At this point he shuffled through his papers, clearly intent on finding something specific. After setting his attention on one of them, he leaned over to Niodia and whispered something that drew a slight conformational nod. He looked up and continued, “Normally, this is where the instructions, honor, and your day’s responsibilities will end. However, this year, the good Lord has chosen to alter things and extend your honoring,” he paused slightly as if considering to continue upon this same course of speaking, or to deviate from his script. I will, perhaps, never know whether he deviated or not, but regardless, he continued. “The Good Lord, benevolent is all of his decisions, has instructed his staff to prepare a special private feast for all of the Selectees. In attendance will be several foreign dignitaries and emissaries along with several local people of importance and influence. I will say this only once,” His voice took on a very grave and serious tone, “should any one of you fail to uphold The Lord Henchat’s honor by behaving in a manner below the Lord’s conduct, you will find yourselves in the service of the sewers when your selection has been made.” His face seemed to brighten as the first rays of sun following a dismally gray rain gives a hint of the joy to follow. “But never mind that now. Suffice it to say, this will be a grand feast where you will be entertained by some of the best performers we have at our disposal. I have even heard rumors of a private performance by the elves!”
Upon hearing the possible performance of the elves and seeing her again, I felt my heart pulse through my veins and amass itself within my throat. She clearly knew I was watching, and watching only her. She had caught me staring, and in my embarrassment, I began thinking of any and every reason I could to not attend this private feast.
“Are there any questions?” Without waiting for us to respond, he continued, “No? Good. Let us proceed with the day’s events. This will, without a doubt, prove to be a great Festival, and an even better Tournament.” Beginning to let his excitement show, he turned quickly toward Niodia and said, “I have one of those feelings again, Niodia. Yes, this indeed will be a grand Festival! You may lead the families to the Lord’s Dais now.”
“Please follow me,” said Niodia as she led our families away. Each of their eyes dwelled upon their respective selectees, many of which were beginning to show the first signs of the pool of emotions swirling within. Mine were fixed upon my mother’s until the last moment when she was forced to turn her head. Though, had she the ability of the Northern Wolf Owl, I am sure our eyes would have remained fixed on each other much longer.
Interrupting the five of our lingering gazes, Sintrinos cut through our attentions with a very succinct speech, “Ok, that is enough of the glassy eyed, emotional displays for today. Today is supposed to be a day of grand celebration. And from all indications, it will be such. Though if you five are insistent on standing in the presence of the Lord Henchat, sniveling through your noses at the thought of leaving your mommies, then I can always arrange for you to join the Martial Tournament and see you how stand against Bractos, last year’s champion. He will surely be obliged to give you a beating that will draw a different purpose for those tears of yours. But enough of that. You are men of the Silver Empire attending to your purpose. Stand in that, or do not stand at all!” And with those words, each of us was drawn back to the enormity of the day in the eyes of continuing the tradition that has built our Empire to rival any that has existed before. Visibly, each of us swelled and shifted just a little mimicking the shifting of our attention from inner pity to exterior pride. My thoughts, having been focused on everything I was leaving, had now been realigned to what I was. I was a man of the Empire! And Men of the Empire do not cry when doing what is good for the empire, because it will be good for us all! After giving us a moment to dry our wetted tears and to allow the shifting of our attentions to take place, Sintrinos indicated that we should all follow him. And that we did; all as men of the empire.
Walking now with an increased sense of conviction, we followed him around the exterior of the Lord’s Arena to a small wooden door marked “Combatants”.
“We will wait inside until the Lord Henchat has completed his opening remarks. Remember, I will walk to the center of the Grounds of Valor; you will wait until I announce each one of you individually. Is everyone clear with the instructions?” We all nodded in affirmation. “Good. Then let us go in and see who the tournament has enticed to enter.”
Entering the combatant’s area revealed a dimly lit, large room with several glassless windows on the wall behind us and one directly in front of us. Gathered in various groups were several expectant competitors, each attempting to size up their first round assignments. Some of the combatants were seated, and others were standing talking about all sorts of topics from fighting techniques, to weaponry, to the aged old argument, armor or no armor. Most of the participants were from the Twin Oaks region, or from the closely surrounding areas as evidenced by their familiar weapons and choices of armor. Upon closer examination of the distribution of the men I realized there had formed two different and loosely gathered factions. The more sizable one, to the immediate right when we entered, was centered around a hulking figure of a man. Appearing chiseled directly from the cornerstone of divinity itself, he was a striking example of pure human physical potential achieving its full manifestation. A visage of absolute physicality, he stood nearly six inches taller than the second tallest man in the room. He wore little armor on his chest, (probably because his musculature resembled bedrock) and carried a mammoth axe upon his back.
The second gathering was fixed upon another large individual; however, where the other man wore little to no armor, this one was dressed in all black leather armor with deep blue, leather threads lining each piece. His hair was long and grey providing a great contrast to the other man’s head which was void of all hair. I saw them occasionally glace in the direction of each other, not with the intent of the lesser conditioned warriors who sought to gain an advantage from displaying their bravado in front of the others, but with a mutual respect and acknowledgement that they were destined to face each other on the hallowed ground.
The armored individual spoke, “Bractos, what is going to be the wager this year? “
The hulking man returned in a deep voice resembling controlled thunder, “Wager? We made no wager last year. If we did, I would have been seen bedding your wife soon after you were flat on your back!” The response to this was a ruckus laughter from Bractos’s faction while stark silence for the armored man’s.
“Perhaps that would be true if you did not wield that enormous ax of yours because you wish to make up for your pitifully small manhood!” With the completion of this retort, the dark armored man lifted his little finger in the air, and let it drop a moment later. This time, the ruckus laughter and silence shifted completely leaving Bractos with a faint smile upon his face.
“Dimitrios, do you confess to know the size of me? Have you been watching me in the showers again?” Shifting laughter once again.
“Please Bractos, everyone knows I have not done that, if for no other reason than your stench belays your professed usage of any shower at any time in your life,” And with that, both sides erupted in laughter.
“Again you have bested me in the only area you can, Dimitrios. For this year will end the same as last year; with me standing above you while you ask for mercy. I will win again, as I have the last five years. Nothing, not even the Dark Warrior of Lord Henchat can stop that.”
“Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. But if I was a betting man, I would bet against you for your first match,” said Dimitrios as he walked over to stand in front of Bractos.
“Then you would lose your second place winnings, my friend. For that boy cannot possibly stand against the strong arm of Bractos and his Axe, Doombringer.”
Just then, Dimitrios turned toward a small boy who appeared to be a couple years younger than myself. He was seated in the corner of the room with his legs crossed and feet folded in upo
n themselves. His seated posture combined with the more seasoned, full grown standing men gave the illusion that he was smaller than he actually was. He was resting his hands upon his bent knees. His eyes were closed and he breathed slowly and silently, seemingly oblivious to all that was occurring. “What do you say about that, boy? Do you think you can best The Doombringer?”
Without opening his eyes, the boy responded with a voice that was calm yet showed all of the innocence of youth, “Vennesulte does not recognize doom apart from what the mind allows.” This response produced a hushed hissing sound from the entirely of the room as if a small suction had gently replaced the peace with tension.
Bractos spoke next, “What was that, boy? You do not recognize The Doombringer? Perhaps I should introduce you to him early.”
“As you must, but Vennesulte will not recognize the ax apart for the arm, nor the arm apart from the shoulder, nor the shoulder apart for the head, or the head apart from the mind.”
“Then perhaps you will not even recognize your own body when I split it from your head!”
“As you must.”
Sensing the growing tension between Bractos and Vennesulte, Sintrinos spoke up, “Easy Bractos. You do not want to do anything to remove you status as defending champion for next year. And you certainly do not want to do anything to gather the anger of Lord Henchat.”
Dimitrios walked over and put his arm around Bractos’s shoulders steering him away from Vennesulte, “Come my friend, perhaps now I can get you to tell me how you bested me last year so I can stand a chance against you this year.” This meeting of the two obvious favorites dissolved the two factions and caused them to reform in smaller groups sporadically spread out in the chambers under the arena; although, none gathered with Vennesulte who remained calmly stationary with his eyes still closed.
“Well that was certainly fun,” said Sintrinos. “And it looks like it ended just in time for us to hear the Lord Henchat’s opening address. Remember, when he finishes, I will walk onto the grounds, introduce each of you by name. You will walk out to stand next to me after you hear your name and wait for the Lord Henchat to address you. If you have any questions, they will have to wait until after. It is beginning now.”
Unglasio (Isolation).
Suffering. This was his surrendered reality as he waited long upon his lord who provided him the power necessary to become the fulfillment of his Master’s directives. Now, while seated in the all-consuming darkness he so vehemently sought, overlooking his triumphant future, he was finally and fully aware of just how far he had traveled, and just how much his dark savior had meant to him. His journey had been wrought with pain and loss and lack. Often times, when engaged in the dark meditation as he was now, while focusing on the source of his power, thoughts of his childhood would attempt to gain entrance and subsequently occupy part of is consciousness. With every morning devotional prior to the day's events, he pushed these thoughts aside to give himself over fully to the Dark Link. However, today was different. It was different because of its significance. Because of his reflected awareness and combined comprehension of the totality of what has occurred and what is about to occur, he allowed himself an indulgence into the memories of his pain filled journey for the dual purposes of revelry and motivation.
Using his powers of recollection, he traveled back in time to his very first tangible awareness - pain. A diffuse, yet solid expression of it manifested in three different but equally dominating forms. While unlinked to a specific memory, they presented themselves as his first, and therefore most concrete understanding of the world he was in and the life he was meant to live – hunger, loss, and deception.
As he sat alone in his secret chambers with a single candle casting its faint illumination upon the wall in front of him allowing the ancient power symbols to barely present themselves, he became aware of the first of his three interpretations of pain – hunger. But not in the sense of physical hunger related to the consumption of food, rather, a need for sustenance reaching deeply into the source of all things. The way one always wants to see more of a beautiful painting after it's gone, or to feel more of a kiss after lips have parted, or the desire for another brief period of familiarity when all surroundings continue to change. He remembered hungering for a constant and unchanging reality from which to reference all things against. And just as physical hunger pains develop when a threshold of tolerance is surpassed, so too did this longing manifest when there was nothing to fill his desire.
Sitting motionless except for his rhythmic breathing produced from deep meditation, he felt the closest thing to gratitude he has ever experienced well up within him drawing its purpose from the bond he shared with the darkness. As if being driven by two galloping horses, his chariot of gratefulness gained speed from all he was saved from, and the resulting opportunity to exact a vengeance to all the hypocrisies of life immersed within his dismal condition of mortality. While fully prepared to embrace this emotion, he knew there existed a greater purpose upon which he was meant to focus. So, grudgingly, he let go of his indulgence to resume his meditation upon the fluid bond and flow of power stemming from the greatest of things – hate.
He knew this hate formed its genesis in the full solidification of each of his three expressions of pain. Therefore, he allowed it to momentarily fade and, yet again, indulged in the second portion of his feast – loss. But not the simple misplacement of a toy or trinket when a firm, yet unspecific knowledge of its location allows a reassurance of a solid reunion; it was the loss of something intimately linked to his identity representing that which we cannot recover, but remains vital to who we are. Such loss drilled deeply into his awareness of self-creation and propagated a palpable hole set inside his soul.
Looking back upon the entirely of his youth and adolescence, he cited this as the single propelling factor to his previous lack of ambition. Again, a fleeting feeling of affection for his master sent a small probe toward his conscious focus. Not the affection for father or mother, but that which is given to a horrible and powerful master who is willing to take mercy and share his secrets for the sole endeavor of its own selfish desires. His was an affection that stemmed from his breaking moments resulting from endless bouts of brutal beatings when his master would show a type of pseudo-compassion by giving him a slight reprieve from the onslaught prior to being broken. No, his was an affection derived from the same hand that gives food, only to withhold it when the slightest variation to obedience is demonstrated. An affection that is utterly based upon the undeserving having been granted clemency from the one and only master who can grant it yet has no reason to do so. Desiring to indulge once again in his memories, he allowed his warped sense of gratitude to roll out of his mind thereby allowing his third and final solidified interpretation of pain to fill his being to its entirety - deception.
This deception, just as hunger and loss, pierced beyond the superficial layers of mortal emotions and delved into something we are able to feel from the realm of immortality itself. This is the Great Deception of God. He Who Should Have Been There But Was Not. This is The Great Betrayal of God to humanity as He left him forsaken to revel in all the dirt, grime, muck and misery that is His design. He created the world. He created His child. And yet, time and time again, when His creation had left him broken, beaten, tattered and torn; when the summation of the great universe equaled an unbalanced expression of hopelessness; when there was nothing to do but to live out the rest of his days wading in a pool of rotten putrescence continually being drawn deeper into the pit of death, and when he was convicted, crucified, shamed, and humiliated for turning to that which gave him a momentary reprieve from the black smoke that had become his existence, his supposed creator was absent. How dare He judge what He has given no choice but to become? Feeling the hate rise within him as the first black and powerful clouds of a storm can be seen rolling in across a barren plain of grass and wheat, he remembered the first frightening experience he had with the growing, hate-f
illed storm inside.
He was perhaps five or six, but this was just an estimation. He was orphaned well before his memory was solidified and as such, could only attach his age to what others had estimated. He was always small and sickly, but he made up for it with his intelligence. However, because his guardian understood mainly the physical nature of things, his aged was based on size alone, without any influence of his intellect. Be that as it may, the advanced nature of his mind could not be fully ignored. The combination of being small physically and advanced mentally had created a great problem for his orphan surrogates, and subsequently, him. While all of the other children’s ages could be roughly estimated within a reasonable time frame allowing an appropriate approximation of their ages, his was altogether a different story. They just could not come to an agreement resulting in a growing dilemma.
Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1) Page 4