Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2)

by Brent Lee Markee

  Dalton chuckled quietly a moment later when he joined her. “The way people treat you is amazing. I hope that I can command even half that level of respect before I die.”

  “It is nice, on occasion, but it is a double-edged sword. When people begin to look at you as if you are something beyond them, it creates a barrier that can be hard to breach. Rarely am I engaged in meaningless conversation anymore. I miss the days when people would talk with me about the weather, or how well their gardens were growing. I have become a symbol to the people of this city.”

  As she spoke, Dalton realized for the first time how very lonely it must be to have outlived generation after generation of your progeny. With each generation her legend grew, and the gap between her and them became even greater. She no longer had anyone she could confide in, or laugh and cry with. To show them such a weakness as tears might make them see her as something less than indestructible, and shake the very foundation of their worlds. Not knowing why, he reached out and tugged gently on one of her earlobes.

  The look of shock that crossed her face momentarily almost made him regret his impulse, but a moment later she grabbed his hand and kissed the back of it. “Dear child, you are so much like him, it is no wonder that you were able to pull that memory up. He used to do that when I was getting too introspective, worrying about things that I couldn't do anything to stop.”

  It was that moment that the Knight Commander came into the hall alongside a young Mage. The pair stopped when they saw Dalton and Tyrdra standing in such an intimate exchange. Knight Commander Theromvore tilted her head slightly, a small grin showing on her features before she turned to the young man next to her.

  “Mage Skyhammer, I will look over your proposal for these new Battlesorcerers and tell you what I think in the morning.”

  Understanding that he was being dismissed, Leodric Skyhammer nodded. “Thank you, Knight Commander Theromvore. I hope we can work together on this in the future.”

  As the Mage walked down the corridor, the Knight Commander gestured towards the door of her office. Tyrdra squeezed Dalton's hand softly before letting go and gliding past the Knight Commander. As Tyrdra entered the room, the Knight Commander raised an eyebrow at her son.

  “You two are getting chummy.”

  “It's not like...” Dalton began to say as his mother's eyebrow rose to greater heights. “One of his memories came up and I did something that reminded her of him, it wasn't a big deal.”

  Nodding, Knight Commander Theromvore told her son, “It is okay, I understand. I've been through more than one awkward moment because of something I knew that I shouldn't. Just be careful, okay? She's not as strong as she pretends, and if you let too many of those memories free it could be bad for everyone involved.” She placed a reassuring hand onto his shoulder as he entered the outer office. He knew that the action was tantamount to a hug from most mothers, so he appreciated it for what it was. She had worked hard for her position, and as one of the first women to assume the role of Knight Commander, she couldn't afford to do anything that might be misconstrued as weakness to the officers above her. “So, what does your venerable great, great, great, et cetera, grandmother want today?”

  “Oh! She wants to take me out on a border patrol.”

  Year: 3045 AGD

  Month: New Year

  First Eighthday

  Continent of Terroval

  Mine

  He awoke from this latest dream moments before the Goblin's foot hit his midsection.

  “Time for another day of work, Tunnel Rat.”

  Tunnel Rat. For as long as he could remember, that is what he was called, and he had been okay with it. Somewhere during the last Eightday, however, it had turned into a vile term. Something about these people that he kept seeing in his dreams made him want to fight back against the term Tunnel Rat. The problem was that he didn't know what exactly it was that he was supposed to be called. Every time he was called Tunnel Rat, it drove the fact that he didn't know his own name deeper into his psyche. Over the last few days, he had tried out some of the names in his head that he had heard during his dreams, but none of them felt right. Even though the view through which he saw his dreams could be male or female, he was fairly certain that he could rule out most of the names of the females from his dreams. That left him with a lot of names still, and over the last Eightday he had done several things to try to narrow down his list.

  First, he would draw the name in question in the dirt, trying to feel how naturally the letters came to him. Depending on his success or failure doing that, he would then move on to saying the name quietly to himself. Some of the names felt familiar to him, but he didn't think that any of them were his name. He didn't feel like a Dalton, Ranadin, or Lagelion. In fact, the only names that had any resonance at all within him were Theromvore and Daystar, but he knew from his dreams that those were last names, and he couldn't be both, could he?

  As he trudged into the end of the line of Goblin-kin leaving his cell, he muttered the names to himself. He didn't miss the look from the Goblin in front of him, nor had he missed many of the looks that the others had been giving him lately, either. They thought he was crazy, and they were giving him space until they figured out just how crazy he was.

  The first night that he found his half of the cell more empty than usual he had hurt. He didn't want to be isolated from everyone else; he just wanted to know who he was. As the dreams continued to intensify, however, he was glad for the distance that the others were giving him. Some of the dreams were so intense that he was sure he must be moving or speaking during them. During the last Eightday, he had been in more battles than he could count. He had attended a half dozen lectures ranging from mathematics to battlefield tactics.

  When the dreams had simply been short flashes or sensations it had been much easier to ignore them. Now that they had become so long and vivid, he was having trouble telling what was real and what wasn't. There was so much detail and sensation in the dreams that he was beginning to wonder if they were something else entirely. In this latest dream, Dalton had eluded to possessing memories from someone long dead, and if that was what was going on, it was happening on a much larger scale than it had happened to that young man.

  If they were indeed memories from his ancestors, perhaps he could get an idea of who he was through figuring out who they had been. That was no simple task, however, because each person he had been watching the memories of thought in different ways. Sometimes the differences were subtle, but occasionally the manner in which they perceived the world was vastly different. It wasn't as simple as how differently Humans and Elves see the world, for each Human and each Elf saw things slightly differently than others of their own race. The differences seemed to be greater along the racial divide, but not always in the ways that one might expect.

  Of the three Elves that he had dreamed of being, two of them had held very rigid mindsets. Once they came to a conclusion on something, it became very difficult to change their minds. The third Elf had taught him to question many of the things that his people held as fact, and found that there was a lot of room for debate amongst these beliefs. Knowing how his people felt he had kept those thoughts mostly to himself.

  The Humans seemed to be the exact opposite of the Elves, the majority of them constantly questioning what they knew. If someone came up with a new fighting technique it was quickly adapted or discarded after weighing the benefits and drawbacks. New ideas about how the universe worked seemed to be changing constantly; some found it difficult to give up their old theories, but given enough information they would usually come around to this new way of thinking, often enthusiastically. There were, however, a few Humans that thought in much the same way as their Elven counterparts. Those people who decided—or were told—that something was the way it was, and nothing anyone told them would change their mind.

  Then, there were the Dragons. He had only dreamed about two of these so far, but their thoughts were so divergent from the Humans and
the Elves that he had come awake with a massive headache each time. Where humans and Elves saw one reality, the Dragons could sift through a multitude of ways in which to view the world, often looking upon multiple layers at the same time. Looking wasn't really the right word either, though, because some of the ways in which they could view the world seemed to be an almost instinctual knowledge of how the smallest particles could work in tandem to create something larger.

  When he had been inside the Dragon, the boy could feel the air around him and the bonds of the particles that formed the rocks beneath his feet. Everything was something else in disguise; the world itself was fluid, malleable. How could any being that knew just how fragile reality was hold anything as hard truth? This was not the case, however, for in many ways the Dragons seemed to be even more set in their ways than the Elves. They knew how things worked or didn't work, and trying to change their minds on anything would be like trying to pull a planet out of its rotation around the sun. It was possible in theory, but the forces involved were mind numbing in their complexity.

  He thought that he would be happy if he didn't have any more dreams as a Dragon, but he knew somewhere deep inside that it was a vain hope. His mind had even begun to hallucinate that he could feel the particles that made up his clothes and the pickaxe in his hands. Allowing himself to be caught up in the feeling of the particles that made up the material of his clothing, he saw the image of a young woman. She was working on yet another set of clothes for the slaves in the mine. The only happy thought in her life was that she wasn't one of those poor sad creatures.

  Slaves? Try as he might, he couldn't get the word out of his head. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that was indeed what he and the Goblin-kin he was working with were. For over a year, he had been quietly doing what he was told, because he didn't know what else he should be doing. It had never occurred to him that things should be different. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard an outraged roar of defiance, and then the world started shaking.

  It started out small, the pebbles around him bouncing, but soon a crack began to form in the rock in front of him, and people started yelling.

  “Quake!” the closest guard yelled. “Everyone head towards the cells!”

  Several guards ran past, easily outpacing the chained miners. Some of the larger Goblins were hurrying along several of the smaller members of the chain gang that were not moving quickly enough for their tastes. At the front of the group was a young boy, trying to move his feet quickly enough that he made progress but carefully enough that the chain between his feet didn't make him fall. Several of the Goblins were catching up to him when something told him to stop. He held his hand out trying to warn his fellow miners of the danger, two of them listened long enough to save their lives, but sadly, the rest did not.

  He was just beginning to feel tension on the chain from the rest of the group moving forward when a large portion of the tunnel's ceiling imploded. Dust filled the air, making the goblins choke. Opening his eyes, he saw a thick coating of dust about two inches from his face. Reaching out to touch the dirt, it fell to the ground as soon as his finger punctured the invisible barrier. Deciding that he had enough worries at the moment, he put thoughts about whatever it was that had kept the dust away from him to the side.

  The two Goblins that had stopped when he told them to were now staring at him as if wondering what they should do next. He realized a moment later that he would probably be doing the same thing to someone that had saved his life. The only problem was that he didn't have any idea what to do next. As far as he knew, the cave was a dead end in the other direction. They might be able to escape out of one of the air vents, but if the talk amongst the Goblins was to be believed, the air vents had been created with such thoughts in mind and held plenty of dangers for anyone that should make the attempt.

  The first thing they had to do was break the chain that was now under who knows how many tons of rock. The boy realized then that he had dropped his pickaxe when he had begun running down the tunnel, and that most of the others had done the same. Looking around, he couldn't see one anywhere nearby, but the layer of dust and debris could be hiding one right next to him and he wouldn't know it.

  “Okay, we need to see if we can find a pickaxe.” He said using the harsh tongue of the Goblins.

  The two stared at him momentarily before the larger of the two spoke up. “You speak our language?”

  “Yes, I understood most of what was said when I woke up, but I have spent the last year listening so that I could communicate clearly should the need ever arise.” He didn't realize how strange it was to other people to not talk for over a year when in such tight company, but none of them had ever tried to see if he could speak their language either so some of the blame was theirs. “I don't think that is important right now, though. We need to break this chain if we are going to have any chance of getting out of here.”

  It looked like the Goblin was about to say something else, but he shook his head as if to clear the thought away before nodding. They stretched their search as far as the chain would allow, but they were unable to find anything usable within their limited range of movement. Deciding that their best bet was to see if they could find a weak link and break it, he began moving his hands over each link in the chain.

  “What are you doing?” the smaller of the Goblins asked after watching him feel a dozen links of chain.

  “I'm checking to see if I can find a weak link that we can break. I don't think this chain is very high quality,” he replied.

  “Why do you think that?” the bigger Goblin asked.

  “Well...” He thought about it for a little while as he continued to make his way along the chain. Something about the chain felt weaker than he thought it should, but he couldn't explain to them exactly why he thought that way, so he needed a reason that they could believe. “Everything else these guys use seems to be junk, it just stands to reason that they would get the cheapest chain that would do the job.”

  Seemingly mollified, the two Goblins went back to quietly watching their young companion for a time. He was only a few chain links away from the wall when the smaller one, looking down at the chain at his feet, asked, “How will you know if it is weak or not?”

  “Well, I'm hoping to find something obvious, like a crack, or someplace where it has stretched thin, but we might just end up pulling hard and hoping there is a weak spot somewhere I couldn't see.” What he couldn't tell them was that he had found several flawed links, but he wasn't sure that the flaws were large enough for the three of them to cause one of the links to break. There was also the fact that he could very well be imagining his ability to feel the things that made up the chain. If it wasn't for the fact that such a feeling had saved his life and the life of the two Goblins only a dozen minutes earlier, he wouldn't even have the small amount of hope that it was real that he did.

  As he reached the last link sticking out of the wall, he put his head against the rock barrier in defeat. He hadn't found any weaknesses in the chain that he thought were prevalent enough for the small group to exploit. As he closed his eyes, a picture began to form in his mind. The rock wall in front of him no longer felt like an insurmountable barrier. He could see that the rock was not as solid as his body was telling him that it was, and as he sat there exploring the stone with his mind he saw that one of the links under the stone had been busted. It was only four links into the stone, and he thought that if they were able to pull hard enough they might be able to bend it enough to relinquish its grip on the next link in line.

  “Alright, I don't see any visible weaknesses in any of these links, but maybe if we all try pulling something will give.”

  “I suppose it is a better idea than sitting around waiting to die,” the smaller Goblin said, and the other grunted in acknowledgment.

  They were only able to move backwards a little bit before the chain became taut, and they began to pull with all of their might. If anyone had been watch
ing it was probably a funny sight: a skinny little Half-Elf and two Goblins not much larger than the kid pulling on this chain for dear life. No matter how hard they pulled, however, the chain was not coming loose. After their fifth attempt, the Goblins sat down where they had been pulling and let out giant sighs.

  “I don't think it’s going to work, we just don't have enough strength to do this,” the smaller Goblin said, and the larger Goblin once again grunted in agreement, too tired to form any words.

  The boy stood in place, staring down at the chain and driving his will inside and along its links. His manacles began to warm up at a frightening pace, but he found his consciousness traveling down the chain and into the broken link inside the wall.

  “One more try: let’s give it all we've got. If it doesn't work, we can try to find some other way.” His voice sounded detached, even to himself, as if disconnected from the events and no hint of emotion seeping in. His attention elsewhere, he didn't realize that the Goblins had resumed their position until he felt the chain become taut behind him. “Alright, on three.”

  “One.”

  He focused his will on the broken link, willing the bonds in the broken end to soften.

  “Two.”

  Feeling the tiny pieces that made up the metal begin to separate, he spread his awareness to the rock and began to tear at the much weaker bonds.

  “Three.”

  The three of them pulled with everything they had, and the chain came flying out of the rock and speeding towards their heads. The two Goblins had not expected the chain to come loose so easily, and they fell on their backsides, putting them out of the way of the flying chain.

  Still connected to the chain by his will, the boy felt the loose end flying towards his head. Detached from the events unfolding around him, he watched the metal fly through the air, feeling how it interacted with the different particles that it was now floating through. The chain was about a foot away from his head when he felt something inside of him affect the metal in some strange way, causing it to change directions, suddenly heading straight down towards the chain at his feet.