“Is it far?” Kevin inquired.
“He lives on the edge of town, the northern suburb.” The north-east side of Grinden was a well laid-out community of stately homes owned by well-to-do people, usually owners of successful businesses or other important and successful persons.
The small group of Christians packed up and began the trek across Grinden.
***
As they walked through town, the four pedestrians noticed the many condescending and quizzical looks. Nearly every person recognized Rashnir, but none knew about his inclusion in this group of outsiders.
Their path took them through a park-like clearing at the city’s center. Kevin had gained recognition in his own right which earned him foul stares from the furrowed brow of a brown-cloaked man nearby.
Kevin asked Rashnir about him.
“You can tell by his dress,” Rashnir noted. “He is a Luciferian Monk; we’re near the Temple. He probably heard you were a heretic and wants to kill you.”
“Kill me?”
“Probably. You noticed that his entire head and face was shaved? That is a tradition for the militant wing of the Luciferian Order. I noticed the tattoos on his head and neck. He is a hand to hand combat master—probably the combat trainer at the local monastery. All new monks are required to learn at least some kind of hand to hand fighting regardless of which branch of the Order they dedicate their studies to.”
“Interesting,” Kevin thought aloud as they traveled further.
They arrived in good time, coming to a stop before an elegant residential home. They paused briefly on the pristinely manicured lawn nearest a brick walkway. For the first time since Kevin had met him, Rashnir looked nervous.
“Well,” he shrugged, “Now is as good a time as any.”
They walked up the path to the main door with Rashnir in the lead. The mission was personal for the former Ranger. He grabbed the heavy ring bolted to the door and used it to rap three times. Its knocking noise echoed through the house and through Rashnir’s bones.
“You guys can probably wait here for a moment,” Rashnir said flatly. “He might not exactly be friendly at first”
A brief moment of silence passed and then the sound of approaching footsteps shuffled behind the door. The latch creaked with a loud metallic squawk and it swung inward revealing a large, muscular man nearly the size of Jorge—he perfectly matched Bomarr’s description.
He looked dark and somber, head and eyes downcast, complexion pallid, clothes disheveled, obviously not been expecting visitors. As soon as his eyes turned upward and Bomarr realized who stood at his door, he snapped into a rage, instantaneously engulfed in fury. The massive arms snapped up Rashnir, catching all of them off guard.
Bomarr jerked Rashnir into a crude headlock and rolled him inside of the house, kicking the door half-shut as the two crashed through the interior of the building. Plaster crumbled as Bomarr choke-slammed Rashnir through a dividing wall, just inside of the entryway. The wall cracked and protested, knickknacks fell from their places on shelving.
Rashnir grabbed at the massive hand clasped around his throat. Kevin nearly stepped in, but Jorge, levelheaded and cool, stayed him with a touch of his hand. The angel watched the altercation with a slightly amused look, waiting until he might really need to intervene.
Bomarr yanked Rashnir back and squeezed him with a crushing bear hug. With the smaller man bent over his shoulder, Bomarr dashed towards the wall and used Rashnir as a battering ram. The wall gave away completely and the two men tumbled through the cloud of debris and plaster dust; nothing but broken lathe remained of the wall. They skidded to a stop with a crash of noise.
Rashnir shouted through the rubble, “I did not come here to fight you, Bomarr!”
Bomarr climbed to his feet, covered in white dust and plaster fragments, “Then you came here to die!” he screamed. Bomarr tried to kick Rashnir, who still lay on his back on the floor; Rashnir used the bottom of his own foot to block the blow and then shifted his body in a spin and swept Bomarr’s feet out from underneath. Rashnir wanted to stop Bomarr’s murderous rampage without injuring him.
Before Rashnir could fix him into any kind of submission hold, Bomarr rolled to his belly and hauled himself back onto his feet. The large fighter squared up against Rashnir and lunged at him, attempting to grab him with another bear hug. The veteran in these types of situations, Rashnir grabbed a fistful of Bomarr’s tunic and dropped to his back, rolling the lunging attacker with him, using his momentum to toss him over his body and thrust him across the room. Bomarr landed on a dining room chair, smashing it to pieces.
As they both rolled to their feet, Rashnir realized that this might be a lengthier fight than he had hoped for; Bomarr showed no signs of giving in and not a single hint of fatigue. The young warrior seized a small end table from near a lounging chair as he closed the gap between him and Rashnir. He held the make-shift weapon menacingly.
Anticipating the lunge, Rashnir dodged away from the bulky, yet nonetheless deadly, end table that Bomarr hurled at him. It shattered against another interior wall.
Predicting Rashnir’s evasiveness, Bomarr kept a grip on the drawer hardware from the end table. The drawer pulled when he threw the table and stayed in Bomarr’s grip when the table flew across the room. The younger warrior swung the drawer at his foe who he caught off guard. The drawer splintered against Rashnir’s head, knocking him to the floor.
Not wasting another moment, knowing that Rashnir could regain the advantage in a heartbeat if given the opportunity, Bomarr closed the gap and kicked the bloodied Rashnir as he yelped.
“Bomarr! This is not right!” he howled. “I am not here for a fight!”
“In a few more seconds, you won’t be here at all!” Bomarr grabbed Rashnir and lifted him up when a loud thudding noise sounded in a room down a hallway past the dining room. Bomarr hesitated and then dropped Rashnir into a heap on the floor.
The younger man ran down the hall and into the room the noise had come from. Rashnir heard Bomarr whisper one word under his breath: “Mother.”
“Mother?” Rashnir quietly asked himself as he pulled his battered frame up from the floor. He shot his companions a quick look that asked, Where were you? and then followed after Bomarr.
Rashnir trailed him down the corridor of the house’s west wing. Rashnir stood in complete shock, stuck to his spot in the doorway when he saw her. The sound had been the thumping of a human body falling out of bed. Rashnir found Bomarr lifting his mother, Missa, off of the wood floor and back into bed.
He broke down and began sobbing as he recognized those eyes that had once been so familiar to him. Those eyes were exactly like those of her daughter, Rashnir’s lover, Kelsa. He stirred and broke the fixation that held him there and rushed in to give Bomarr assistance; Bomarr backed him down with a harsh stare and Rashnir instead watched the son gently place his crippled mother back in bed.
Missa survived but had not escaped the fire that consumed her family and home. If it were not for the familiarity in her eyes, Rashnir would not have recognized her at all. Terrible burns covered every inch of her body. Missa had only barely survived the flames of Harmarty’s selfishness; her golden hair no longer grew from her scarred scalp and she hardly looked human anymore. Many parts of her remained blackened from where the fire had burned down to her bones and melted her flesh completely away. Exposed muscles could be seen over the majority of her body and face transforming her once ravishing appearance into a lumpy mass of deformities and scar tissue. Only those bright eyes remained and they fixed upon him in recognition. Of the few visible patches of skin that Rashnir could see, the corner of her mouth pulled up in what appeared to be a smile at his appearance.
Rashnir stood straight and reverent, “Missa?” he asked gently. A lump caught in his throat.
The burned figure stirred only a little but maintained the gaze that they shared.
Bomarr glared balefully at Rashnir.
“You should not be here. Your presence only hurts her further.”
He broke his gaze with Missa, “What? How can you say that?”
“It is your fault that she is in this condition!” Bomarr accused.
“This is Harmarty’s fault!” Rashnir insisted.
“Oh, yes. I have heard your story. Everyone has heard your conspiracy tale. What is there to believe in it? You were the only one who would ever have had the opportunity, let alone the talent, to kill Rogis! Harmarty had always regarded him as a friend and mentor.”
Rashnir felt despair creep in. He turned to lock eyes again with Missa. “Don’t you believe me? Didn’t you hear the forces of Harmarty and his men as they stormed your house and set it ablaze?”
It was then that he noticed the severity of Missa’s terrible wounds. Blackened by flames, her neck near her voice box had melted like chimney slag. It looked like it had even burned through her esophagus in spots. Missa had been rendered mute. She wheezed a mournful reply through the perforations above her nape.
Rashnir noticed her hands. Missa’s left hand, charred like a green twig, couldn’t be used. Three digits were missing from the appendage; the remaining pieces lock stiff and completely vestigial. Her right hand had fared worse; only a blackened, shriveled stump ended where her radius and ulna joined at the wrist. “Get a quill and parchment,” Rashnir requested.
“Can’t you see you stupid, stupid fool?” Bomarr pointed towards her hands and the absence of phalanges.
“I can see perfectly!” he shouted back.
Rashnir turned towards the door as he heard the slight sounds of someone approaching. Kevin silently handed Rashnir a piece of papyrus-like paper, demonstrating full faith in his friend.
“She cannot write! We have already tried it, there is no way! We even tried tying a quill to her hands but the pain nearly killed her.”
Rashnir ignored Bomarr. He drew two large words upon the paper and circled them: Yes and No.
He turned his gaze again to Missa. Rashnir’s eyes brimmed with hope and compassion.
“Missa, I have written here on this paper two words. You can answer if someone asks you something. Just tap the left circle to answer Yes. Tap the right one to answer No.” Rashnir showed her and then placed the paper on her lap at arm’s length. “Do you understand me?”
Missa raised a charred and useless limb and tapped the left circle to say ‘yes.’”
Rashnir looked hopefully at Bomarr who returned a look of astonishment. Why had he not thought of that? Bomarr mentally berated himself.
Missa’s eyes sparkled in delight and her mouth, again, stretched to almost permit a smile.
Bomarr scooted closer to his mother. He directed a question at Rashnir, cordial for the first time. “May I speak with her first?”
He gave a half bow, “By all means,” he said with compassion. “She is your mother.”
Bomarr leaned down and whispered several things into the gnarled bit of flesh on the side of her head; the remnant of an ear resembled a twisted tree root. Bomarr tearfully apologized to his mother for not thinking of this previously.
He stood and wiped the moisture away from his eyes. “Mother, I want to know the truth. Dyule and I discuss this frequently and at length, so I know that you must have overheard us. You know that Dyule and I believe that what King Harmarty told us about Rashnir murdering Rogis is true. You know that we believe Rashnir came and burned down our home to cover his tracks and eliminate certain threats to his advancement.”
A glimmer of anger returned to his eyes as he stated his long-held beliefs. Bomarr continued. “Mother, do you believe this?”
She tapped No.
Bomarr’s face dropped with astonishment. He knelt at her side.
“Do you believe that he killed Rogis?”
No.
“Do you know that he did not kill him?”
No.
“Ok, ok. So then, you base this belief on how well you know him and what you know about him?”
Yes. As she looked at Rashnir, the look in her eyes was the same loving look that a mother gives her own children.
“Do you know who killed my sister… your daughter, Kelsa?”
Yes.
Bomarr got overexcited by the implications, “Who was it?”
Missa gave him a confused look, not able to respond. She swirled her hands in a circle.
“I mean, was it Harmarty?” Bomarr’s question would either implicate Rashnir in guilt or validate his story.
Yes. Missa began to look excited as her son discovered the truth after such a long and erroneous foray in his bitterness.
Bomarr looked dumbfounded.
“You have proof?”
No.
“But you know this for a fact? It is not just a gut instinct is it?”
Yes.
“Yes, you know for a fact?”
Yes.
“You heard or saw Harmarty say as much?”
Yes.
Bomarr’s eyes seemed to turn inward as new thoughts ran rampant through his head, realizing the implications and ramifications of this new data.
“Mother…did Harmarty burn you?” he asked softly.
Missa moved her hand in a painful manner and heavily brought her useless wrist down upon the circle that was her answer: Yes.
Hands covering his face, Bomarr stood and howled in rage and anger over his mother’s physical pain and the emotional pain of the lies and misdirected feelings of wrath. At the apex of his yell he turned and pumped his hands down as if he swung an axe. He hit a small side-table by his mother’s window. The table splintered into shards of handcrafted woodwork. His outburst subsided with the destruction of yet more furniture.
Bomarr turned to his mother and apologized for the table. “I need to think, Mother. I will be back soon.”
Rashnir kept an even tone, hoping to help calm him down. “Bomarr. I need to speak with you… Please.”
Bomarr did not push him away and so Rashnir trailed after him. Before leaving the room he looked at the bed-ridden woman who was once nearly his mother-in-law. “Missa, I have brought a friend of mine. He has some things to share with you.” He left Missa as Kevin pulled a stool up and sat at her bedside. Kyrius stayed with Kevin, Jorge went after Rashnir.
Rashnir found Bomarr sitting sullen at the dining room table, seated in one of the few remaining chairs. Rashnir sat opposite of the young warrior. Jorge stood behind him.
“I do not know what to feel,” Bomarr confessed, looking up bleary eyed. “I have hated you for so long. I believed that you deserved to lose everything and even more than that: your very life—by my hands even. Now I see that you’ve lost even more than I.
“I feel guilty for hurting my mother. She often fell out of bed intentionally; I see now why. She often threw herself to the floor whenever Dyule and I would rhetorically plot our plans for revenge—concoct more, imaginary ways to hurt you. So much lost time… that would’ve never happened if I’d realized how to communicate with her. I think she fell to make us focus on her pain instead of plotting against you. She knew the truth but couldn’t tell us.” He paused, full of self-doubt and introspection. “I don’t think I even wanted to know the truth… just someone to blame.
“I don’t feel guilty for hating you,” Bomarr looked at Rashnir, “Even though it was misplaced. I needed something to hate—someone to blame.” He paused, and then looked hard at Rashnir in a conspiratorial manner and stated flatly. “Harmarty must die.”
Rashnir gave him an understanding look and bobbed his head in agreement. “Haven’t you heard the news?” He responded to Bomarr’s quizzical gesture. “Harmarty has disappeared. With the combination of his mysterious absence and the death of a castle guard, as well as my re-emergence from the street gutters, I have been officially questioned about the matter.”
Bomarr stared at him suspiciously.
“They will eventually find him, Boma
rr.” Rashnir smirked. “But not to worry. Harmarty has paid for his crimes.” Rashnir returned the conspiratorial look. “Let’s just say that I happen to know this is fact.”
The two chatted about trivial matters for the next few minutes, all their words tainted by a Harmarty’s gloom which hung over the conversation. The mood was not right for small talk.
After an awkward silence, Rashnir stated, “We are going to bring a revolution to the land, something good.”
“What is good,” Bomarr verbally deflected the term. “Good is defined by the philosophy of the day. Your good will inevitably become someone else’s evil.”
It was an interesting insight for a person not normally recognized as an authority on deep wisdom.
“I have made a discovery, Bomarr. There is such a thing as absolute good and evil. Perfect goodness exists and I have found it; though I do not claim to resemble it.”
Bomarr gave him a skeptical look, “What, Rashnir, have you become religious? Did the monks take pity on you?” Bomarr was not the type to follow religious tenets, just as Rashnir had not been. Men of the sword were prone to see themselves as the sole controllers of human destiny and typically shied away from religious observation unless it bordered on zealotry—and those men and women typically joined the Order.
“No, but you are close. There is no denying that higher powers exist, right?”
He nodded. That there were higher supernatural powers at work could not be denied; usually they acted as selfish as the rest of the sentients that roamed the lands, but powerful demons and sorcerers were of common knowledge. Common myths claimed Lucifer as the only truly selfless exception amongst the high powers; despite widespread corruption in the church, the Luciferian Order still insisted that their deity remained pure and compassionate. Of course, they also claimed the infallibility of their religion and that The Gathering, the reigning demonic council, portrayed the divine traits inherent in Lucifer.
“This higher power,” Rashnir continued, “has been hidden from us by these selfish, powerful beings. They have profited off of our souls for many, many generations.
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 13