The Year of the Lumin

by Andrew Ryan Henke

  Noir had noticed that the only things the scarred man could not control about him were his consciousness and his control over his lux. While it was mostly drained at that moment, he could still tell that he retained his control over it. It came from a different place than his mind and therefore sye had no effect.

  Noir tried different things with the small amount of lux he had left. Multiple times, he tried the mental barrier that had worked earlier. But, he could not slide the barrier in when his mind was already invaded. It was a strange, intangible battle.

  Noir’s body walked on, helpless to do anything. His mind continued to be scanned. His mental focus could not keep the man’s probing sye away from everything. Noir felt memories slip that he meant to hide. Noir’s memory of talking to Aimee in her room the night before this all happened played quickly through his head. The mental visage of each member of his family saying goodbye to him that day came and went. Noir thought, “He’s leading up to the cave!”

  “What cave?” the man’s voice rang in Noir’s head. “Why is this cave so important?” Noir’s memory of the next day played quickly through. The car ride to Medicine Mountain, the hike up, and the cave opening flashed by.

  “No!” Noir screamed inwardly. The memory of the inside of the cave played. He saw the carvings, the stone stairs leading down, the door, the large chamber with the orb in the center, and Noir using his chakra for the first time. Finally, Noir watched his memory replay of walking out of the cave into the Lumin shrine.

  As this memory played, the man’s physical body stopped walking and turned to look at Noir. For the first time, he did not have a vile grin on his face. He had a look of surprise. Then, he let out the most evil cackling laugh that Noir had ever heard. “So it's true! I didn't think they could possibly be right, but if you're from another world, you have to be him. My lord will be most pleased!”

  He started walking again and continued to scan Noir’s memories. “I wonder how my lord will destroy you.” Noir caught a glimpse of his assailant’s mind. Various scenes of Noir’s death quickly played out, each one getting more gruesome. “Or, what if he wants to keep you alive? Make you one of us. Your strength was easily broken by me; it would only take an instant for him to break your will.”

  The man’s tone changed. “She wouldn’t want to supplant me with you, would she?” Noir had a feeling that this thought crept through on accident. He was not intended to hear it or see the images that came to him from the man’s mind. First there was a quick glimpse of a disgustingly dirty woman sitting on a pile of trash. Then the view went to the ground as if he was bowing to the woman. Next, the image of a huge black and red dragon confined in an abominable metal device appeared in Noir’s head. The dragon roared and a man sliced the underside of its belly, spilling blackish blood down on another man’s head. It sizzled on contact as the man screamed. Noir recognized the screaming man as the same man who was with him now.

  The images only lasted a fraction of a second, and then were gone. However, the scarred man seemed distracted, so Noir tried all he could think of. He placed a ring of solidified air around his captor's ankle. With his next step, the man tripped and fell to his hands in the dirt and leaves. Hoping the man was further distracted, Noir tried with as much ferocity as he could to slip in the lux barrier on his mind.

  Nothing happened. Noir's struggle to affect the sye control on him with his lux felt as impossible as trying to cut down a mighty tree with his hand.

  Noir felt his body go rigid and stand still. Then a mad cackling erupted from the man on the ground. He quickly flipped over onto his back and spread his arms out beside him. “Oh, no!” he cried insanely with his own voice. “The mighty Lumin has loosed one of his ferocious attacks on me. I might have skinned my palms a bit!”

  Suddenly, the scarred man flung himself upwards onto his feet and thrust his face into Noir's own, so close they were almost touching. The insane mirth in the man's voice was replaced by vile hatred. “Maggot! Fool! Pathetic filth!” The hideous scars stretched and pulled as his face contorted with rage. “You cannot harm me! You shouldn't have the right to even look at me. I will make you bow before me and kiss my feet, swine!”

  Noir's knees flung themselves to the ground as the scarred man took a step back. Then Noir's arms went in front of him onto the ground. The sye control over his mind and body was suddenly gone. Noir held himself there for a moment frantically trying to figure out what the man was going to do next.

  “See? You bow and I do not even hold you there. You are in complete control of yourself and you still bow.”

  Noir moved his head up on his own just in time to see the man's large black boot. Noir was flung backward onto his back. He instinctively grabbed at his face from the intense pain. His nose felt crooked. He could feel blood seeping down his face and hands. In a desperate attempt to rid himself of the pain, Noir quickly tried to heal the injury. He weaved lux into his nose and face and mended damaged tissues and bone. As he worked, he felt his small amount of chakra being used up. He peeked at the scarred man who oddly waited, watching Noir heal himself.

  Within a minute, Noir was finished and the sharp pain became a dull ache.

  Then it started again. Noir’s mind was suddenly invaded. He felt his body stand up and his mind flipped through his own memories again. The scarred man chuckled, then turned and walked on making Noir follow.

  The insane mirth had returned to the man’s telepathic voice. “I never thought that you would be the one. She guessed it, but I thought she was wrong.”

  For the first time, Noir spoke directly to the man through his mind. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, 'I'm the one'?”

  The man laughed cruelly and said, “Oh, you don’t know! You are from a whole different world. You wouldn’t know of this world’s prophecies.” The man laughed maniacally again. “How amusing.”

  Chapter 21

  Friends

  “What I said in your dream is true, Noir. More true than anything else in this world. Your friends and everyone will die because you came to this world.” The repeated words haunted Noir from his dream. “She told me that. She knows all.”

  The sun was rising by then and Noir's feet and mind were pained from the relentless overuse. The battle at Talik had been at dusk that evening before. They had been walking through the forsest in the night for hours. He was giving up any hope that someone had followed them to try to save him.

  “Hunting you was my greatest pleasure, Noir.”

  Noir had long since given up fighting the scarred man. In fact, the man didn't even control his body with sye anymore. Noir had tried escaping four times by then, and each time his efforts were easily thwarted. Thus, he walked on in complete dread and despair behind the man.

  “You know, I got these scars for you, Noir. I got them so I could hunt and capture you. I'm a new recruit to her service, you might say. My lust for hunting you gave me the fortitude to stay in the blood as long as I did. Now, I can do this!”

  Noir put up his feeble, tired lux barrier, but the man did not fling a tormenting attack toward him this time. Instead, he shot a ball of fire up into the sky, burning a hole in the branches above them. The fire dissipated and fizzled out a few hundred feet into the air.

  Noir knew he could not fight the man, so he tried to weasel any information out of him as possible, though he doubted it would be of any use. “Why do you care about me so much?”

  The man turned and walked again and Noir followed. “You are one in a billion, Noir. The one in a billion, I should say. You are the ultimate prize. The ultimate good. I capture you, I win... well, ultimately.” He chuckled and gasped at his joke. “Plus, maybe my lord will give me a seat by her side when she gains control of both kingdoms.”

  “You keep talking about your lord.” Noir tried to be manipulative. “How could someone as powerful as you be dominated by someone else? Who is this person?”

  The scarred man turned and bowed as though he was in a kingly
party. “My gratitude to you for the compliment, Noir.” He stood upright and continued walking again. “But I am no fool. She has been scheming and gaining power for thirty years now. I am not going to blindly blurt out her identity to you. If she wishes for you to know something of her, then she will tell you herself.”

  Noir was minimally pleased. Even though the man had denied his question, he had answered it in a way. Noir looked up at the setting sun and said, “We seem to be traveling east. Your lord is a woman and she’s in Tier?”

  Then Noir's mind was not his own once more. In his head the scarred man's voice boomed, “Silence!” Noir's body began walking on its own again. “I have said too much.”

  ~~~

  Ratt and Elrid crept along as silently as they could while watching the black-cloaked man lead Noir through the trees. He was definitely under sye control. That meant there was a Din Mage and a Syeter. There was no sign of the Syeter yet. They had seen this man shoot the pillar of fire into the sky earlier.

  “What are we going to do, Elrid?” Ratt asked quietly.

  “We do not know how powerful this man is, so I don't know.”

  Ratt pointed back the way they had come and said, “Let's go get the others. He couldn't possibly take on all of us.”

  “No, we can't risk losing track of them. Noir could possibly be lost forever that way.”

  Ratt slumped his shoulders. “Well we have to do something.”

  “Yes, but what? If we get close, he will just use din on us. We can’t fight that.”

  “Well then, how do we get close without him knowing?”

  Elrid put his hand to his chin and thought for a long moment. Finally he looked Ratt up and down and said, “Well then, Ratt. How good are you at sneaking?”

  ~~~

  Noir gave in to despair. By then it was bright morning and he had seen no sign of anyone coming to help him. He had been walking with this crazed man for about twelve hours. All he wanted to do was be back in his home with his family.

  The man continued to scan Noir's mind eventually uncovering the memories of Fafnir's lair. “So that is where the old dragon is.” While his sye voice spoke, it hauntingly laughed in Noir's head at the same time. “My lord would be very interested in this indeed. We could capture and use Fafnir just like her brother.”

  Now these nameless enemies knew the location of Fafnir's lair. If this information got back to this man's “lord,” Noir’s time in this world would do much more harm than good. He knew the man was reading his mind and a throaty mental laugh answered his thought. He said through the connection, “Don't you remember, Noir? All of your friends will die because of you.”

  Just then, the man stopped both his own body and Noir's. Noir could feel him searching out with his senses. They both heard footsteps crunching through the trees in the distance, but they could see nothing in the night.

  A man's voice called out from the trees, “Hello there. Are you from Talik?”

  Noir’s heart jumped with a sudden flooding of hope. Noir recognized the voice as Elrid's. “So his name is Elrid,” the voice said in Noir's mind. He cursed himself for letting the name slip. His hope quickly changed to even more dread as he realized Elrid had no chance against this enemy. Elrid would die because of him too. It was an insane torture not being able to cry out to his friend to run.

  Noir saw the scarred man’s plan play out in his head before he said, “Yes, I’m from Talik. Is that you, Elrid?”

  The footsteps drew closer. Noir's mind pounded with the man's laughter. “What a fool! Another of your friends is about to die because of you, Noir.”

  “Get away! Go! Run!” he thought helplessly.

  As Elrid approached, his feet crunched through the leaves and twigs on the ground. He said loudly, “I can't see in this dark and I can't recognize your voice. Who are you?”

  Noir felt the grip on his mind weaken slightly and knew that the man was using a second flow of sye to attack Elrid. Elrid started screaming and making more noise in the forest. Then Noir suddenly realized what was going on, which told his assailant at the same time.

  From behind them, the sound of a quick flurry of leaves and branches cracking signaled a sneaking attacker that Elrid's noise had hidden. Noir and the scarred man spun around to see Ratt charging forward, axe raised above his shoulder. Still smiling, the scarred man grabbed for his blade. Thinking quickly, Noir channeled lux into the air around it, holding it in place. The man's face changed from a confident, sneering smile to sudden terror as he realized his mistake. He grasped at the blade furiously.

  Ratt's axe fell into the man's shoulder just a moment before Elrid's sword pierced through his abdomen. The man’s open mouth made no sound as the weapons slowly withdrew themselves from his body. The man’s mind left Noir’s. With control of his body suddenly returned, Noir caught himself and stood on his feet on his own.

  The scarred man fell to his knees, black cloak spreading out around him. Ratt and Elrid held their weapons in front of them cautiously. “This can't be!” he coughed. “I was to be the one to bring you in. She promised me I would be a god!” The three exchanged wary glances at each other as he slowly slumped down and stared at the ground. His eyes bulged and his mouth moved slightly with unknown words. Then suddenly, he jerked his head upwards and held out his hands. With a loud final scream, the man's hands blazed with fire. One hand was held toward Ratt and the other at Elrid. Noir had already placed the light barriers when the fireballs left the man's hands.

  Noir made large bowl-shaped barriers which caught the attacks. When the fire was enclosed in the light, he then flung the fire-filled barriers back toward the wounded man, returning his own attack on him. The two fireballs exploded against the sides of the man, engulfing him. The three stepped backwards from the blaze. The man's shape was completely hidden by the orange glowing fire. It did not take long for his screams to die out.

  When it was over, Noir turned away from the grizzly sight and fell to his knees from exhaustion and relief.

  Elrid and Ratt rushed over to Noir. Elrid asked with concern, “Are you all right, Noir?”

  Noir did a quick physical check on himself. His shoulder hurt from where the ice javelin had struck him, and he was mentally and physically exhausted. But despite the ferocious mental and emotional struggle he had just endured, he was mostly unhurt. “I think I am fine. Thank you two for everything. You saved my life and probably many others at the same time. You have no idea how important it was that you stopped him.”

  Ratt asked, “What do you mean?”

  “He talked about a ‘lord.’ I believe this man is in Tier. If the scarred man had given all the information that he scanned from my memory to his lord, it would have spelled doom for us, my family members, Fafnir, and who knows how many more.”

  There was silence for a long moment except for the lingering crackling of the burning corpse behind them. The gravity of it all felt unbelievably oppressive all of a sudden. Noir looked up into Ratt's eyes. “He hunted me Ratt. Why me? What do I have to do with anything?” Then, despite Noir's efforts, tears started to overflow from his eyes and slide down his cheeks. “I just want to go home!”

  Part 3

  Chapter 22

  Oh captain, my captain

  The remaining citizens of the rebel town Talik rested that night in their former home. Since most every building had been burned to the ground, most slept on the ground wrapped in cloths. Before the women and children were allowed into the town, the slain stragh bodies had been dragged outside the city walls to a clearing in the trees and burned. It was far enough away so that the smell did not reach the town, but the black smoke rose high into the night sky, shrouding a long section of the stars. Also, the bodies of the fallen men and women were cared for lovingly. Noir, Ratt, and Elrid arrived at Talik that evening.

  There had been very few casualties in the second battle due to the warriors' extensive training and the help of the Luxins. Adeel had healed as many of the wounded as she co
uld by herself. She had passed out late in the afternoon the day before and showed no signs of waking up that morning.

  In the morning light, everyone salvaged what they could from their former homes. Almost anything not metal had been smashed or burned. Many quick and sad burials were done for loved ones.

  That evening, Grandel called a meeting in one of the last standing houses. Someone had found and dragged in Grandel's old conference room table, though it was scorched badly on one side. He met with the most important people in the town. Adeel, Noir, and Ratt (at Noir’s request) sat to Grandel’s left. Elrid and two others of his same rank, Cairn and Halat, sat to Grandel’s right. Noir recognized Cairn from when he used the luxsyedin on Noir and found out he was attuned to lux over a month earlier.

  “My friends,” Grandel began once everyone was seated and the small talk had subsided, “I am glad to see all of you are well enough after the battles from the past few days. I am honored, as always, to sit among you.” He sighed. “Now, we have many things that must be discussed. First, the official tally from the last few days.” He paused sadly and picked up a messy scroll with a long list of names on it. He said, “In the first attack, thirty-nine men able to fight were slain. Twenty-four women and children also fell that night. In the night that followed, nineteen more bodies were found. Many more must have been drug off by the straghs. In the attack to reclaim Talik, eleven men fell, unable to be healed. Considering the size of the stragh occupation force, the battle was as successful as we could have hoped. In the end, our remaining numbers total seventy-nine able to fight and eighty-two women and children.” He tossed the tally tablet on the table. “One hundred and sixty-one is less than half of our original numbers.” Sad grumbles passed among those present.

  Grandel gave a huge sigh. “I have failed these people, and you. Failed them completely. They gave me their trust and devotion.” Grandel lowered his head and looked at the large table. “For all my planning and efforts, I could not protect these people from a simple stragh attack. My best efforts were not enough.” Grandel put one hand on the red and yellow sash he wore that signified him as captain. “Therefore, effective immediately, I resign as captain.” He grabbed the sash and quickly ripped it off his armor, then tossed it on the table.