by K Schultz
Rehaak felt both powerful and trapped. People who valued his words gave him honor and wealth, but he knew how hollow his words had become. Their expectations on him mounted daily and engulfed him in an ever-deepening morass of deception. Each phrase sank him deeper into a mire of lies and deceit.
The courtesans provided a distraction for a time and the drinking numbed the pain, but it was temporary relief. Rehaak always awoke the next day knowing he was a failure, and a degenerate.
Business was good. The rich and bored paid well, even if they now considered him a charlatan. Rehaak’s words were creative, even poetic on good days, when he was not suffering a hangover. He entertained, charmed, and gave his customers what they wanted and they rewarded Rehaak for his efforts, in the same way people reward a performing animal.
Before the city claimed his integrity, he had survived on very little, without a home, funds, or friends. His efforts deserved a reward. Rehaak tried to justify his actions by convincing himself that his words hurt no one. Rehaak’s talents did not extend to self-deception. His words hurt someone — they hurt him and ate at his soul like acid. He was cheap, dirty, defiled, and used. Ironically, after compromising on so much, The Creator had chosen him to warn the Abrhaani people. But when Rehaak spoke, the words left a bitter taste in his mouth and fell on deaf ears.
The latest twist in his life surprised Rehaak when he sensed an unseen presence. Without warning, it enveloped him like warm oil.
Until that moment, he was only intellectually convinced of The Creator’s reality. Rehaak fell to the ground entranced, as The Creator’s presence overcame him. On the steps of the scriptorium in broad daylight, Rehaak’s theophany changed his life forever. The Faithful One spoke and Rehaak’s convictions were no longer intellectual. They were hard experience. He soon discovered how hard, experience might become.
The Faithful One showed Rehaak; a future of blackened lands, a nightmare of destruction where dark, malevolent beings, sucked the life from the land. Rehaak suffered with the land, weakening, dying, and mourning for itself, as its life ebbed. Dark, deformed figures, blacker than a moonless night in a mineshaft, reared up from the ground, devouring everything in their path. The figures from his childhood nightmares stank of death and disease.
The Dark Ones, stripped life from people, gardens, and even the stones of the city. Nothing remained except dried husks and, and blackened stone. With each morsel of life the hellish creatures consumed they grew larger and more powerful. Nothing could live or grow, in that barren wasteland.
The Creator gave him a message for Narragansett.
“Tell the people, that what you have seen will happen, unless they turn and follow me as they did before the Sundering of Brothers. It is your task, to warn them. Unite them with their brothers again. Tell them about me. Warn them of the blackened lands and of the impending battle. You have sought me and found me, and you are not alone.”
Rehaak did not pretend to understand everything in the message. He suspected the nightmare creatures were the Nethera. The works of the ancient sage, Ziade of Tensel contained excellent descriptions of them. Those ancient evil entities had disappeared at the Battle of Three Kings, on the battle plain in Baradon. That was centuries ago. Nowadays, the Nethera lived on in tales to frighten disobedient youngsters into compliance.
“The Nethera will get you if you don’t…” fill in the blank to make the message fit. The saying had fallen into disuse. Even the children no longer believed it. Unfortunately, he now used the same message on adults with similar reactions.
Rehaak was uncertain what “The Sundering of Brothers” meant. He thought it might refer to the “Rending of the Clans of Men” by Radomir the Historian. Until that event, the three species of humankind lived in varying degrees of harmony. The Abrhaani, the Eniila, and the Sokai were different peoples, but they got along until this point in history.
There was little explanation of the war’s cause, but it was long and bloody. It lasted for over five hundred years. The Eniila and the Abrhaani agreed to inhabit different parts of Aarda. Their leaders reasoned, that less contact with each other meant less opportunity for strife. By the time the Eniila and the Abrhaani overcame their madness, the Sokai had vanished.
The “Rending” preserved a remnant of humankind. If it had failed, nothing but the wind, blowing dust through ancient ruins and around half-buried monuments would exist today. The Abrhaani traded with the Eniila now, but when they tried to build trading cities on the coast of Baradon sixty years ago, it precipitated another war. That ended when the Abrhaani withdrew to Kel Braah. The Eniila were warlike and combative, even among themselves. From centuries of painful experience, the Abrhaani gleaned an understanding, summed up in one proverb. “They are as likely to get along as two Eniila in a small room.”
Mankind paid the price for millennia of conflict in millions of lives and centuries of knowledge lost. Although The Creator told Rehaak that he was not alone, he saw no evidence that anyone else was with him. No one turned to The Faithful One, so Rehaak stood alone and unheeded, in a city of tens of thousands.
The Sokai were as much creatures of legend and myth, as the Nethera, and their bright counterparts, the Aethera.
None of the Abrhaani’s other gods appeared adept at keeping their promises. In recent days, Rehaak suspected divine indifference, rather than divine influence over his life. With only his words and his damaged reputation to convince the city, Rehaak had warned, and pleaded and when that failed, he begged and ranted, but to no avail.
Rehaak needed the hard evidence of the Aetheriad to confirm his words, without it he became an object of derision. The Abrhaani were religious at heart, but made no distinction between his Faithful One and the multitude of other deities, demigods, and spirits of nature.
Animism had held sway for centuries. It was hard to convince them that the spirits of plants, animals, rivers and mountains could not hear or help them. The Abrhaani had placated those spirits with elaborate rituals for so long, that any other beliefs appeared peculiar or outright deviant to them.
The people of the city wavered between several opinions and engaged in a three-sided debate over him. One side believed Rehaak was crazy and dangerous and needed to be stopped; another group thought he was crazy and harmless. The final group was certain that Rehaak was crazy, but they did not care.
The Creator had told him to unite his brothers and he had unified them in thinking he was crazy. They simply disagreed on the remedy. It was a hopeless task without the Aetheriad for proof.
For a time, he searched the scriptorium again, sifting through the mountain of writings daily. Rehaak prayed that The Creator would guide his hands to the right location, but the answer he sought still eluded him. This morning, he had lost hope again.
Rehaak’s regular customers had stopped coming to seek his advice. Their absence was the only discernible result of his dire warnings. He wanted to abandon the city, and its citizens, who whispered about his sanity, and were deaf to his admonitions.
If the people ignored him, after all his efforts, then it was not his fault if they perished. It bothered him that the people of Narragansett would perish, but what bothered Rehaak more was, that he feared that he would perish with them. In his vision, the destruction was complete. Nothing would survive in the city, or Aarda.
Since they had spurned his message, he wanted to hide in a safe corner until the danger passed, if such a place existed. Rehaak knew there were other reasons for their refusal to heed his warnings. Rehaak had fed them sweet lies for so long that his character was suspect and they no longer tolerated bitter truth and rejected him and his message. Rehaak carried a heavy burden of guilt for his moral failures.
When Rehaak had first sought The Creator, he was full of fervor. Now he was losing both hope and fervor again.
The fire inside him had become embers. He knew his words and deeds could return to haunt him but he never expected it to happen so soon, or with such dire consequences. He wish
ed to unravel his past, like an old woman’s knitting, but wishing changed nothing.
It was too easy for the Abrhaani to believe Rehaak was mad or mistaken. Rehaak alone heard The Creator’s voice. Everyone else present that day, claimed they heard nothing and saw nothing except him falling to the ground, unconscious. They thought he had passed out since everyone knew he drank to excess.
Rehaak was angry with The Creator for not giving him at least one witness. Maybe he was as crazy as everyone thought since he believed in something without proof. He had the only proof he needed, but he did not have the proof that everyone else needed.
Rehaak could neither go forward, nor return to his old life because he knew the truth. He found himself ensnared in the divine net. Doom hung over the city. If he was ignorant of the peril, happiness was possible, but knowing what he knew, doomed him to misery.
When The Faithful One spoke liquid fire had replaced his blood. The experience rekindled his passion for the truth and for The Creator and his life began anew. That rush of enthusiasm wore off, when no one responded to his message. No, that was not true, they had responded – with indifference. Their response was costing him his reputation, and his livelihood as a seer. His head hurt, and he was tired.
A loud knock on the door interrupted his depression.
“Rehaak! Open in the name of the King!”
“What now?” Rehaak thought. His predicament disgusted him, more than the interruption.
He walked to the door and opened it. Two of the King’s guardsmen, bearing their short pikes and shields, stood outside his door, in the hallway of the inn. A Herald, who held a parchment in his hand, accompanied them.
“You are Rehaak the scholar?” the Herald asked?
“Yes, I am he. What do you want?”
The Herald declined to answer and read from the scroll he brandished in front of him.
“By order of the King and the Ecclesia you are forbidden from fomenting further fear and unrest among the people.”
“Fear and unrest in people who won’t listen? Highly unlikely,” he heckled.
The Herald continued despite the interruption, as if Rehaak no longer existed.
“You are hereby banished from Narragansett unless you recant your teaching about The Creator and the nonsense about the Blackened Lands. If the city guard finds you within the city walls, you will be arrested, thrown into the dungeon and executed.”
“You are commanded to gather your belongings and leave before midnight this day, or face immediate imprisonment and death.” The herald paused, lending more weight to his final proclamation. He glared at Rehaak before the final pronouncement.
“You are declared a heretic.”
Rehaak snickered.
“Now I really seem crazy to them,” he thought.
How strange, how hilarious — they ignored everything he did wrong, but his positive actions got him banished him and threatened with death.
Moments before the knock on the door, he wanted a way to abandon the hopeless task The Creator had set before him. Now they were forcibly ejecting him, from his unwanted role. The King and the Ecclesia had granted his unspoken request. The Ecclesiarches, who never agreed on anything, had reached a consensus and declared him a heretic.
“Members of the —he is crazy and dangerous faction, must have won the debate,” he thought.
“Very well,” he said. “I shall pack my belongings and leave as soon as possible.”
Rehaak wanted to add, “To hell with all of you.” Looking at the burly guardsmen and their pikes, he thought it better left unsaid.
After they marched away, he packed light, one change of traveling clothes, a water skin, cheese, and yesterday’s bread. He strapped on his money belt and dagger and slipped his red embroidered robe over his tunic.
“Thanks for nothing Faithful One,” he muttered, as he finished packing.
“These bone headed people will not listen unless you come down from the clouds yourself! Although, if you do come down, you had best throw a few bolts of lightning their way, just to get their attention before you speak.”
Rehaak snatched his staff and slammed the door hard enough to loosen the hinges. The innkeeper watched in uncomfortable silence as he stomped away from his room. He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the ground floor.
In former times, people ate and drank at the tables downstairs, while they waited to speak with him upstairs. Rehaak’s popularity with the innkeeper had waned in direct proportion to his dwindling flow of clients.
Once outside, he glared at the sky and vowed, “No one wants to follow You, including me! I will look after myself. Go find another dupe for your impossible and thankless work.”
He picked his way through the tangled narrow streets, taking in the familiar sights one last time. The noise of human commerce, and the smells, washed over him like a wave, as he made his way to the market place. It was still midmorning. Rehaak considered lingering, to buy more provisions, but changed his mind as he walked through the market square.
“I refuse to buy from these fools,” he thought.
Since he traveled light he needed no pack animal. Rehaak never had much luck with pack animals, or any animals. It was a strange for the son of a farmer. Besides, a lone pedestrian was less likely to attract bandits’ attention. It was better if he looked less prosperous.
In the end, he relented, bought jerked meat, hard cheese and traveler’s bread. He filled his water skin at the fountain in the square and strolled to the edge of the city. As he passed into the countryside, he sensed that somewhere a page had just turned; a chill ran down his spine and made him shiver as a cloud blotted out the sun.
Once outside the city he considered his options. There was no reason to revisit the land of his birth, or revisit places he had already seen. He felt a strange sense of freedom.
Rehaak knew exile should shame him, but in spite of the disgrace, he felt liberated. It was exhilarating.
He was writing on empty pages in his life’s book. Although it was impossible to win redemption by his own efforts, it might yet overtake him along the road. Rehaak had already written the lines of his old life in ugly black ink. He could not expunge them, but he could write a new narrative in the pages that lay empty before him. He would change.
He did not know the source of his confidence, nor did he have unquestionable proof of its fulfillment, but he refused to consider the obstacles.
Rehaak decided to go southeast. The eastern slopes had little history, so clues about the Aetheriad were unlikely. Besides Rehaak knew no one, who lived there and that was reason enough. He had never been east of the mountains. If he rationed his gold, it would sustain him and when that ran out, he would find another way to support himself. It was the way he had spent his wandering years before he settled in Narragansett. He knew how to live on very little if necessary.
The King granted land to Narragansett’s poor in the southern wilderness and allowed them enough supplies to get started and to get on their feet if everything went well. If it did not go well, they died, lacking the skills they needed to forge a life from the wilderness.
It rid Narragansett of the less desirable elements of the population. If they made a life for themselves in the wilderness, then they contributed by paying taxes instead of living on the dole. It was a harsh reality, but it did not matter to the King. Whether they survived or they perished, they ceased to be a problem for the crown.
The cities’ poor, ignorant of harsh backwoods life, embraced the challenge, because they had nothing else. In Narragansett, they had no opportunities except begging or becoming a rich man’s bondservant. Bondservants worked without pay for seven years, but at least their Master fed and housed them during that time. At the end of the seven years, they found themselves no further ahead. Few lived long enough to serve a second term of bondage. No one survived a third term if the labor was hard or the Master was difficult. It was a dead end, no pun intended.
In the south, be
yond the mountains, they at least had hope. So Rehaak headed south, where he planned to find one of the new settlements, and a bit of hope to call his own. In the meantime, he still remembered how to live on very little.
Chapter 2
It took Rehaak three tendays to make his way south eastward beyond the pass. He spent long uneventful days tramping the dusty road, followed by fitful sleep in whatever hovel disguised as an inn, he could find. As he got further from Narragansett he resented his exile, because the further he got from the city, the less people worked at disguising their hovels as inns.
The city was never Rehaak’s home, but he was comfortable there. His life and business, built on deceit and fakery provided everything he needed.
Rehaak lived well in Narragansett. All that remained of that life was his clothing and the items he carried. Rehaak was free to go where the wind blew him, free from the relentless expectations and demands of others, but his freedom had a sharp edge to it.
Rehaak’s infatuation with freedom, had a short lifespan once the ugly underbelly of freedom reintroduced itself. He was free — to starve, to be savaged and devoured by wild animals, or free to be beaten by robbers. The elation that Rehaak experienced at leaving Narragansett fell away with the miles and brought him no happiness today.
Plentiful ruins that dotted western Khel Brah were absent here, and the daily grind of tramping up and down hills lost its luster after the first day. The road on either side looked the same today, as it had every day since he crossed the mountains. There were days he almost wished robbers would set upon him. An attack would at least break the monotony of the endless plodding along in the dust. Rehaak’s boredom crested when he looked for patterns in the swirls of dust raised by his stamping feet. Rehaak hummed or sang aloud to distract himself from negative thoughts, but, he discovered that he could sing and still think.