The Rage Within

by B R Crichton

  “It was meant as a gift,” he said, “so do with it what you will.”

  “Don’t you have friends to be drinking with?” she said sharply, folding the picture roughly down the middle. He spread his hands and made a show of bowing to her, then returned to the jetty and walked away.

  When she was sure he was gone, she opened the sketch again and lay staring at it for a long time.

  Having abandoned their friends to their collective fate in ‘The Trader’s Inn’, Kellan and Elan walked slowly along the jetty in the fading light, heads fuzzy from the alcohol.

  “Can’t I convince you to stay with me a little longer?” Kellan said.

  Elan sighed, “You don’t know how hard it is to stay away for so long, Kellan. The Grove pulls me constantly back to it. It feels like betrayal to ignore it. I hear its song in my head every waking hour; then it haunts my dreams at night.”

  “That seems a cruel affliction,” Kellan said.

  “No,” his friend replied. “The ‘Longing’ is the sweetest thing. I cannot describe the bond to you any more than Eloya could.”

  “Ah, yes,” he grumbled. “You couldn’t let that lie, could you?”

  “No,” Elan apologised, trying to mollify his friend with his tone, “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

  “You meant, I’ll never understand, is that it? I can’t possibly know what it is to be like you? I will always be something less? Is that it?”

  Elan stopped and took Kellan firmly by the shoulders. “No,” he said, holding Kellan’s gaze.

  Kellan deflated a little. “I’m sorry, of course not,” he apologised, and dismissed the spat with a wave. They started to walk towards the beach again.

  “I wish I could describe it, Kellan. In fact, I wish you could feel it. You call it an affliction, but it is a blessing. Like love.” He held up his hands before Kellan could get a warning look in.

  Finally Kellan shook his head and laughed softly.

  “Lythurians.You’re all mad, you know that? Still, I wish you would stay with me,” he said

  “And I wish you would return with me.”

  “It would not take long to find that butcher, you know.”

  “He is probably retired to Kor’Habat by now. You can hardly march into the heart of the Korathean Empire with your face and not have a few awkward questions to answer.”

  Kellan touched the birthmark that covered most of the left side of his face.

  “I do stick out a bit, I will grant you that much.”

  “Can you not lay her to rest?”

  Kellan stopped in his tracks. His friend stopped a couple of paces on and turned to him.

  “No,” he said softly, “and that is something I wish you could understand. Eloya couldn’t, and look where that led us. I was a child when I watched my mother die. I looked into her eyes as the life was cut from her. I see it every time I think of her; that terrible image. I see her head fall, her beautiful body slump to the ground. The lips that kissed away my scrapes, the arms that held me in the night when the wind howled. My mother; raped and reduced to a decapitated corpse, and a head rolling in the dust.

  “I am bound to that image, that moment, just as your Grove binds you. You are pulled homeward, I am pulled towards revenge. I must have it for my sanity; for every night I woke screaming; for every tear I have shed; for every moment of innocence lost; I must have revenge.”

  Elan took two paces back to him and grasped his shoulders firmly, locking his gaze again.

  “Then we will return to Lythuria together. I will be at your side when you vanquish your demons, and then we will return home with peace in our hearts.”

  Kellan embraced his friend.

  “Thank you, Elan,” he said. “You are a better friend than I deserve.”

  “Better that, than to deserve a better friend.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Beginnings…

  “Promise me you will be careful.”

  “Of course, I will,” Kellan said, kissing her forehead. “Besides, Elan will be with me.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Eloya muttered.

  They were in the secluded clearing in the Grove, lying on the grassy mound where the daisies grew thickest, beside the small waterfall and the crystal pool. Kellan was propped up on one elbow, stroking her hair gently. He was seventeen years old now and had long since stopped counting his years in winters; that season never touched Lythuria, heated as it was by the fires deep in the mountain. He had learnt in his lessons that Lythuria had been hewn from the mountain by a violent event long in the past. Fires from the core of world had erupted from the ground with such force, that a crater was blown in the side of the mountain. These same fires warmed what had become Lythuria, seeping up in less destructive quantities to the water and soil.

  “I have finished Martial Training, and lessons bore me. I want to experience something of the world,” he said, tracing a finger around her ear.

  “You’re not going to experience the world,” she said quickly, opening her eyes, “only the forests north of the White River.”

  “Of course,” he said smiling, “two weeks at the most. We will do a little hunting, visit a tavern or two…”

  “You better not go about looking at those serving maidens I have heard about,” she warned him.

  He laughed. “You have been reading too many stories, Eloya.

  “Well,” she pouted, “I’m just saying. You had better be careful, that’s all.” She returned to her dreamy repose, content to let it lie. Kellan watched her breathe, her breasts rising and falling. She truly was blossoming into a beautiful young woman, and he wondered, not for the first time, what she saw in him. She could have the pick of the boys in Lythuria and yet she had chosen this scrawny outsider with the birthmark covering one side of his face.

  The sound of the water tinkling over the little waterfall, and the warmth of the sun conspired to make him drowsy too. He lay next to Eloya and allowed himself to doze a little. He decided to try something he had been practising tentatively. Ganindhra had shown him the way, but had explained that he had to find his own path there, and so he tried again. Perhaps their close proximity would help him.

  He sank into the Calm, regretfully releasing the blissful serenity he felt at Eloya’s side in this place of beauty to replace it with numbness. He easily pushed aside the layers of murk in his consciousness to find the constellations of the minds surrounding him. They sparkled like gems of infinite intricacy, more facets than they could possibly have shone with thought and feeling.

  He found Eloya. He sensed her mind, feeling its familiar depths, saw the gossamer thread linking her to the Life-force and reached for it.

  He embraced her mind, unable to make sense of what lay within. Images and feelings ran like oil on water over the aspects of her being, drowning him with their complexity. He withdrew a little and reached again in a more subtle way.

  Eloya, he thought. But she did not stir.

  Eloya. She did not react. He reached deeper and breathed a thought into her soul.

  Eloya.

  “Kellan,” she said dreamily, wriggling against his side in her slumber.

  He withdrew completely, and returned to the real, a feeling of accomplishment settling on him as he emerged. That would be enough for now.

  Granger watched Kellan packing a small back pack with all the things he would need for his time in the forests to the south. He had mixed feeling about this trip. Kellan was no longer a boy, and needed to spread his wings. A young man needed freedom to reach his full potential and become a more complete individual. But, Kellan for all his strengths was vulnerable in so many ways. He was comforted that Elan was going with him. It was usual for young Lythurians to spend some time in the wilderness to the south before ‘the longing’ brought them gratefully home, and this would be Elan’s first taste of the wider world. Ganindhra had said that they could not stand in his way; that keeping him here would only let the rage within gather strength,
and that their best hope was to let him find his own way; with guidance, of course. He had offered him all the guidance that was reasonable to give and Fate held their lives in Her fickle hands now.

  “Don’t forget,” Granger said, “the nights are cold away from here. Bank up the fire well, and wrap up warm.”

  “I remember,” Kellan said patiently.

  “It has been nearly ten years since we came here. It is easy to forget what lies in wait out in the world,” Granger said.

  “You mean the Empire, of course,” Kellan said, folding a woollen jumper and placing it in his pack.

  “It will not have gone away,” he warned. “Stay away from settlements if you see soldiers there.”

  “The Empire will not worry itself over two boys out hunting,” Kellan laughed.

  “You will be with Elan, and most Northlanders see very little of the Lythurian people. It would be best to tread carefully wherever you go.”

  “Of course we will,” Kellan sighed. “I know you are worried, but please don’t be. We will be back in two weeks, give or take a day, with only a few good hunting stories to tell. “

  “Good,” Granger brightened, “any longer and Eloya herself will go looking for you, and Fate help you if that happens.” Kellan grinned. “She’s a feisty one, Kellan. And well worth coming home to.”

  Kellan continued to pack in silence, checking and double checking that he had everything on his list. He checked his longbow and inspected each of the arrows he carried, running his finger along each of the flutes in the shaft and checking the twine that held the feather flights in place. He ran his thumb over each of the points before placing them in the quiver ready for travel.

  Granger handed him some flat-bread, wrapped in waxed cloth, and a small pack of some mixed dried herbs.

  “To liven up an otherwise bland meal,” he said when he handed over the herbs.

  “It seems there is to be no escape from your cooking after all,” Kellan said, as he put his backpack over a shoulder.

  “How dare you,” Granger seethed in mock bluster. “Off with you now. And don’t come back until you have some manners on you.”

  Kellan laughed as he ducked a well-aimed dishcloth, and danced out the door.

  Granger followed him through the door, and called to him. When Kellan turned back, he tossed a small pouch to the boy. It jingled pleasantly when he caught it.

  “For emergencies; big and small.” Granger said with a conspiratorial wink.

  Kellan allowed Elan to lead over the edge of the cliff beside the Veil, and onto the steps that he had not been on since he had climbed them as a child with Granger. That felt like a lifetime ago now. The world below held memories so remote from him that they seemed to be those of another person. He looked back and saw Granger watching from down the road; they exchanged a brief wave. No sign of Eloya, but then they had kissed behind Elan’s house while Kellan had waited for his friend, and he did not expect to see her. Still, it would have been nice.

  “I thought I would never get away,” Elan complained as they began the descent. “I swear, my mother gets worse the older I get. By the time I marry, I will not be allowed out of the house.”

  “Granger is nearly as bad,” Kellan said, “they forget we are not children anymore.”

  “I am sure Granger did not give you woollen underwear. In front of my sister, she hands me a set of woollen underwear, holding them up to me to check the size. Eloya nearly choked on her own tongue for holding back her laughter,” Elan complained.

  “You may yet thank her for those woollens,” Kellan laughed. “It gets cold outside of Lythuria. Have you ever felt cold, Elan?”

  “It can never be so cold as to make a man wear woollen underwear,” he said, but as they dropped from the steamy bowl into the biting winds of the Northlands, he began to doubt his vehemence.

  The waterfall that flowed from the cliff edge grew in loudness as they got lower on the face. They stopped to rest once, and to admire the view and let their legs recover from the relentless descent. This was why so few traders came to Lythuria; the physical barrier was so great. When trade did occur it involved ponies carrying goods to the foot of the cliff, then dozens of Lythurian men forming a loose chain on the steps to move crates and sacks up, then down the cliff.

  They had to raise their voices to be heard above the thunder of the water when they finally reached the steep scree at the base of the steps.

  “Where is the nearest tavern?” Elan said over the roar. “I have been waiting seventeen years for this moment.”

  “Then you will need to wait a couple of days more,” he said, pointing vaguely down the slope into the vast forests below.

  They stalked the deer quietly through the sparse trees. Elan could see it moving through the stems, ears twitching in agitation. They had only just reached the tree line when they saw it, and had been following it for a few hundred paces when Elan felt he could bring it down. It was a black deer, small and agile amongst the dense trees of the lower slopes, but here in the more open landscape, it clearly felt more vulnerable.

  They had worked their way downwind of it so as to keep their presence hidden. He slowly drew back his arrow, aware of the subtle creak the bowstring made at the bow nock. The little deer raised its head and twitched its ears at the sound, nose working to find a tell-tale scent on the wind.

  He released the arrow just as the animal jumped and fled, leaving the shaft to skitter into the scrubby undergrowth.

  Elan groaned.

  “Not so easy as on the range, is it?” Kellan said.

  “Your turn next then, if you’re such an expert,” he replied, stomping off to search for the lost arrow.

  Kellan felt a sense of homecoming. This landscape was what he had grown up in, short stunted trees and scrub with the taller pines lower down the hillside. He had played through the summer as a child, building dams with sticks and stones in the little streams, pretending to hunt wolves and deer with his small bow and stick arrows. Now he was returning, nearly a man and changed forever, but the landscape remained the same. He inhaled deeply, tasting the air and the memories it held.

  Elan returned with his blunted arrow, and they continued down the hillside into ever denser forests. They joked and laughed all the way, no doubt frightening every living thing for miles, so it was no surprise when they found evening falling with their hunt still unsuccessful. They would have to stop soon.

  They began collecting firewood, and settled on a spot sheltered from the wind by a large overhanging rock. The dry needles on the forest floor took a spark easily, and soon the fire burned brightly, dispelling for a while the cold that was drawing in.

  “I have some bread, and some cheese,” Kellan said when they were seated.

  “Now isn’t that a coincidence,” Elan said with sarcasm. “I have bread and cheese too. It is almost as though my mother and Granger have conspired against us.”

  “It travels well. Anyway, we would be eating venison tonight if you hadn’t been lumbering down the mountain like an avalanche,” Kellan joked.

  “Oh I see; well you won’t be wanting to share this with me,” he replied, taking a bladder from his pack.

  “What is it?” asked Kellan, curious.

  “Only a bladder of wine Father gave me when Mother wasn’t about.” Kellan scrabbled about in his pack.

  “I have two cups,” he declared, holding them aloft.

  “Then I propose a toast to your cheese,” Elan said, unstopping the wine and pouring a cup each.

  “And I toast your bread,” said Kellan, raising his cup. They drank from their cups then rolled on the ground with laughter; a sense of their newfound freedom sinking in and intoxicating them as much as the wine.

  That night Elan wore the woollens his mother had given him, and was grateful for them. The cold was bitter. There was little wind, but the frost settled on the ground despite it being summer. At this altitude, the nights were always cold.

  Kellan did not sleep well
; he used his wakefulness to keep the fire burning high, and dozed fitfully until morning.

  They ate more cheese and bread with a little dried fruit for breakfast before stiffly heading off again. Kellan remembered that when he and Granger had left the road to head up the mountain, it had taken several days to reach their destination. He had been a small boy and they had been travelling uphill, so he hoped that two fit young men travelling downhill would reach the road in only two days.

  He had promised to keep away from towns or soldiers if he could, but he and Elan had been looking forward to a night in a tavern for ages and would find one if it was the last thing they did.

  Towards the end of the day, they came upon a rough road. Kellan could not be sure it was the same one he had travelled, but all roads led to somewhere, and so they picked a direction and set off.

  They spotted wood-smoke as the sun set, and reached a small village a little after dark.

  There was no movement outside, but one of the timber buildings had a warm glow seeping from gaps around the shuttered windows, and Kellan knocked on the door. A stout man answered, opening the door a crack to look out at them suspiciously.

  “Who is it?” he asked, looking Kellan up and down.

  “Two travellers seeking an inn, or hostel. We would settle for a dry floor,” Kellan smiled.

  “There’s no inn hereabouts. Ravenswold, down the track five miles.” The door clicked shut.

  “Friendly,” Kellan muttered, then knocked again.

  The door opened and the same face regarded him through the crack.

  “Yes?” he said, as though they had never met before.

  “I was asking about lodging for the night, sir,” he said.

  “No strangers.” The door snapped shut harder this time. Kellan stepped away from the door and led the way to another house across the hard packed road. He knocked on the door and waited.