Kirin had always felt his father to be invincible. He had never seen him cry or complain. The kovor had been a strong and fair leader looked up to by his people. Kirin remembered seeing his father break stone with his bare hands. Yet now he lay there, burnt, befouled by death. His face scorched beyond recognition.
Suddenly the weight of it all fell heavily upon him like a waterfall unleashed by unseen hands. All sense of self lay broken upon the smoldering remains of his home. Tears soon flowed in racking sobs of harrowing despair. Ragged gasps of air filled his lungs in acrid spurts of smoky sadness.
Kirin finally succumbed to his fate, wishing he too were dead. He wailed loudly damning the beast who did this and taunting it to finish the job. He held his sword high over his head and screamed until his voice was hoarse. Then with a throbbing head and an emptiness beyond words he sank back to the ground and curled into a ball as the voices of his people faded into memory.
PART TWO
Heorte
Chapter 11
“Witchcraft is nothing more than the deviant use of the arkein.” Book of Galdor a Brief History of Verold
The annalist stood deep in the Shroud Mountains. It was morning and a thick layer of mist clung to everything it touched. The air was still and cool, yet whispered of something greater. Silence. There was the notable absence of birdsong, tree branches swaying, or insect calls. It was a profound silence of great depth, an artificial silence, a warning for those who knew to listen for it.
With deliberate and quiet movements the annalist strode forward. In his hand rested an ambit in which sat a bloodstone. It was a curious artifact from another realm imbued with a unique quality, an attraction to the arkein.
The Annalist glanced again at the cracked surface of the crimson stone. It rested idly in its cradle. Days had passed and his hunt for the witches was as successful as putting out a bonfire with a cup of water. His anger simmered slowly to a boil. His hatred for this task, for the man he sought, threatened to rob him of clarity of thought. Yet, he had still felt a hint of emotion uncovering the destruction of the Bane of Verold’s village.
It was a justified emotion in the annalist’s eyes; a feeling necessary to uncover the hidden depths of truth. It in no way changed how the annalist felt toward him. Instead it was the beginning of a story. The first broad brush strokes of a painting. A painting with angry, red brushwork; leading the annalist to the answer he sought. How to end an impossible war?
His head started to pound slightly, the lingering effects of a days-old headache. He rubbed absentmindedly at his temples and distracted himself with thoughts of his undertaking.
Pieces of knowledge coalesced into solid shapes as he recalled what he knew of the witches. History wove a deceptive web of mistruths. Partial accounts, folklore, and vivid imaginations sprouted the legend of the witches of the Shroud Mountains. They were known as the Witches of Agathon.
Stories of disfigured women cast from an ancient school of magic were whispered in the discreet corners of the civilized world. Most knew the witches were nothing more than children’s stories. The tales were meant to frighten and to educate.
“If you don’t obey your parents you’ll end up like the Witches of Agathon,” or some used them in a derogatory sense, “there goes that Agathon girl,” referring to a woman of less than stellar appearance.
Yet, as with many stories they originated from somewhere. The annalist had spent years peeling back the layers of fiction, the witches being one of his favorite. He parsed truth from legend and stitched together the most likely fabric of reality. What he uncovered was a story that would frighten any child and disgust any adult.
The bloodstone swiveled in its bronze cradle, a scarlet arrow pointing to his right. The annalist paused and listened. Straining past the terrible silence he could discern the whispering voice of an impending storm. He was getting close. The skin on the back of his neck tightened.
Fear wasn’t a foreign concept to him for he had seen more atrocities than any single person should ever have to endure. Yet the lingering feeling grew in his heart. He knew that Aeden had fled his village and passed through these very mountains on his way to Heorte. He knew that he had stumbled upon the Witches of Agathon. What he did not know was what elements of the stories he had heard were fiction and which were fact. Unlike Heorte, where everything was catalogued and recorded, the Gwhelt lay untamed and unchronicled.
There were stories that stated Aeden pretended to be lured in only to cut the witches down with his Templas blade. Others said Aeden stumped them with a mental puzzle that drove them mad. It was also possible that he never met the feared witches of Agathon and had safely stumbled past their domain.
For an annalist details and facts were of incredible importance. They held the power of truth, a once valuable commodity that had since dwindled in importance. The annalist was nothing if he wasn’t thorough. The annalist knew that for him to succeed against one of the greatest arkeinests Verold had ever seen, he had to be meticulous in his craft, nothing less would do. And so there he was, deep in the Shroud Mountains, trespassing on the lands of the Witches of Agathon. It wasn’t a place he had hoped to ever visit, yet one he had imagined many times.
The bloodstone swiveled slowly in its cradle. It was time.
“I’ve come searching for the lost arkeinests,” the annalist shouted.
His voice seemed to echo against the very mists. Shadows slithered through the gray morning as if in reaction to the broken obmutescence. A chill ran up his spine and the bloodstone began to spin more rapidly in its cradle.
“Who dares break the silence!” a voice screeched from multiple directions.
“I, the annalist dare, for I seek the truth of one who passed.”
There was nothing for a moment. A lull filled with depth permeated the air giving it weight and texture. The annalist struggled to stifle a shiver that threatened to rack his body in a spasm of uncontrolled contractions.
“There’s no such thing as truth,” a loud and shrill voice replied. “Especially for one whose heart is so filled with anger and hatred.”
“Leave this place,” another voice chimed in.
“You cannot hide the truth from me no more than I can hide the moon or the sun from you,” the annalist responded. He continued, “I know what you are.”
The annalist’s skin prickled as the blanketing mist seemed to grow denser. His head throbbed with the intermittent silence, so penetrating as to numb his mind.
“And we’re aware of your kind, annalist. The world had abandoned you long ago,” the witch’s voice pined.
“As they did your kind,” he responded.
“Tell us of what you seek annalist, for we grow bored of these sounds.”
“Tell me of the boy Aeden who passed through here,” he said.
The silence grew thicker and the bloodstone spun more rapidly. The annalist searched about but the mists were too thick for sight. His ears strained but rang with stillness. His mind struggled but resisted thought as languor fought to gain hold.
“We will not speak of him.”
“Why not?” the annalist pleaded.
“Fear of the Sight,” was the echoing response.
The annalist had anticipated as much. He placed the bloodstone into his satchel and began to remove his special tools. He sat gracefully upon the moist ground and leaned against the wide trunk of a tree. He placed a black leather-bound book in his lap and turned the pages. Beautiful flowing script of the deepest crimson graced the pages. The annalist paused on a blank sheet and dug once again into his satchel.
“Wait!” the witch shouted. “We have remembered the white haired boy.”
Chapter 12
“Providence is a state of intense destiny.” Testament of Khein 6:19
Kirin had left the massacre of his people and traveled west. The images of death plagued his days and haunted his nights. Sadness clung to him with a sticky tenacity. A pit had formed in his stomach that couldn’t be sati
ated by food or water. At times tears would flow unbidden from his eyes. Each drop tickling and itching at his irritated skin. His future now loomed uncertainly before him, smothering his childhood in a dark embrace.
It wasn’t until his second week of mindless wandering that a new emotion fought to gain hold. This emotion was more powerful than the last. The darkness that had grown about him receded to give way to a bitter red cloud. Anger seethed deep within his chest. The anger that grew started as a seed comforting him during his bouts of sadness. It blanketed him during his periods of hysteria. Yet it could do nothing for his sense of isolation. He had no one. No home, no family, no friends. It was a pervasive feeling of loneliness that could only be described as the aching pit of a starving heart.
With eyes open, his heart bleeding emotion, and his mind numb to the pain, he stumbled through the misty Shroud Mountains and vowed his revenge. It was in this heavy time of internal conflict that he accidently blundered upon the Witches of Agathon. Few dared seek them purposefully and those that did rarely lived to tell the tale.
One day as he hiked through the dense, snow-covered woods of the Shroud Mountains it occurred. The cold of a thousand Vintas nights descended upon Aeden like a bucket of icy water. An unnatural chill permeated his skin and sank to his bones. His mind struggled as though the weight of a bank of snow had settled upon it in a deliberate act of quiescence. All the while a wall of gray crept ever forward.
Slowly the mist parted revealing a small clearing. The shape of a figure dissolved before his very eyes. It seemed to flicker like a candle before resolving into clarity. To his surprise it was a beautiful young woman oblivious to the cold.
Her hair was unlike any he had ever seen, golden and radiant. Her eyes were large and unwavering, of the deepest blue. It was the fair skin of her naked body that caught Kirin’s attention. Her hair barely covered the swell of her rounded breasts. She was seated with her long legs folded together, casting the gentle curve of her sex in shadow.
Desire battled the anger in Kirin’s heart as his mind struggled to stitch reality together. He felt warmth radiating from her and was drawn closer to quench the terrible chill that rattled his bones. With each step he watched her blue eyes gaze upon him with the promise of passion, warmth, and an endless embrace.
The young woman shifted positions displaying her gender for the briefest flash of temptation. Kirin remained fixed to his position. A hidden string seemed to lure him ever closer as arousal threatened to rob him of proper thought. He took a step forward without realization. Anger simmered quietly in the background, stirring him to action.
“Who are you?” He asked.
She tilted her head quizzically, her shifting hair playing with the curve of her breast.
“You don’t understand me?” Kirin tried again.
She continued to look at him but didn’t say a word. Perhaps she was a mute. It seemed to him that if she could speak, even if it were a different language, that she would have said something. He glanced about, realizing the woman had stolen his attention for far too long.
The scene remained unchanged. The steel curtain of fog lingered, suspended thickly in the air. Green tree needles were cast in shades of gray and half obscured by the morning weather. Towering trunks were lost above him in the soup that cast him in perpetual gloom.
Nothing felt right. The forest was too quiet. He strained to hear anything beyond his rhythmic breathing and beating heart. Silence echoed back in response. His gaze settled once more on the lovely naked girl before him. The warm tones of her skin belied the cold air and hinted at an inner radiance that transcended the drab that hung around them.
Suddenly the clarity he learned from his trials and training set in. His mind seemed to clear from the throbbing silence and he tore his gaze from the beautiful nude before him. It was a trap and she was the bait. The soft note of ringing steel graced the misty forest as Kirin drew the Templas sword. Anger now burned brightly within.
“Stop!” shouted a voice from seemingly nowhere and everywhere.
He glanced toward the naked woman, but she remained seated. The voice couldn’t have come from her. He advanced toward her with his sword held steady before him. The single word still ringing in his ears, it had been in Sagaru, the language of his people.
“Leave my imp alone!” the voice shouted again.
This time Kirin was sure it hadn’t been the girl. “Show yourself then,” Kirin shouted to the surrounding forest.
The imp girl stood, her hair shifted exposing her magnificent breasts for a beat. She turned and blew Kirin a kiss before trotting off into the surrounding mist. A sudden longing to follow her nimble legs into the gray swelled within him. The feeling quickly faded and left him feeling all the more alone.
“What have we here,” the voice came back, this time closer and distinctly behind him.
Kirin spun about, his sword cutting an arc through the air.
“Careful boy, that looks to be a sharp blade you carry.” There was a hint of mockery and a trace of fear in her words. “Why didn’t you follow my imp into the woods?”
“You set her as bait to lure me,” he responded.
“Clever boy, or perhaps I read the bones incorrectly, and I should have sent a young man instead.” Laughter followed, hollow and short.
Again Kirin circled about seeking the person he spoke with. The reaching grasp of twisted trees and the watery shroud of condensation were all he could see.
“What have you brought us beside yourself?” she asked, this time the voice took on the characteristics of a woman, softer, warmer, and curious.
“Nothing,” he said hastily.
“Come now, you cannot pass without sacrificing something. Surely you have heard of us?” The voice inquired more menacingly than before.
“You're the witches of the mountain.”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“You seek my blood then?”
“Come now, do we seem so cruel?” Another voice sounded off from beyond the haze.
“I’m of the Thane, it’d be wise of you to leave me be.” He said with greater bravery than he felt.
“Of course, your gray eyes gave you away boy,” said the first voice her patience seemingly wearing thin.
Were they so close as to see his eyes? He looked about in desperation. Only after a moment did his breathing fall under the control of years of training.
“Why lure me in with the girl?”
“She needs your help young warrior, only the strength of your burning passion will keep her alive,” the second voice chimed.
“I was once told that the more vile the intention the greater the lies used to entrap their prey. You wield your lies like I do my sword.”
“Come now, no need for insults. Our lies are far defter than your childish swordplay.”
Silence followed for a short span that seemed to stretch for an age. Kirin glanced about waiting for an arrow to come hurtling out of the mist. Nothing came. He struggled to discern the direction of the voices. It should have been easy in the silence, but it wasn’t.
“What’s your name boy?” the first witch asked.
“Aeden,” he said without hesitation.
Another silence followed but unlike the first Aeden could hear the muted whisperings of an argument. He quietly sheathed his sword and unslung his bodark bow, nocking an arrow. With short, controlled steps he moved toward the source of the discussion.
He paused behind a tree and struggled to make out their voices. It sounded as if a third had joined the row.
“Who named you boy?” a new voice echoed from the gloom.
“My father,” he stated looking about.
“Lies,” another witch shouted.
Silence followed. Aeden knew he couldn’t get a clear shot without something more than the vague direction of a voice. He replaced the arrow in his quiver and slung his bow. Slowly he backed away from where he had last heard the voices. Spinning on a heel he turned and fled.
The morning mist swirled before him and solidified. Aeden stopped just before an invisible barrier. He withdrew his sword and attempted to hack at the barrier. It was no longer there and he simply slashed ineffectually at empty air.
“He has the gift of Sight!” the second witch blurted out.
“It’s not time for you to leave boy,” the first witch intoned.
Still holding his sword steadily before him he asked, “When then can I leave?”
“Perhaps never,” another witch answered with delight.
“Do you know what your name means?” the second witch asked.
“Fire,” he replied.
“It means more than just fire, it is the name of rebirth, strength, and in the old tongue has another meaning altogether. You’ve been marked for greater things.”
“Then let me go and accomplish them,” Aeden said.
Hushed whispers permeated the chilled air. Aeden stood, listening, straining to make out the words. It was another language and too quiet even if he were to understand. The whispers grew more heated rising to a crescendo before falling quiet, the last words echoing into silence.
“Ridere af tannin.”
The first witch then spoke, “You cannot leave without first answering three questions. If answered properly then we will talk of letting you go, not before.”
“And if I don’t answer properly?” he asked.
“Then you will know of your fate soon enough. Will you answer our questions?”
“I’ve been answering everything so far,” he responded.
“So it has been,” she said, her voice slipping through the fog like a snake, quick and sharp.
Before Aeden had a chance to ask any questions, hesitate, or stall for time, the first witch spoke.
“Who is your mother?”
How could that be the first question? Aeden knew so little of her. His father had only mentioned her once. None dared speak of her, save for an inebriated Gosselin. What could he say to satiate their curiosity? What could he say to save himself from their wrath?
Tears of a Heart Page 7