The Rage Within

by B R Crichton

  The sea itself had turned on him.

  He tried to stand, but skidded on the slick boards and cracked his elbow on the deck. He cursed, and stood again, feeling that familiar rage bubble in his core. Cold fury at his helplessness surged. It appalled him yet felt so right, sickened him with its sweetness and he fought the urge to give in to it. It buzzed in his mind like wasps in a jar, trying to overcome his senses but as he neared the brink of giving himself to the cold fury, he found that moment of free-fall.

  He let go of emotion, and instead chose to fill his mind with the memory of those few heartbeats when he was washed over the waterfall as a boy. That moment of freedom and detachment from the world. The perfect Calm.

  The pent up energy of the rage slammed into the wall of the Calm, unleashing a shock wave that emanated from him in a growing sphere. It lasted only a moment, but Blunt saw and felt the force of that impact as the lashing rain and driving spray was driven away from Kellan in an expanding globe of unseen energy that lasted only a heartbeat.

  Kellan was on his feet, moving sure footed across the slick, tilting deck. The ship, the quarterdeck, the waves and wind, the rigging and mast all became parts of a simple collection of components in a puzzle. His surroundings were no less real but they were simpler to negotiate, like a child’s toy. He had time to think through every movement as his environment slowed to accommodate his actions. He was aware of every detail around him and knew the path and pattern of every moving thing on the ship’s deck.

  In his cocoon of calm detachment he timed his arrival at the steps to the quarterdeck to perfection, a wave crashing behind him. When some rigging snapped and a pulley whipped at his head, he simply ducked allowing it to pass without contact. In the same movement he was able to sidestep towards the Captain and pull the hatchet from his belt. Then three strides took him to a line for cutting. Two strokes against the wooden deck and it was cut. The torn stump of the mizzen mast was crashing up and down on the quarterdeck as the swell lifted and dropped the top it now held. It was simply a matter of moving beneath the mast as it rose, and being past it before it fell and he was at the last of the rigging to cut. A single stroke and the tension in the rope did the rest, the mast ripping free with a tortured sound, allowing the ship to slowly right itself again.

  He walked purposefully back to the Captain and put the hatchet back into its holster, then returned to the main deck where Blunt was still lying against the lashed down barrels. He helped him to his feet and supported his stocky frame back to the door leading below the forecastle to the quarters they filled.

  He was aware of the stares he had drawn from the Captain and crew, but they were of no importance, not relevant to his aims at that precise point in time.

  “What in the name of buggery was that?” Blunt gasped, as Kellan helped him, dripping, down the steps. The mercenaries were nearly all on their feet, holding on to what they could while the deck heaved under them.

  “I’ve seen you do some improbable things on the battlefield, Aemoran, but that was unnatural,” Blunt said, when Kellan failed to answer.

  Granger was quick to put himself between them, staggering as the deck rolled, but doing his best to pull Kellan to a seating position against a bulkhead.

  Slowly Kellan returned to himself. His consciousness settled into the familiar place he called self and, not for the first time, realization dawned.

  The faces that regarded him were ashen with fear and nausea, but even as he caught his breath and considered what he had done, the ship found calmer water.

  “Now I have seen a few things in my time,” Blunt said, pointing an accusing finger at Kellan, “but that was not bloody normal.”

  “What did you see?” Kellan said, a little breathless.

  “What you did. To the air around you,” Blunt said. “And freeing that mast.” But even as he spoke the certainty drained from his voice.

  “I did what I could,” Kellan said as Granger checked him over for injuries.

  “That may be,” Blunt said, pointing still, “but I will be watching you, Aemoran.” He lowered his shaking finger and turned away, clutching at a hammock unsteadily.

  “Blunt,” Kellan said to the mercenary.

  Blunt half turned but did not meet his eyes.

  “We saved the wine,” Kellan said with a smile.

  Blunt grunted, and stumbled in the direction of the head.

  Chapter Ten

  Beginnings…

  After his meeting with Ganindhra, Kellan and his friend began martial training anew. This time they were included in the classes as equals and not as skivvies for the older boys. They began by making their own bows. Each boy made his own bow and personalised it for their specific needs and abilities. Kellan, being weaker, made a bow with a lower ‘draw weight’ compared to his stronger peers, laminating the different woods with tough resins and binding them together with fine twine.

  They made their own bowstrings from the gut of sheep, treating and drying it themselves to better understand their properties. They learned to make their own arrow shafts, cutting flutes along the sides for greater accuracy, adding the finest fowl feathers to their arrows for straighter flight, and of course, forging their own tips.

  Above all, it was instilled in them to take pride in every aspect of their craft. A less than perfect arrow was of no use to anyone and should be discarded, even if the flaw crept in at the final stage of manufacture. As the months passed, the bond to their weapons became deeper. Each bow they made was a little better; each arrow flew a little straighter and further.

  They learned unarmed fighting techniques and sword skills too, but the emphasis was on skill with the longbow.

  There was an annual archery contest for the trainees, open to all levels of pupil, from those just entered into the school to those in their final year of martial training. There was always a buzz in the days leading up to the contest, with extra care being taken to prepare new arrows with perfect flight. With each competitor responsible for his own tools of the trade, there could be no excuses for underachieving. There was a boy in his final year of training who had won the contest the previous year. His name was Lannier, he was sixteen and Kellan was determined to beat him. Lannier had seen the upcoming talent as a threat and had reacted by teasing and bullying the smaller boy at every opportunity.

  Kellan continued to have his sessions with Ganindhra every few weeks. Sometimes they would practice calming the mind and observing the world with dispassionate eyes, whilst other times they simply talked.

  He learned how to gain finer control over his actions when he was in his state of calm; he was able to carry out tasks with greater precision and accuracy without distraction or frustration. Under Ganindhra’s tutelage and guidance, Kellan learned to harness his anger and direct it as he willed. There was an untapped source of power within him that swelled and boiled as his rage grew, that when controlled gave him abilities beyond his comprehension.

  But always controlled.

  It was easy to get angry. All he had to do was think of his murdered mother. Bringing those ever near thoughts of her death to mind was all it took to wake the outrage he harboured, and with it the pent up hurricane in his heart. That wraith-like apparition in the recesses of his soul was always agitated in the presence of Ganindhra, but became inflamed even more so with Kellan’s anger. It grew with a surge that promised rapture, ecstasy, but was tainted with an abhorrence that both shocked and terrified Kellan. Ganindhra urged him on, and then encouraged the Calm, taking him closer to the brink of giving in to the sweetness of it, then coaxing him back with thoughts of weightless detachment.

  Of course, he did not have to be angry in the first place to reach the state where he had elevated levels of control, but when he was, there was a momentum behind his actions that was far more powerful. It was as if he was riding in the space of still air just a hair breadth ahead of a tempest.

  “Do you remember our first meeting?” Ganindhra asked one day. “Not the day yo
u arrived. The first time I asked to see you.”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied. “That was a few years ago now.”

  “Four.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was.”

  “Do you remember the task I set for you at the end of the meeting?”

  “Yes,” Kellan answered after a thoughtful pause, “I think I failed.”

  Ganindhra shook his head and waved the comment away. “You did not fail, Kellan. But you did not know where to look.”

  “Do you think I will be any more likely to know where to look now?” Kellan was sitting in his usual chair in front of the strange throne and its occupant.

  “Perhaps.” Ganindhra said. He leaned forward. “I want you to reach for the Calm, Kellan. When you find it I want you to observe your surroundings again, just as you did before.” Kellan did as he was asked. With practice he was now able to find that state in a dozen heartbeats or less. He pushed away all emotion, and as before, the alien presence deep within him snarled from within the barrier. Unseen, but felt all the same. “Good. Now realise that what you see consists of layers. There is the reality that you see, but also deeper truths. Imagine the surface of a pond. The weed on the surface hides the life below from view, hides the many layers in the water and mud from observation. Push aside the choking weed and see the world anew.”

  He pushed aside a layer of reality to reveal what he had always seen but never realised was there. He saw a strand of light from the core of his mind, fragile and loose, being tossed about on the currents around him. The strand led away to the infinite distance, to a vanishing point that was beyond measure in remoteness from them, and yet at the same time, surrounding them and enshrouding them. Then he looked at Ganindhra on the same level and saw that strand like a beam of solid light, vast and unbreakable. It bound him to the same non-point as Kellan, but with a power, orders of magnitude greater than his own. Then he pushed further from the cavern and reached out into the world, sweeping aside clouds of insignificance until he saw them all.

  Before him hung the constellations of countless minds, like jewels glittering with vitality. Minds alive with thoughts and the many folds of fragmented memories. Private worlds of scattered landscapes and discarded dreams. Thoughts flitting from shattered plane to shattered plane across gulfs too small to measure, yet so vast as to make the observer reel. Every bright point of life was linked to the core of existence by that fragile strand of wavering gossamer, their threads leading to the point that was everywhere.

  Pushing further still, he saw among the bright stars, lesser lights, not tethered as the others were but drifting free in space. Then he felt his grip on the Calm begin to fade. He had pushed against the fabric of his mind until it pushed back, and demanded balance be restored.

  He returned to normality slowly.

  “What was that?” he asked when he had full control of his faculties.

  “What you saw was our link to the Life-force that holds us to our respective existences.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kellan said.

  “It is difficult to put into words that you would understand, but I will try. We are all bound to life by a strand of Being. Without it we would die. Imagine a spring, giving rise to many rivulets of water that flow from it and rely on it for their continuation. Should the flow be interrupted or redirected, the trickle fades and eventually is gone completely.”

  Kellan nodded, managing at least to grasp the fringes of the concept. “But mine was so thin, and yours seemed unbreakable.”

  “My grip on life is somewhat stronger than yours, Kellan. Stronger than most living things.” Ganindhra said.

  “Do you mean, you cannot die?” Kellan asked, wide eyed. The presence howled distantly in his mind.

  Ganindhra looked away with what Kellan read as sadness on his craggy features. “I used to think that,” he said.

  “I could see everyone,” Kellan sighed in wonder.

  “You went further than I expected you to. You have a talent for it. In time you will be able to find specific minds and touch them across many miles. You will learn to recognise the minds of friends among the constellations. But not today, that is for another lesson.”

  Kellan nodded. He was not sure he could take in any new information anyway, though one thing still bothered him. “But tell me,” he said, “what did I see between the living. I saw faded images drifting free from the, ‘Life-force’, you called it.”

  “Ah, yes.” Ganindhra said sadly, “you saw those.”

  “What were they? Ghosts?”

  “Something like that. Those are the souls for whom rest is not achievable. There are many who die that are not at peace and cling to that realm, searching for answers that will elude them for ever. The Soul Keeper welcomes all who would go to him, but many are not ready to make the final transition, and wander instead between the planes.”

  “The Soul Keeper?” Kellan said, mind backtracking.

  “There are many names for the final resting place. Paradise, Elysium, call it what you will; when death comes, it is better to seek peace there than to become a lost soul.”

  Kellan nodded. He had a lot to take in today.

  Granger walked along the cobbled road, leading to the great tree where Ganindhra resided. He worried that the fallen God was pushing Kellan too hard in his pursuit of absolute control over the Daemon. Ganindhra had supported the plan for Kellan to start his martial training early, and had been receiving regular updates on his progress from Master Sharrow.

  Kellan was small for his age, and still stooped a little, and he worried that pitting him against boys at least two years his senior would frustrate him unnecessarily. Kellan would be thirteen in a few weeks, and before boys could be men, their bodies and minds would play cruel tricks. Coming of age for Kellan could be the most dangerous time for this world, when emotion could be overblown by the chemistry of life. He knew what boys could be like, with the teasing and the bullying, and was not at all comfortable for the first year. Fretting like an old maid, he told himself. He hoped that Ganindhra knew what he was doing, knowing full well that the Gods had misjudged their adversary once before. He was not convinced that this remnant of what they had been retained the capacity to learn from those mistakes.

  It was the mental training that worried Granger the most. It seemed to him that Ganindhra pushed Kellan very close to the brink of losing control of that rage, before coaxing him down with the techniques he had taught him. It was a dangerous game, and the cost of losing was everything.

  He arrived just as Kellan was exiting the tree.

  “All done for today?” he asked as he approached.

  “Yes,” Kellan replied, “I will get some practice done this afternoon. For the contest.”

  “Take a break,” Granger said, putting his arm around one skinny shoulder, “and stand up straight,” he chided.

  The boy gave a long-suffering groan, but stood a little straighter. “I need to practice. Everyone else is at the school now, on the range.”

  “You are already better than anyone your age. You had two years’ head start. Anyway, not everyone is practising; Elan is at the family Grove, we have been invited to see something quite special.”

  “What is it?” Kellan asked.

  “You will see very soon,” Granger replied, shepherding Kellan in the direction of the Grove, “but hurry or we might miss it.” They set off back up the road that Granger had just come down, and he noticed Kellan glance wistfully along the road to the Martial Training School. He tousled the boy’s hair fondly. “And don’t worry about the contest. A rest will do you good.”

  “Maybe Elan could practice with me this evening,” he said hopefully.

  Granger laughed, and shook his head. “With persistence like that, you should win the trophy outright.”

  Kellan was certainly persistent. Stubborn, many said. But, he was single minded in his drive to achieve his goals. Managed wisely, he could be successfully guided through the difficult times ahead
. It gave him a pang of sadness that this boy should become a pawn in this game. There was also a certain shame at his complicity in it, but the fate of Kellan Aemoran was the fate of the world and he would not allow himself to believe that all was lost. Not now.

  There is always hope, he told himself.

  Kellan was frustrated at being kept from bow practice this close to the competition; he needed all the practice he could get to beat Lannier, but his curiosity was piqued. Besides which, if Elan had allowed himself to be dragged away from the range, there must be something pretty special happening.

  They arrived at the Grove and made their way into the shade of the great trees, passing a few of the family’s stone houses with their neat gardens on the way. They arrived at a cluster of Elan’s family, gathered in a small, sunny clearing. He spied Elan, dressed smartly at his mother’s side. Eloya was just beyond her mother and slightly hidden from view. Granger gently pushed him forward, but hung back himself, choosing to remain in the cooler shade of the tree.

  Elan saw him and grinned self-consciously in the pressed, tan clothing that Kellan now realised all the men were wearing. The women all wore white ankle length dresses, and flowers in their jet black hair. He stopped at Elan’s side, and peered round at Eloya. Her perfect little face was serene as she stood, fingers laced together at her waist. She had a crown of small yellow flowers woven into a ribbon in her shiny hair that hung down to the small of her back. The pristine whiteness of her full length dress made her glow all the brighter.

  He was suddenly aware that he was blushing, when Elan gently elbowed him in the ribs. Kellan finally looked to the centre of the gathered family members to see what they were doing. There was a strange stump-like object on the ground, not unlike the saplings in the groves, but smaller and with fewer of the stubby branches. A man and a woman, Kellan knew to be Elan’s uncle and his wife, were kneeling beside it with their hands softly touching the smooth bark. The sapling was a little over a hand-span across, and not much more than that in height. It tapered greatly as it split to form half a dozen short branches with a few broad, leathery leaves.