wanted to let my position be known, not sure who owned the voices I heard, but there was little I could do.
"There he is!" I heard the voice that had been speaking before say, obvious excitement and relief in the tone.
The other voice mumbled something, so quiet I couldn't hear, and then I felt a stirring of air and saw a motion before me, little more than a faint blur.
"Lithe, is that you?" I asked, hoping to identify whether or not this person was friend or foe. A roar swallowed up any answer the person standing just in front of me, on top of the pile of rubble, may have made. The terrible sound of the Lantern Eye, for that is what I believed was roaring with such ferocity, was followed by the ever nearing sound of its footsteps, and then, there was a giant, moving darkness in my vision. Something large, five or more stories tall, obscured the faint light that stung at my eyes and a putrid smell of death and char crept over me.
I felt a sharp pain in my arm, and looked up to see the blurred figure of a man, the one who had climbed the pile, leaning over me with something in his hand. I wondered if he had stabbed me and I was about to raise my voice in protest, but the world began to get loose and shaky around me. I found that my tongue felt heavy in my mouth and a moment later darkness swept over me, taking me far away from the world of monsters and mysterious voices.
When next I woke, the smell of smoke was in the air and the sky was bright with midday light. What was more, I could see the brightness of the sky and felt no pain in doing so. I moved my hands, feeling grass against my flesh. I was outside. I sat up and looked around where I lay. It was early fall, the trees were changing color about me, and I felt like I was seeing the phenomenon for the first time in my life. Every detail of every leaf was laid bare to my vision, from the smallest hole in their green fabric, to the subtle way two leaves brushed against each other in the slight breeze of the day. It was all crystal sharp and vibrant. Things that moved seemed to leave almost a trace of their path, though it was not so noticeable that it distracted from the picture of the whole, simply another part of the tapestry of existence about me. A fly swept across my field of vision, and my eyes tracked its movements with ease. I could even make out the pattern of the wings as they moved, though the motion was a blur. The path the insect cut through the air was lit in a soothing shade of blue that faded quickly but gave me a particular insight into the direction the fly was traveling. I wondered, only for a moment, if I was lost in a dream, but the truth of situation was plain to me. I was seeing the world through the eyes that Kye had given to me and it was truly a beautiful sight. I suddenly felt close to her again, a surge of joy rippling through me and I wanted nothing more than to tell her about how beautiful everything looked. At that thought reality took hold and I was forced to face the brutal truth. I would never talk to Kye again. I closed my eyes, feeling ashamed that I should be taking joy in the world around me while she was dead and gone.
"All the world is a wonder the first time you see out those eyes, isn't it?" A voice asked, and I jumped in surprise, my eyes snapping open instantly. I thought I was looking at a floating head for a split second, before my new eyes began to pick up on the rest of the details of the figure before me. He was a Knight from what I could judge, dressed in a cloak, different from those I'd seen on the other Knights of Ethan, but of a similar styling. While the Lucidil Cloaks I'd seen had always seemed to distort the edges and shift the appearance of the Knight wearing them, this individual's cloak seemed to be somehow reflecting the colors of the world behind him. The effect was that he seemed to almost blend in to his surroundings when he was sitting still. The illusion wasn't perfect, as the lines of the man's body still broke the pattern the fabric was trying to hold and the cloak seemed unable to exactly match every detail, but overall the effect was far more powerful than the shifting attire I'd seen before. Next I noticed the other features of the man staring at me. He had scraggly black hair that hung roguishly about his face and a short beard that matched his hair in haphazardness. His features were soft at first glance but there was a hard edge about his eyes, a hint that he could draw on a commanding force of presence if he needed to. His hood was back, revealing a set of dark gray, wolf-like ears poking up through his black hair, but it was his eyes that were the most startling thing about him. Most of the Knights had black eyes, though Ethaniel's eyes had
held a barely visible tinge of blue. The man looking at me now, had eyes as red as heart's blood, deep and crimson, broken only by the white circle of a pupil and its strange electric lines, constantly moving and shifting.
I pushed myself to my feet, taking a cautious step backward. The man didn't move from where he was sitting on the ground.
"Who are you? Where are we and what has become of Fell Rock?" I asked, firing off the questions as quickly as they came to my mind. Had I had a weapon, I would have drawn it, though I sensed no menace from the stranger. There was a cooking fire between us. The fire caught my eyes for a moment, flashing and tracing patterns through my vision that were so hypnotic I had to tear my attention away forcefully to get it back on the sitting man.
"That is a lot of questions for one to ask the man that so recently carried them away from certain death, but I suppose I can be nice and answer you, Lowin." The red-eyed man leaned back, his arms out behind him to hold himself in a reclined position. Now that I could see the hands, I could see that he had dark gray-furred arms and clawed hands as well. I had not seen a Knight with limbs completely covered in gray fur before and my curiosity rose further. He seemed to be basking in the warmth of the sun, his hair falling back behind him. "Since I know your name, it is only fair you know mine. I think that is as good a place as any to begin. Among the Knights I am known as Weaver." He introduced himself. "I was Second in service under Ethaniel. I came to Fell Rock in order to see you, the latest Knight of Ethan, because I had heard that you held great potential."