Eledis chuckled and patted his son’s back.
“Good luck, Aramar.”
The old man stacked several of the most soiled and encrusted dishes on top of one another and balanced the entire assortment outside, presumably to wash them directly at the water pump. Raimie wondered if Eledis was intentionally granting them privacy considering how much easier clean up would be with a bucket of water hauled to the kitchen’s washtub. If that was the case, he was grateful. Confronting both men at the same time about the sword in the basement would’ve been near impossible.
As it was, he couldn’t decide exactly what he wanted to say to his father. He frantically ticked through all of the conversation segues he’d formulated during dinner, but nothing fit quite right. How could he express his gratitude for such a precious gift as that which he’d found and yet refuse it in the same sentence?
The creak of the water pump and the clink of dishes scraping past one another drifted through the kitchen’s open window. Certain now that they wouldn’t be overheard, he gulped down a deep breath.
“Well, what is it?” Aramar asked with mild exasperation.
“Sorry, it’s only… I don’t know where to start…” Raimie rambled back. “I… I can’t accept it. It’s beautiful, and if I knew how to use it then it’d make a wonderful gift. But you know I can’t fight. I’ve no desire to learn either! Why would you even get me a gift? We have a rule! No birthday gifts. Never on my birthday…”
“Hold on,” his father interrupted. “I didn’t gift you anything. What on earth are you talking about?”
“The sword. In the root cellar.”
“What sword?”
Raimie cocked his head. He’d expected guilt of exasperation, not confusion.
“I found a sword in the basement. I thought it was a surprise birthday gift.”
“And suffer your wrath? Neither your grandfather nor I would dream of it,” Aramar replied. “Are you sure it was a sword? I haven’t seen one of those since the last revolt. I would’ve noticed one mixed with our food.”
“It was buried in the farthest corner from the hatch. You might have missed it.”
“Maybe. Show me where you found it?” Aramar asked. “Let’s hope you haven’t stumbled on some ancient gravesite. It’d be just our luck if the farm was haunted by wraiths.”
“You’re hilarious,” Ramie said sarcastically. “If you’re serious, why don’t you take the lead? With you as a distraction, I’ll have plenty of time to run away.”
His father laughed under his breath and stepped through the door with only the slightest hesitation.
Once outside, Aramar slowed to briefly taunt Eledis about his undertaken chore. The old man rolled his eyes and shooed them away, not even pausing to lift his rag from the half clean plate in his hands.
At the hatch, Raimie impatiently dropped into the cellar first, his father carefully climbing the ladder after him. He hovered over the half-heartedly buried sword by the time Aramar’s feet touched the floor. Brushing the dirt aside with his foot, he pointed at his find.
“There. You see? You don’t think Eledis could have bought it, do you?”
Aramar joined his son, squinting in the low light. His head swiveled from the indicated patch of earth to Raimie’s face and back down again.
“There’s only dirt there,” he said blankly.
“You don’t see it? It’s laying right here.”
Raimie bent over and reached for the sword. He took hold of the weapon’s grip. Starting at the point, a tendril of white light sprang out and down the length of the blade, leaping the cross guard and zipping up Raimie’s arm. It dissipated over his head, leaving his hair standing on end.
He yelped and dropped the sword, leaping a good five feet backward.
“What was that?” he squeaked, rubbing his arm and glaring at the weapon.
“Put it back.”
One look at his father told Raimie something was incredibly wrong. Aramar’s face had blanched, and all of his muscles clenched tight. He covered the distance between them near instantaneously and clamped Raimie’s forearm in a vice.
“Put it back now, son, before he comes!”
Raimie shakily nodded, and Aramar released him. His hands trembled when they brushed the hilt. His father wouldn’t ask him to touch the sword if it wasn’t safe, but Raimie couldn’t shake the image of white, alien tendrils running down his limb or the surge of power that had accompanied it. Would that same reaction take place if he held the weapon once more?
He snatched the sword up before his brain could stop his hand, tension draining when nothing strange occurred, but before he could return the weapon to the burlap and the dirt, the hatch creaked and banged open.
“Aramar! Raimie! Are you all right?”
Eledis rapidly slid down the ladder, landing in a crouch.
Raimie’s father backed into a cellar wall. He sagged to the floor, the fight abandoning him, while Eledis took in the empty basement. The old man’s hazel eyes darted over his family, noting the lack of injuries, then briefly slid over the rest of the room before snapping back to the blade in Raimie’s hand.
“Shadowsteal…” he murmured in wonder.
He took one hesitant step forward and covetously reached for the sword. It sparked briefly in response, and Raimie clenched his hands hard to keep from throwing it away again. Eledis halted mid-stride as if he’d hit a brick wall. He wrenched his gaze away from Shadowsteal and turned it upon his grandson.
Most of the time, Raimie saw his grandfather as a frail, harmless bookworm, the perception only enhanced by his unruly mass of billowy white hair and his insistence on collecting any scrap of writing that passed through their section of the woods, but occasionally, something else surfaced. The eyes that bored into him now were those his grandfather turned on him when the old man thought Raimie wasn’t looking, the grimace that which only appeared when Eledis had dipped too far into his cups.
Raimie has always known there was something lurking behind the grandfatherly disguise Eledis wore, a deadly persona whose purpose would not be denied. It threatened violence and permanent injury to any who stood in the way, and with that person staring at him now, he knew that if he didn’t tread carefully in the next few moments, his heartbeats would be numbered.
“You found it?” the old man asked.
“I suppose,” Raimie answered nervously. “It was buried here, disguised by cloth and dirt. I thought one of you was planning to surprise me with it today.”
Eledis’ abrupt burst of laughter dispelled the threat like smoke, and Raimie nervously chuckled along. The old man was grandfather once more, but was that guaranteed to last?
“You’re certainly not the one I’d have picked for the role, but I’ll work with what I’m given,” Eledis chortled. “Let’s get out of this cave, grandson. The gloom here is contagious.”
He spun and put one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder.
“Are you coming?” he asked over his shoulder.
No way did Raimie want to go anywhere with his grandfather when he couldn’t be certain of the old man’s mood. Maybe his father could provide an excuse to stay.
Aramar had found a way to curl into a ball, fists clenched on top of his head, while balancing precariously against the wall.
“Dad?” Raimie asked with concern.
“Aramar will be fine. He’s only displaying his weakness. Come with me, and I’ll show you why he’s reacting so poorly.”
Raimie was naturally inclined to ignore Eledis and do what he could to help his father, but fear clung to him like a bad cough. If he upset his grandfather, would that bestial persona rear its head again?
He reluctantly left his father in the cellar and climbed the ladder to the surface, nearly slicing himself to ribbons on the ascent. Eledis pulled him up the final two rungs.
“If you’re having trouble with Shadowsteal, I could hold onto it for you,” the old man remarked with some measure of amusement.
“Take it, ple
ase,” Raimie answered gratefully.
Let his grandfather deal with the terrifying weapon. He’d no need for it.
Eledis accepted the sword and immediately thrust it in front of him before wheeling the blade with practiced poise through the air. He returned it to his side, and Raimie watched pent up tension release from the old man.
“Sorry,” Eledis smiled broadly, “I couldn’t resist.”
He took off.
Raimie had to push to keep up with Eledis. He’d known his grandfather was spry despite his age, but the pace the old man set surprised him. Even at a walk bordering on a run, Eledis arrived at his cottage’s door before his grandson and flew inside. Raimie took a few minutes to catch his breath before he followed.
He couldn’t keep up with the unexpected changes this evening. A riot of emotions pushed against the lid holding them down; bewilderment, anxiety, annoyance, and fear chief among them. He sucked down lungfuls of air, failing miserably at wrapping his head around what had happened. Perhaps Eledis could bring some order to his thoughts despite the wariness he felt toward the old man. This cottage had been a bastion of peace and calm for him in the past, after all. He pulled the door open.
Past the threshold, a cozy room stuffed with shelves heavily overladen with books and tables piled high with loose papers and knickknacks welcomed Raimie into its embrace. A rumpled bed was carelessly shoved into a tiny corner, and a crackling flame burned in the inviting fireplace built into the center of the far wall.
The sword, Shadowsteal, had been tossed haphazardly on a table specifically cleared for it, and papers littered the floor nearby. Eledis paced in the far corner of the cottage’s single room, poking through one of his bookshelves.
“Where is it, where is it?” he murmured under his breath, pulling tomes off of the shelf and flipping through them.
Raimie sank into his grandfather’s well-worn, leather armchair by the fire. The chair was the single most expensive piece of furniture that the family owned, almost out of place with their low level of wealth, but he couldn’t imagine the farm without it.
Since he was a child, this magical place had been open to Raimie, and his grandfather always reclined in this chair, perusing a new book or writing in a journal. Eledis had looked majestic in those small moments, focused completely on the written word, before he would notice his grandson and call Raimie inside with his nasally booming voice to explore the treasure trove of books and stories.
Sitting there now and watching Eledis rummaging through his papers, Raimie experienced a strange sense of disconnect. Their roles had swapped for the evening, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it.
Eledis released a note of victory. Whirling around, he brought the leather-bound novel he’d been skimming to his grandson and handed it off. Raimie squinted at the open page.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“What am I supposed to...?” Eledis’ irritation was almost amusing. “Read it, Raimie! That’s what you do with books! It’s only a single chapter. Shouldn’t be too difficult for you.”
“Fine,” Raimie complained, secretly pleased to read one of the few off-limit books Eledis kept to himself.
He hunched over the page and began.
On the Fall of Auden
With the fall of the last Eselan nation in the year 3225 A.C.E, it seemed as though the prosperity and success of the great kingdom of Auden were guaranteed. With an enormous power base and no other significant rivals on the continent, its king and populace looked forward to many centuries of peace, but these dreams were not to come to pass.
After the rise of King –the word was violently scratched out- to the throne in 3476 A.C.E., a challenge immediately rose to test his strength. A monster shrouded in madness and wielding the terrifying magic of corruption and darkness rose from out of nowhere, conquering nations and kingdoms without a care. Unwilling to risk war, the king ignored the threat despite the pleadings of his generals and his bastard brother until it loomed at his own doorstep. The shadow of this new overlord swept over the continent until only Auden remained.
The attacks began with small, insignificant villages on the outskirts of the realm. Blinded by fear, King ---- decided to allow the enemy these small victories and left the villages to burn and fade away into darkness, perhaps hoping that their sacrifice would be enough to satiate this potential conqueror’s appetite. He hadn’t considered what such an action would precipitate from his own people.
Out of fear for what was generally viewed as a lack of care, the citizens revolted and overthrew their king, imprisoning him in the dungeons normally reserved for the worst of criminals. They judged him on the throne where he had abandoned his duty to defend the realm. He was brought out in chains, along with all of his family, and humiliated before the population of Uduli. They took from him his sword, an heirloom of kings known to bestow its wielder with the god-like power of invincibility, and banished him and his retinue to live the rest of their miserable lives in shame. They were thrown out of the city with nothing except the clothes on their backs. Starving from their imprisonment, the former king and his retinue made the long journey to the sea and the borders of their country, hoping to seek asylum far across the ocean on a different continent.
While on their journey, they met an old seer. She made a prophecy that has been the hope of the descendants of the royal line in the ages since:
As hope grows dark and all seems lost, I tell you that your kingdom is not gone. For before fifteen generations of your family have lived and died, a young one, strong and proud, will come home with Sword in hand to return the land to peace and prosperity
Taking this hope with him, the king left the land with friend and kin and never returned.
“Why did you want me to read this?” Raimie asked with trepidation, the book held limply in his lap.
“This sword you’ve found, this Shadowsteal, is that which was taken, and the king of the story’s your distant ancestor,” Eledis replied.
A small, panicked giggle escaped Raimie’s lips, but no laughter danced in his grandfather’s eyes.
“Oh,” he said after a moment, “you’re not kidding.”
The old man shook his head.
“I’m completely serious.”
“But that’s… impossible,” Raimie said in monotone, rising to his feet and pacing. “This family’s completely ordinary, nothing royal about us. I mean, we’re farmers for Alouin’s sake!”
There wasn’t enough air in the room. His lungs begged for more no matter how much he sipped through his constricting throat. He felt a bit faint, but all he could focus on was the rising surge of alarm.
“Sure, there was the accident,” he continued breathlessly, “which could count as significant enough to us peasants, but what does the death of one woman mean in the long run….”
He wheezed as his throat closed down. The image of mama’s body, warped beyond recognition by the fall and subsequent fever, seized center stage in his mind, and his world stuttered.
The years reversed in a flash, and Raimie tore down the streets of Fissid, chasing his friend as they played their favorite game of Flee. The village square loomed ahead, and Raimie skidded to a stop beside the well.
Mama screamed something behind him, but he wasn’t ready to listen. His friend climbed atop the well’s tiny roof, sticking a tongue out. Did he think he could get away up there? Ooooo, Raimie would prove him wrong.
He balanced on top of the well’s lip, reached for the roof’s edge, and pulled. A hand grabbed his dangling leg, and the added weight knocked him off balance. His fingers lost their grip, and the hold on his ankle lasted long enough for his chin to hit the well’s wall, his teeth gnashing though his lip with the impact, before it released him. Stars accompanied him on his tumble into the well’s depths
Eledis seized his shoulders and smacked him across the face.
“Stop that, and breathe.”
Normal respiration gradually replaced the hyperventilati
on once Raimie focused, but Eledis had thrown him off balance with these crazy assertions. Bad memories had resurfaced, and with them, the façade had almost shattered. If he wasn’t careful, it still might.
“I knew this would be too much for you. I suppose you’ll need time to process,” Eledis said with a grimace. “Go home, grandson. Get some sleep. We’ll discuss this further in the morning.”
He held the door ajar.
“All right,” Raimie replied dazedly while passing over the threshold.
As he hiked the short trail between the two houses, he only kept to the beaten path because of how often he traveled it in day to day life. The trip passed in the blink of an eye.
The kitchen was a mess. Eledis must have forgotten it in his haste to come to the rescue. Raimie giggled uncontrollably at the idea that his grandfather could have saved them from anything more than a mild threat.
Well, someone needed to clean this up. Fate had assigned the task to him it would seem.
He stacked plates and utensils by the wash basin. While he filled the large tub with water, his father slunk in through the door and watched, eyes rimmed red. Raimie neatly scrubbed, dried and restacked each plate and lined the utensils in perfectly parallel lines. Once he was finished and everything was in its proper places, his busy arms dropped to his sides. He shuffled to his room, closed the door, and collapsed face first into bed.
* * *
The next morning, he woke to silence. No dishes clinked against one another; no tantalizing smells crept under his door. Even the persistent layer of clouds had returned, completely covering the beautiful blue sky of the days before.
Raimie tried to reason through yesterday’s events with increasing frustration and irritation. His grandfather had never displayed any previous tendencies of insanity, but his claims were just that: insane.
For a brief moment, he considered the possibility that the story was true. His distant ancestor was the king of a vast land who’d fled that kingdom in order to escape death. If that tale was the truth, then wouldn’t his family be figured somewhere in history? They wouldn’t have faded into the background to become obscure farmers eking out an existence in a barely hospitable forest.
The Undying Champions (The Eternal War Book 1) Page 2