The Wars Within (Servant of Light Book 1)

by Jeremy Finn

  “No, nothing,” James said with a sigh. “I really can’t offer you much more, unless you want a description of that guy or something. I’m sorry.”

  “Well,” Lomas began as he reached into a pocket hidden inside his large, green coat, “before I leave I just want to show you a picture. You tell me if it means anything to you.”

  As James watched with apprehensive curiosity, Officer Lomas pulled out a small sketch on a crumpled page that appeared to be torn out of a book. As he held it out so James could see, his heart suddenly dropped to his feet. The same hollow eyes and twisted evil body that stood over him last night stared at him from the wrinkled piece of paper. James could noy help but drop his jaw, and he noticed the officer allowed a small nod as if he expected such a reaction from James. James did not say a word.

  “James,” Lomas said sincerely, “I know what attacked you last night, but I don’t know why. I also know there are more of them. They are not the kind of thing the police can help you with. There are some who could answer your questions and perhaps help you, though. If you want to talk about this further, meet me at this address tonight at nine.”

  James reached out and wordlessly accepted the plain business card in Officer Lomas’ hand. Officer Lomas then stood, slipped his sketch back in his pocket, and turned to leave the office.

  Just before he left the office, he paused with his back to James and said, “Whatever you decide to do, be careful. I haven’t seen one of those…things in quite some time.”

  James sat in the same position at his desk with the card pinched between his thumb and forefinger in his outstretched hand as he watched Officer Lomas exit the main door. Suddenly, he snapped out of his trance and brought the business card up to eye level. “Ulchiro Tailor” was printed in bold in the center of the card with an address and phone number below. Nothing else was on the card, and James put the card in his pocket, feeling very confused.

  The rest of the day dragged on endlessly, and James was not able to focus enough to accomplish anything. It was bad enough since Joe left. He had not made any new friends, and lunch was usually spent alone in the basement food court that serviced the office building. His job left him no time for a social life, and the people at work were polite, but managed to keep relationships at a distance. Now he had all kinds of confusion to add to his loneliness.

  I wonder how Joe is doing, he thought. Maybe I should look him up sometime.

  With that thought in mind, James left work early and walked toward the bus stop. For obvious reasons, he wanted to avoid the subways from now on. While he was waiting for the bus, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number Joe gave him before he left. James listened to the phone ring about five times, then a message came on.

  “Hey, this is Joe. I can’t answer my phone often, so if you really need to get a hold of me, leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Take care!” the message finished with a beep.

  “Hey, uh, Joe, this is James,” he began. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. Been pretty busy. Well, I don’t know, I just wanted to talk to you about something strange that happened to me. Anyways, if you can make it, I’m going to go see some guy tonight and I’d feel better if you were there. We’re meeting at some place called Ulchiro Tailor in-“ James couldn’t finish as a loud beep announced the end of the message recording.

  Oh well, James thought. I guess I’ll have a go at this one alone.

  James jumped on the bus and rode for a long while through the packed streets of the city until he reached the point where his map told him he would have to transfer to catch the bus that went to the Ulchiro District. As he stepped off the bus, he checked his watch and realized he would have to stall a little if he did not want to get to the meeting place too early. As James scanned the area, he noticed a nice little noodle restaurant a couple shops down. It had a white exterior and bright lights shone from inside. The sky was nearly black now, and James felt he would be more comfortable inside the well-lit restaurant. After a decent meal of extremely long, thick noodles smothered in a chunky, orange sauce that smelled a little like the ocean at low tide, James walked back out to the bus stop and waited for the bus to Ulchiro.

  Following a slow, jerky ride through the rush-hour streets of the city, James stepped off the bus. His legs gave way a little as a wave of nausea swept over him. He always had problems with motion sickness, and he was already exhausted in the first place. A quick scan of the area told him he was not in the best part of town. Few lights shone from the buildings on the side of the street. Those that did seemed very weak and glowed from behind dusty curtains or flickered on old, dilapidated store signs. Just down the street about ten meters to the left James saw a green neon sign in the dark window of a shop situated between two mannequins wearing business suits. The sign read “Ulchiro Tailor” in James’ native tongue under what he guessed must be the same title listed in the local script. As the bus pulled away, James quickly walked toward the store. A little bundle of anxiety was beginning to grow in his gut, and it doubled in size when he reached the store front and realized the shop was closed.

  Just as James was about to swear under his breath and curse the cop who invited him to meet him here, he heard a small voice with a twangy accent emanate from the alley to his left.

  “Mr. Huener, please come this way!” The voice hissed in a strong whisper.

  “Officer Lomas?” James questioned.

  “Yes, yes. Now please come quickly,” Lomas replied.

  James moved to the alley and stepped inside. Through the nearly complete darkness, he could just see the outline of a figure that matched his memory of DaNyang Lomas – stocky, but not overweight; neither tall nor short; he stood with an air of confidence, but not pride.

  “I am sorry for the secrecy,” Lomas whispered, “but please follow me, and I will explain everything to you.”

  “Ok,” James said curtly and began following the rapidly moving dark mass ahead of him.

  After turning down several side streets, James and Lomas entered another alley with much better lighting. James could actually make out the features of his guide’s face now, and saw that it was indeed Lomas.

  “Here,” Lomas said as he pointed up the street to what appeared to be a restaurant with an entrance designed to look like a traditional home from a couple hundred years ago. “This will be a good place to talk.”

  As the two men stepped inside, a hostess dressed in the traditional garb of the land greeted them. She wore a long, flowing dress that met with a silk belt tied in a bow across her chest. It was patterned in several pastel colors patched together in incongruous squares. Her hair was tied in a tight bun, and various hair ornaments hung dangling over her head.

  Soon, James and Lomas were seated on the floor in a small room separated from the rest of the restaurant by thick screen doors that appeared to be made of some kind of rough paper, and were decorated with black prints of fish swimming and jumping in every direction.

  Lomas hesitated for a moment and then began, “This will be a good place for us to talk. I know you are a little confused about what happened last night, and I’m afraid that what I am about to tell you may just confuse you even more. But before I start, I need you to promise that you will just listen to what I have to say. That’s all I’m asking.”

  James watched Lomas in silence for a moment as the hostess brought utensils and a clay pitcher of water to the table. When she left, James spoke, “Officer Lomas, you are right in assuming I’m pretty confused right now, but I’m sure you can guess that I’m desperate to find out what happened to me last night. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come out here tonight. But why all the secrecy and why didn’t you want to talk more at the office this morning? To be quite honest with you, I don’t trust you right now, and I’m questioning my judgment in taking this risk.”

  “Understandably so,” Lomas replied, “but I know what attacked you and I feel I at least have to tell you what I know, regardless of whether you bel
ieve me or not.”

  “Ok,” James began slowly, “then go ahead. I’ll reserve my judgment of your mental condition until you’re finished.”

  “Thanks,” Lomas said seriously, obviously missing the pun. “I’ll start at the beginning. Have you ever had the feeling there’s more to this world than meets the physical eye? I mean, haven’t you ever felt like there was something in the room with you, but when you looked around, nothing was there?”

  “Sure,” James chuckled nervously. The evening he had been sitting on the balcony of his apartment flashed back into his mind. He had experienced something unnerving that night, but had dismissed it as a result of the stress of work on his mind. “But everyone knows that’s just our imaginations, sometimes affected by stress, or whatever.”

  Lomas bobbed his head in a quick nod, “Yes, sometimes, but other times it is more. James, there is another world out there. It coexists with our world, and both worlds affect each other daily. There is a lot of gray in our world. What I’m saying is you can’t really tell what kind of person someone is just by passing them on the street or greeting them at a store counter. They could be murderers, or missionaries, but you would never be able to tell for sure based on their outward appearances. You know as well as I do, though, that inside their soul there is either light, darkness, or a conflict between both. Some care only for themselves, others for anything but themselves. Some love and care, others hate and destroy. And then most are caught somewhere in between, in a state of contradiction and shifting tides.”

  “Ok,” James mumbled as he played nervously with his spoon.

  Lomas nodded and continued, “Well, this other world is much clearer. Good is good, and bad is bad. There is no hiding behind outward appearances. But before I get ahead of myself, let me get back to the beginning. Please understand that this is going to be a very brief summary. When this world was created, it was made as a world of light. Pure, clean, and radiant best describe the condition of this planet at its inception. All the creatures created on this earth also took on the purity of the world. You see, the Father had created a race long ago in another part of the universe, but this race had turned against him. They were rebellious and selfish, and their society rapidly deteriorated. So, he started again here with a new race and a hope for peace. On the other world, there remained only a remnant who had supported Him and remained dedicated to the Light. He took a select few of these and brought them to to this world. He charged them with the honor and title of Guardians of the Light. Keeping peace on this planet and ensuring the purity of light in all men became their cause.

  James heard the paper screen sliding open and looked over Lomas’ shoulder to see the hostess bringing in their food. Lomas fell silent until she left. The meal set before them was both colorful and aromatic. Pink, white, and green little rice cake balls were stacked on a golden plate next to a large pile of steaming strips of beef and pork speckled with red pepper flakes and chopped garlic. The waitress placed about twenty other little bowls and plates of various foods around the meat dish and a steaming bowl of sticky rice before each man.

  “Help yourself,” Lomas said, “Now, back to what I was saying. The Guardians kept the earth pure for a long time, until the division occurred. You see, there was a certain man who envied the eternal lives of the Guardians. The Father created them to live for eternity, unlike us, at least in our present form. This man was so obsessed with finding a way to live longer, that he eventually persuaded a guardian to help him. In his lust for eternal life, he became convinced he could steal the soul of a guardian and fuze it with his own. You see, guardians never die, exactly. The spirit never ceases to exist. Rather, the body passes. When the dying guardian’s spirit leaves his body, it exists in a sort of wandering state, unable to act or appear, until a new physical form is able to generate. In this way, the knowledge and experience of the dead guardian lives on. I guess it is something like a tree dropping an acorn. It takes a while for the acorn to become a tree again. I know that's not the best illustration, but there are really so many things we do not completely understand about these beings. Knowing guardians go through this ethereal phase when destroyed, the rebellious man and his partner guardian postulated the man would somehow be able to capture a dying guardian’s spirit and gain extended life if they could fuze the dead guardian’s spirit with his. In order to accomplish their goal, they lured another guardian into a trap and murdered him. As his spirit left his body and they attempted to fuze it, something unexpected happened. The man’s lust for what was not meant to be his, and his murderous thoughts and act stained his soul with a growing darkness. The dead guardian’s spirit conflicted with the darkness. The man’s body went into violent convulsions and he nearly died. But the darkness in his soul was his true condition, and it repelled the spirit of the Light, leaving him as dark and evil as ever.

  “So what happened to his partner guardian?” James played along as he stuffed more pork into his mouth.

  “He also had been affected by his evil thoughts and acts. The darkness in him grew as well. But remember what I said about the other world? While the man could hide his dark condition beneath his fleshly exterior, the guardian could not. He turned dark and hideous in appearance, and emitted a darkness like the vacuum of a black hole rather than the radiant light he possessed earlier. He went into hiding and grew more evil day by day. In time, the man realized his life was not extended. In fact, he had hastened his death. He could feel his body rotting each day. In his rage and hate, he determined he would have his revenge on his partner. So, under the guise of a righteous man trying to expel evil, he told the guardians about his partner and betrayed his location. The guardians captured the dark guardian and locked him in a deep cell far beneath the earth. There he stewed in his rage and hate for men until one day his lies and slick tongue had worked to turn one of his guards to the Darkness. With his aid, they defeated the other guards and fled the prison. The dark guardian hated men because of the betrayal he suffered, and he set his goal at enslaving them and lording all power over them. As he spread his lies about how the Father unfairly favored men over guardians and how guardians were rightly superior to the animal race of men, many turned to follow him and the darkness began to consume the guardian ranks. As if that were not bad enough, the dark guardians began to whisper to men lies of power and fortune. They turned many to their side in those days. They knew that converting men to the Darkness would deny them a peaceful journey to the Light upon their death, and would taint their lives with pain and dissatisfaction. But they hated men, and gloated over their success behind the mens’ backs. That is when the strongest and wisest of the guardians, Mahae‘el, knew he must take action, or this earth would suffer the same failure he had witnessed long ago on his world. He banded together all the guardians he could trust, and formed the Order of the Guardians of Light. There were few of them, and Mahae‘el knew they would be unsuccessful against the Darkness. So, he came to the men who still followed the Light, and entreated them to help in the fight against the Darkness. Those who accepted his offer became members in the Order of the Servants of Light. There were battles upon battles in a war that tore the earth apart and left few alive. But in the end, the Light prevailed. It was the cooperation of the Guardians and the Servants that defeated the unstable union of the Dark forces.

  “Ok,” James said with doubt in his voice, “it’s the same old story of good versus bad, and the good guys win. But what does this have to do with us today? I mean, I haven’t seen any of these guardians running around, have you?”

  James felt a stab of guilt and fear as he said this. He was trying to convince himself the vision he had the night before on the boat must have been a hallucination. Certainly it couldn’t have anything to do with this ridiculous story.”

  “Actually,” Lomas said, “though no one sees them often, I have seen them a few times in my life. James, the Light won the war, but the Darkness was not utterly destroyed. They retreated to their realm in the sky and
nursed their wounds. Never since that day have they appeared so freely in this world. That is why they are not known to men these days. As they went into hiding, the Guardians of Light did not feel the need to maintain tight bonds with men, and most faded into obscurity as well, at least to human perception. But don’t be mistaken, the Darkness never gave up. They have been working in the shadows ever since, playing upon men’s greed and lust and working steadily to turn this world into a realm of darkness. Likewise, some of the Guardians of Light have been working to counter their actions. They have kept their relationship with men, and recruit those who can be trusted to work with them in their efforts against the Darkness.”

  “Well, I can honestly tell you I don’t really believe your story, but I am still curious to know why you think this affects me.” James said, and wondered if his host would be offended.

  Lomas sighed and said, “That’s the problem, James. I don’t know why they are interested in you. They have been getting much stronger lately, and have been doing things they never did often before, like appearing in the open. That creature they sent after you the other night was a Dark Guardian. He possessed that old man, a dark human, in order to kill you. But when his host’s body became useless, he came after you in his true form. That sort of open appearance by a Dark Guardian in public hasn’t happened in quite some time that I am aware of. He must have really wanted to kill you.”

  “How do you know what happened to me anyways?” James asked accusingly.

  “Well, I’m a cop for starters, and…I’m a servant,” Lomas admitted.

  “A what?” James questioned as he dropped his spoon to the table.

  “A Servant of the Light, James,” Lomas said in a tone that said he knew James would not believe him.

  “Look,” James said quickly, “I appreciate the dinner, and I’m sorry, but I really should get going. I listened to your story, and my head is swimming right now. Give me a couple of days to think about it, and maybe I’ll get back to you,” James lied.