“What did he say?” Lenthean asked.
Valdorath finally lifted his head and looked to Lenthean. “He told me how his classes taught him about the Elementalists. How it is no act of coincidence to stumble across an Orb of Power. How the orbs were placed by the gods themselves on the earth of mortals. I warned him about the burden it would bear on his life, but he felt like he had to take the orb. Perhaps it’s the human spirit showing its true colors . . . desperate for more power. Or perhaps the shadows persuaded him. All I know, your father regretted his decision to take the orb from those black, jagged rocks of the darkened cave. He realized the famed Elementalists are not always so welcomed by the people. The people feared him, Lenthean. They feared him even with their perfect Elementalist of Light, me, defending his character. Friends and family turned on him, saying he was the work of a warlock and a demon.”
Lenthean envisioned what Valdorath was saying.
Valdorath continued, “His girlfriend at the time, Ayla, your mother, knew him for who he was, though. Your mother stuck around for years before his life was taken from him. She is a great woman,” Valdorath said with a smile. Lenthean smiled back as Valdorah continued. “They were together for fifteen or so years before they had you. And with the worst timing of all, unfortunately.”
“Why is that?” Lenthean asked.
“Quynn and I had spent many years developing a relationship of trust with the free peoples of Zanvia. Telling them that we would protect them from the Der’ Tanel invaders of the world. Until we unleashed . . .” Valdorath maintained a soulless stare into the flames of the fire.
“Unleashed . . . what?” Lenthean asked.
Valdorath looked over. “You are well aware of what we unleashed, Lenthean. You’ve heard from the queen of Darthia. A demon. A massive, angry demon. With a hunger for death that will never be satisfied. Stuck in the nethervoid between light and dark—set free by your father and me. A different dimension it was from. Together, the light and shadow can tap a different form of reality, where monsters never sleep. They only seek the destruction of any dimension but their own. And that creature is still out there somewhere. I don’t know how we were so foolish.” Valdorath shook his head and drank some more.
“What did it look like?” Lenthean asked.
Valdorath stared deeply into Lenthean’s eyes with absolute intensity. “The size of a city courtyard. The height of a castle. Arms brooding and on all fours it was. Bony, unnatural spikes protruding from it in all directions. Scalp and eyes engulfed in flames of pure white hate. A tail long like a flaming white whip of agony. Such rage and disregard for life. It was truly something of another realm. It was not of this reality, Lenthean. After sabotaging everything and everyone, it took off into the everforest—ironically, that is where we are headed. And no one has ever seen the demon since that day so many years ago.”
Lenthean looked at his trembling, weak palms. He didn’t realize he had this kind of power to devastate the world.
Valdorath continued, “That was twenty-some years ago, my boy. Shortly thereafter, your father and I went into hiding. He and your mother relocated to a small town named Fredrickstown, hopefully not to be found by the Darthians, who believed your father and I had betrayed them. And not to be found by the Der’ Tanellians, who sought him out to use him as a weapon or destroy him. And most certainly, destroy me. We made a pact, your father and I. I would protect any of his hypothetical children, and he would protect my daughter. And that’s where your story comes in, Shadowling.” Valdorath drank more of his alcohol.
Lenthean stuttered, “Wait—you have a daughter?”
Valdorath looked to the boy and corrected him. “Had—I had a daughter.”
Lenthean looked down. “I’m sorry,” the boy apologized.
“It was not the wrongdoing of your father. It was the plague.”
Valdorath then chuckled. “It’s funny, really. The gods bless me with something that grants light, vision. Light so I could watch over my baby girl and keep her safe, but she was taken by the smallest thing of them all. And not even all the light in the world could have seen that coming.” Valdorath shut his eyes; it was clear the alcohol was affecting his behavior now. “It’s a twisted joke the Goddess of Light has made me the punch line of. All at the cost of a precious life. My daughter, Emma, may I see you again.”
The campfire crackled.
“I know I’m hard on you, kid. But I made a promise to my best friend to keep you safe. And—and—” Valdorath belched softly and began to sway. “I care about you, kid. I see you as my own son. I want to make sure I keep you safe . . . Because I couldn’t even save my own daughter . . . My precious baby, Emma.”
Lenthean watched Valdorath. The boy was completely baffled, and touched all the same. Valdorath was leaning from side to side. He was also drooling. He said, “I can’t lose you, too. . . You’re all I have left. . .” Valdorath face-planted into the leaves, unconscious. The bottle fell from his hand, and the remaining liquor seeped out and soaked the dirt.
Lenthean sprung into action as quickly as his crippled body could. He turned Valdorath over to his back and placed his head on some moss on the ground. He gathered a blanket from Lucy and draped it over Valdorath’s body. He trickled water slowly into the man’s mouth repeatedly, and it was clear Valdorath did drink it. He did this until the flames went out many hours later and Lenthean crawled into his own makeshift bed on the other side of the dead campfire. He would forever remember the words that Valdorath had spoken to him that night.
24: Revitalized
The next morning, Valdorath and Lenthean hadn’t spoken much since they awoke. They quietly prepared for the morning’s travel and climbed aboard Lucy as the early sun rose. Not long after they started their travels, Lucy had to steer around vines, thickets, and bush to navigate her way through the overgrown forest. Valdorath pulled tightly on her reins, clacking his tongue at her.
“Shadowling?” Valdorath asked. “Have you reconsidered? I am not continuing any farther; neither is Lucy.”
Lenthean nodded his understanding at Valdorath as he looked over his shoulder at the boy. Lenthean dismounted and grabbed his belongings from the horse, slinging bags over his shoulder. Valdorath looked down at him as he finished grabbing his things. “Don’t be an idiot out there.”
“I won’t,” Lenthean answered, slightly agitated.
“Or I’ll have to come and save you again, and you and I both know I have better things to do with my time,” Valdorath stated.
Lenthean lifted his eyebrows with jaw dropped and lifted his hands in the air. “What’s your deal?!” Lenthean demanded of Valdorath.
“I just figured I’d make you aware of how stupid you are being. You’re making a child’s decision.”
Lenthean pointed a finger away from him. He could barely lift his arm, as his mobility was still crippled. “Get out of here! I don’t need your help anyway!” Lenthean demanded.
“I have warned you as much as I can,” Valdorath concluded. And just like that, Lucy trotted away.
Lenthean grumbled with irritation under his breath. He murmured to himself, “That conceited lunatic of an old man . . .”
Lenthean was on his own once again. A bit of reluctance to continue befell his heart, but it felt right to go all the same. He inhaled, then exhaled deeply. He raised his quivering, disabled arm and pulled the thick, thorny brush aside to step through it.
Lenthean was in the thick of the wood now. Every step was a struggle—even without his inability to properly move his body it would have been difficult to navigate. Branches continually latched onto his thick, black hair, snagging it and trying to keep him back. The thorns scratched his skin, some even drawing blood. With every step he was engulfed in all sorts of thorny plant life.
Birds chirped from above, but the treetops consumed all daylight and kept his surroundings darkened. He grunted as he inched his way, little by little, deeper into the Everforest to find the Waldalfen people, his one hop
e of regaining his ability to move properly again. Lost in his thoughts, he felt like he had been digging through the thick bush for hours on end.
Eventually, Lenthean came to a standstill. After dealing with so many slippery, wet logs and thorny bushes, Lenthean fell to his butt and let out a breath filled with anger. His crippling inability to move was aggravating to him, to say the least. He looked at his palms as they shook uncontrollably. “I did all of this to become crippled?” Lenthean said aloud. “I tried to stop a world leader from hurting people who didn’t even love me to begin with? And I couldn’t even save their lives? And now I’m stuck with . . . with this?!” Lenthean growled with frustration as a single tear fell from his eye. His hands could not stop shaking. Even for the life of him.
An anger consumed him. His crippled state. Valdorath. The horrid imagery of the war. Directionless. Stuck in a thicket of thorny bushes with nowhere to turn.
The boy leapt to his feet and unleashed a flurry of shadows out at the nature. He sliced at it like the shadows were swords. He screamed at the world as he did it.
Bushes splashed into millions of leaves and branches; small trees were falling in his wrath. He felt the branches and thorns continue to cut him in his fury.
“AHH!” Lenthean let out to the world as he fell to his knees beside all of nature’s debris. Lenthean eyed the Elementalist eye tattoo on his forearm; the eye was wiggling, blinking softly. As if it was alive. It faded back into a lifeless tattoo, but it was the first time the boy had noticed something of that nature on his markings.
Riddled with small cuts, the boy stood again to his feet. Letting out one more breath, he pushed forward once more.
The boy watched his feet as he trudged through the fallen wilderness. Leaves and twigs crackled and crunched under his feet. Suddenly the front of his head made contact with what felt to be a physical being, a humanoid of sorts. Lenthean leapt back in a defensive pose and eyed the individual.
A woman stood before him—tall, thin, endowed, and dressed in soft white robes with some gold etching on the shoulders. She had long, pointed ears, deep-blue hair . . . and jade-green skin. Her eyes were wide, almost fish-like. Additionally, she had what appeared to be gills on the far back of her thin neck. She tilted her head slightly, unblinking at the boy.
Lenthean stammered to find his words. “Uh . . . Hi . . .”
She tilted her head the other direction at him.
“I’m looking for the Waldalfen,” Lenthean explained.
“You have found one,” she said to him in her angelic voice.
Lenthean delayed to speak, unsure of what to say to this upfront and forward stranger.
“I need your help. I hear your people have medicines that can cure nearly all things.”
“All things can be healed,” she replied.
Lenthean smiled. “Great! What would it take for me to see one of your doctors?”
“What is a doctor?” she asked.
“Um . . .” he stammered.
“You seek healing, no?”
“I do.”
“Then why do you seek destruction?” She motioned for him to look behind at the nature he had destroyed.
He turned his head around. He choked out, “I— I’m really sorry about that. It was frustration and anger. I cannot move anymore. At least . . . not fully. Not like I used to. Look!” Lenthean put his palm in front of his face and it shook uncontrollably.
She tilted her head the other way.
He continued to spit out nervous words. “I didn’t—I—I didn’t mean to cause any harm to your forest or—or anything like that!”
The woman spoke back. “I see now.” Her eyes were wide and unblinking. “The lightning one did this to you, didn’t he?” It was a statement, not a question.
“What . . . ?” Lenthean asked.
The woman placed a gentle hand on his chest. Lenthean looked down, and paths like vines were glowing on his skin; his hair began to float lightly. Lenthean looked to the woman in terror as he was unable to move. “What are you doing?!” he exclaimed.
The boy scanned his body and realized the trails of lightning burn marks were the “roots” that were glowing softly on his skin. After a momentary sharp pain in his chest and back, the light faded and his full mobility returned as quickly as it had left him days before. Lenthean wiggled his fingers and looked to his hands, flashing the front side, then the palmside to his point of view. He looked up to her in awe. “You—you healed me!” the boy practically shouted.
She nodded. His excitement was difficult to contain. “Thank you! Thank you so much!” the boy cried.
She added, “My one advice for you . . . Your adversaries seek destruction. Do not seek the same thing.”
He listened.
She continued, “The world needs you, Lenthean. The dark redeemer. A free unified world. Balance. You are the missing link the world has needed. Without you, the world is lost to despair in the ideologies of people’s rulers. Which most certainly, is not the way nature intended.”
He asked her, “Who are you?”
She ignored his question then said, “The God of Shadows has chosen you. As the prophecy is foretold, it is a young boy of eyes uncorrupt to manifest the power of corruption.”
He asked again, “I must thank you again. But really, I must know, who are you?”
Her gentle voice chimed back in, “It is so nice to meet someone . . . like me.”
He eyed her. “What do you mean, like you?” the boy asked. He continued, “Wait, you can’t be a . . . You . . .”
She did not flinch as he continued to speak.
She lifted a pointed finger over Lenthean’s shoulder. He whipped around and scanned for what she was pointing at. The destroyed debris was gone, and a rainbow of flowers rested there instead of cropped thorn bushes and dead brush. His jaw was low and growing rapidly into a smile. He turned back around to ask her more. Only to find . . .
She was gone.
He was left alone with the sound of chirping birds and sunrays seeping through the leaves above. In front of him was a wall of trees, bushes, and vines that had not been there before. There was absolutely no way he could travel forward any farther into the Waldalfen home as he originally intended. But . . . no need. He felt okay with that. His encounter with this . . . this Waldalfen woman. He was healed by . . . that woman. That woodland creature. Lenthean smirked and chuckled softly.
He wondered to himself, Did that just happen? He thanked her under his breath for her kind deed. And before he knew it, he was turned back, marching through the millions of colorful flowers in the direction from which he came, without a single thorn or thicket that had resided there before.
25: Behind the Red Curtain
“My lord. Please, forgive us,” a Der’ Tanellian citizen bowed before his ruler sitting atop a golden throne.
“Treason. Treasonous things you’ve committed against your own people.”
“I know . . . Now please spare us! Feed us to the hungry gods!” the man pleaded.
The golden sculpture resting above the throne was a perched falcon, gleaming in the well-lit throne hall.
“A great leader has fallen in your ignorance. He was of the gods, a mighty Elementalist. You know this, do you not?” the ruler spoke down to the kneeling individual.
“Yes. And I am willing to give myself unto the gods as a consequence. All I ask is that you plead with them to spare me. Please.”
The ruler, clad in royal Elementalist armor, stepped down the steps towards his kneeling war general. He placed a hand under the man’s chin and lifted it.
From the left, a deep voice said, “Erendar.” The Der’ Tanellian ruler looked over to the voice. The voice was his brother, Gargonath. Gargonath shook his head, suggesting he spare the pleading man at his knees. Erendar, the Soul Elementalist, turned his attention back to the man who was pleading for forgiveness. “We must have order,” Erendar calmly stated. “And what is order, if rules and laws are bent and misshape
n?”
A tear fell from the war general’s eye. Erendar continued, “The humans of Darthia are a weak people. My best general . . . retreating from battle with them? A tiger fleeing from a pigeon? Do you know how that makes Der’ Tanel and its people look to the world? It looks like our message can be ignored! Or you can rebel against the true way of being, and succeed!”
“I know, my lord. Please, send me to the God of the Soul now; maybe there I can have some solace in my disgrace.”
“Our message must be sent to all ‘free’ peoples of the world. And insubordination will be eradicated from their souls,” Erendar boasted in his commanding voice.
Elementalist: The New Inheritance Page 16