The Twins

by Gary Alan Wassner

  She removed a thin, woven chain from her wrist and secured it around the boy’s limp arm. It was made of a substance that carried no lasting scent, and it could not be used to help an enemy identify wherefrom he came should he fall into the wrong hands, but he would recognize it if and when he awoke. It would comfort him to have it, she believed, and she had no further need for ornaments.

  Despite her vigilance, without a warning, her senses reeled. It seemed as if she had been slapped in the face, and she recoiled violently from the evil touch. They were approaching, and the horrifying power she felt was overwhelming. Mira knew it was inevitable, and yet she had hoped for a little more time; just a tiny bit more. All she wanted was to rock the boy in her arms and say goodbye in the proper fashion. There was no time now for that. If she had any expectations of casting him to safety, the process would have to begin immediately. Her mind sight told her that she had only moments left, that she must act quickly before her emotions distorted her actions. Mira lifted the inert young man in her arms, and she struggled under the dead weight of a physically mature adolescent. Maintaining the rock illusion for a little longer was essential.

  She began to hum. With one part of her mind focused on the facade surrounding them, she began to relax her body. The casting spell had to be done properly or who knows where the boy would end up. Her teachers told her countless years ago that all you needed to do was form a picture, however obscure, of the destination in your mind, concentrate your energy upon the image of the person at the other end, and force the power from within to blend with the image. As the power flowed into the image, a feeling of warmth arose in her abdomen. Mira knew that it was beginning to work. The moment in which the power and image became one together would just about be her last. Of that she was sure. She would have no strength left afterwards to protect herself further. But, if she could only reach that moment her life would have been worthwhile.

  The image of the northern reaches grew brighter in her mind’s eye until she felt as if she had to squint in order not to go blind, even as the dead weight of the boy made her legs crumble beneath her. The strong features of the face of the noble man she sought to cast the heir to began to sharpen before her, surrounded by an ephemeral image of a mighty castle. Suddenly she felt a tugging at her arms. The boy was fading slowly, being drawn into the light that was now filling the entire rock shelter that served as their home for these past weeks. Mira was reluctant to release him, and yet she knew she must. She was tempted to hold on more tightly, to keep him with her.

  With a silent prayer for his safety and a last moment’s hesitation, she let go, and she felt the weight lift from her weakened arms. The boy vanished into the shimmering vortex of light with a swooshing sound. Allowing herself one last instant of sadness, Mira watched as the rock illusion dissolved around her. With barely any strength left in her, she stared out into the daylight, thick with smoke and emanating evil, and she shielded her squinting eyes. No sooner did she regain her balance and force herself to her feet, when out of the woods to the east came a shrill cry and a bloodcurdling pounding on the ground. They were here.

  Mira looked at the approaching enemy and knew exactly what she had to do. Her thoughts were strangely clear and sharp. She felt no fear, only sorrow. Focusing her energy once again inwardly, with the remaining power she had gathered inside her, she said the words she had hoped she’d never have to say. The blood that suffused her skin and kept it porcelain-like and normally rose-colored withdrew from her extremities. She appeared now as white as a blanket of newly fallen snow, staid and calm. Abruptly, the leader of the rancorous enemy halted. As he reached out to clasp the arm of his prey, it shimmered and appeared to burn. A muscular, unblemished arm reached toward a benumbed and helpless old woman, and recoiled as it came into contact with a white hot, glowing statue.

  For Mira, it was over. She had transformed into a substance that would never again feel pain or experience remorse. Perhaps she had won after all in a strange way. But, what of the boy; what of the beautiful boy? Just as Mira’s mind slipped away forever, she sent one last streak of power outward in search of the heir. Hopefully, it would find him safe and envelop him in its warmth. If so, Mira would live forever within him and always be a source of hope and guidance for him. She smiled to herself, a smile that remained frozen upon her face for eternity; an enduring affront to the enemy before her. With that final thought, her cognitive entity was gone along with its physical identity.

  Chapter Two

  “The boy has arrived, my Lord,” was all that the messenger said in such a matter of fact way that one would think that this sort of thing happened every day.

  So, Baladar mused. It has finally begun!

  Walking slowly to his burnished stone table, he felt an immense wave of satisfaction envelop him and soothe what he had come to believe was to be an ever anxious mind. Four such simple words as ‘the boy has arrived’ held so much meaning for him. A lifetime of anticipation, a generation of hoping and a century of planning were coming to fruition. Finally! The boy had arrived!

  Baladar sat in the high backed, rune-carved chair, and truly relaxed for the first time in years; perhaps for the first time in his lifetime. He laid his head back upon the hard, elfin wood, and breathed a deep breath of relief. Knowing fully that the work was just beginning for him and the boy, he felt so wholesome and buoyant, so filled with pride and dreams for the future that he could barely contain himself. If he was not careful, he knew that he would drift off in this reverie, and perhaps not return for days. He had not allowed his mind to travel outside of his body for years. It would be wonderful, once again, but now he had too much to do. He did not have the time for such luxuries.

  Ah, if only Briland could be here to see this, to experience the elation of having the boy among the protectors after all these years of preparation and prayer, Baladar mused. She would have brimmed with joy. It would have made her so, so happy. Yes… but, such are the ways of this world, he thought sadly.

  Briland, Baladar’s stunningly beautiful wife, passed into the after world at least two tiels prior. She was so full of life, so kind and loving, that she was sorely missed by the entire kingdom of Pardatha. Her death marked a low point in Baladar’s life. Never before had he felt so unsure of himself and so alone and abandoned as just after Briland passed on. There was nothing he could have done to prevent it. She was a child of the trees, and without the ability to live in the proximity of her Lalas tree, she was doomed. He knew this, and as a Chosen one, so did she.

  Presently, only a small number of the grand and wonderful trees remained alive on the planet. Their roots tunneled into the earth, and searched one another out. From distances of thousands of miles, they had always been able to find their same, and wherever they met, a new tree sprouted to the surface. Yet, today no new trees grew. Perhaps the distances had become too far between the remaining trees for them to make contact and regenerate, or as Baladar truly suspected was the case, the trees lost the will to search and rejuvenate themselves for some reason not known to man. Nevertheless, the Lalas had stopped perpetuating themselves, and the entire planet mourned their continuously dwindling numbers.

  During the peak of their growth and development, all of the trees were intertwined with one another, and they were able to pass on information instantaneously. Centuries ago, there were many, many of these trees reported to have been seen all over the populated areas of the world, and most certainly in unpopulated areas as well, all rumored to have sprung from the one history referred to as simply “the First”, whose whereabouts was reputed to be shielded from detection, and protected from all harm.

  Years and years of questing for the First became the grist for the mills of legend. Yet, no concrete report of its discovery ever reached the ears of civilized man. The First was said to harbor the Gem of Eternity, a powerful and sacred relic, brought to the planet aeons ago with the golden seeds of the First. It was said that the Gem was placed in the soil amidst the golden seeds
. Thus, legend has it, as the tree grew, the Gem remained nestled within its heart, sheltered from all evil, and radiating its power from this position of comfort and security.

  The First was so enormous, and endowed with such unimaginable power that no living thing could ever conceivably reach its heart as long as the First lived. The Gem was the most holy and revered relic on earth, and was thus given sanctuary in the safest place possible. Had anyone been able to procure it, they too would have been blessed with eternal life and unlimited power. The First was the guardian of the Gem. Legend decried that the First would relinquish its guardianship of the Gem to only one charge, the one chosen by the First as its bond mate. This would only occur at the most crucial time in history, one of great threat or great triumph, before the end of the current cycle. No one had yet attained that title, ‘Chosen of the First.’

  All of the leaves of the Lalas trees possessed the gift of nourishment, and had superlative healing powers when properly prepared and administered correctly. The trunks were at times so enormous that entire villages could thrive within the hollows and branches of the oldest of the Lalas, but only the leaves were ever utilized by living things. The branches were never cut, and the trunks were never chopped down. Such was impossible, and any attempt at what was considered to be a defilement of the tree was strictly forbidden.

  Everyone believed that the trees would live forever. One day, though, during the third year of the ninth tiel of the sixteenth century, only four tiels ago, with no warning whatsoever, slowly and painfully, the leaves began to wilt, and one by one, a small number of the trees proceeded to die. There was no visible sign of decay or disease anywhere on any of the trees, yet there was a clear and audible sound that echoed throughout the land whenever a tree was dying. It sounded as if the tree was screaming in a high-pitched voice. The sound terrified the children, the animals ran around scared as when a storm is rising in the west, and all grown men and women stopped whatever they were doing and remained still as statues until the sound ceased. It just seemed as if the Lalas has made a conscious decision to die and leave the earth.

  Briland’s tree, Snihso, was one of the first to quit the world it had been born to, and thus, quit its bond mate as well. As each tree died, and shortly thereafter its Chosen, it was deeply mourned as was its human partner. A great sadness engulfed the towns and cities in the vicinity of the dying tree. The population surrounding the doomed tree was awash with feelings of abandonment and doom. When the trees first started to die, the skies darkened and rain fell unceasingly for weeks. Floods resulted, and many deaths ensued. The circle of life was being threatened with each death, and everything imbued with the light of life, revolted from and reacted to the loss.

  A precarious balance was soon restored, but during these first tiels, each time a Lalas fell, the crash and the subsequent echo were said to be so incredibly loud that the mountains and lakes surrounding it suffered severe damage. Avalanches, tidal waves and untold horrors were unleashed on the land upon the death of a great Lalas. The vibrations when the tree finally fell were so severe that great rifts in the earth resulted.

  The hollows left after the root structure rotted away had become a forbidden maze into which no one would dare venture. Legend said if one followed the tunnels one would either end up at another tree whose roots were intermingled with the dead giant, at which point the clash of opposite forces was understandably stupendous and deadly, or more likely, you would die in the process.

  The Tomes of Caradon, the mysterious and often unfathomable recorded history of the land, bear no clear records of anyone entering the caverns of a dead Lalas and returning safely anywhere on earth. The juncture of the living and the dead was a maelstrom of power, an enduring battlefield, barring all manner of life.

  The Lalas were considered to be gentle giants, affording comfort and security for the peoples of the planet who served the light whilst they lived. They were formidable enemies of anyone or thing who was driven by evil motives.

  Although they were sentient beings, they communicated in a language known only to a few whom they selected by methods unknown to man. Once selected by a Lalas as its bond mate, that person was forever tied spiritually and emotionally to the tree. Those few lived incredibly long and fruitful lives, although often apart from the rest of mankind. They rarely married and raised families, but when they did, they bore exceptionally gifted children who quite frequently became Chosen themselves.

  The Chosen came and went mysteriously. They attained the status of demigods in the eyes of the common man. They were almost always benevolent, and endowed with leadership qualities that mesmerized the populace.

  In all of recorded history, there was only one known aberration to this pattern, in the form of a renegade Chosen named Aracon who in the sixth tiel of the Seventh century, subverted the will of his tree in an abortive effort to promote his own authority. He failed miserably, and was literally sucked into the earth by the joint and concerted effort of the Lalas while he was proclaiming his superiority before a gathering of the peoples of his city, Nescon, on the southernmost coast of the continent. The timing of his demise was absolute perfection, and no other incident of such subversion has ever again been mentioned in the Tomes. This incident is celebrated every spring during the holiday of Mantal, named after Aracon’s tree, and is a source of great entertainment for the children of the nations, as they act out the final moments of Aracon’s life dramatically and in forever new and unique ways. The child picked to be Aracon is always one of great potential, and this choice is meant to teach him or her humility, and to be a reminder of the futility and great sin of any effort to not serve the tree truthfully.

  Each Lalas was said to be able to engulf an enemy if it entered its territory with bad intent. Once taken by the Lalas, death was imminent and said to be terribly painful. There are accounts in the Tomes of entire armies being absorbed by the trees. Their vengeance was legendary, and their power seemingly limitless. It was thought that the Lalas held the earth together and that when the last of the great trees finally died and the light from the Gem of Eternity was extinguished forever, the earth would disintegrate and its fragments would be spread all over the universe. That day, named the Great Dissolution in all of the legends, was feared by all who served the light. Only if and when evil prevails could such an event be possible.

  The ancient diaries of the gods of Caradon devote chapters to the Great Dissolution. The powers of darkness looked forward to it as their means of salvation. The fragmentation was viewed as a renewal and rejuvenation though completely antithetical to life itself. The Dissolution was the means by which their ideas and seeds would be spread all over the universe, and by which they would find eternal peace and freedom from the cycle of human suffering. They had no feeling for the lives that would be lost or the pain and hardship that would inevitably precede the final days.

  Baladar shivered at the thought of how few Lalas remained. Of course, he was not certain of the count, but his powers allowed him a good sense of the weakening of the chain of communication which could only be the result of a lessening in the number of the trees. The sadness which engulfed him and his people so infrequently years ago was more and more common nowadays. He knew what it meant each time. With his wife gone, he had to strain his abilities to the limit in order to fight the sadness and depression. Reports of citizens jumping from cliffs and into rivers for no recognizable reason were much more prevalent recently. Nature sadly but necessarily began to strike a balance of sorts with the continuing loss of the trees, and although the power that renewed and sustained the Lalas was ebbing, the earth had girded itself against the terrible consequences of their deaths.

  Baladar’s own sense of desperation at times seemed overwhelming and unbearable. Yet, he had the strength to fight on, particularly as his hopes were now being rekindled by the arrival of the boy, the Child-King; the only remaining link to the ancient Gwendolen family. This noble family was the oldest of all of the blood lines in re
corded history, and oh, what a history of achievement and accomplishment! The myths are rife with stories of triumph and goodness, so frequently traceable back to a Gwendolen family member.

  Baladar knew that somehow he had the noble blood streaming through his veins. He, like many others with the gift, instinctively knew that he was tied to the family, yet his mother had been a regal though simple woman, a healer who labored day and night if circumstances required, and his rise to power was achieved by hard work, and intentions that were honorable, true and just. His father had died when he was quite young and little was known about him. He was not a local man, and whenever he attempted to discuss his father with his mother, she avoided the subject, and she made it clear to Baladar that it was not something she wished to talk about. She indicated to him that there would be a time and place for that conversation, and that he would have to remain patient, but alas, she died of the fever that swept the city when he was only two tiels and three without ever having had the opportunity to impart that information to her son.

  Orphaned at a young age, he was taken under the wing of the city’s Lord, Breamar of Ashton, and raised as if he was his own kin. His talents as a statesman were always evident, even as a child, and he readily assumed duties that heretofore were reserved for older, more experienced individuals. When Breamar died without an heir to succeed him, Baladar was chosen to assume the exalted role, and he was installed in the office of Lord of the city as if he was of the blood. The people of Pardatha gratefully accepted his leadership, as he had performed in a civic capacity almost his entire adult life to date and he was well respected, and more important, thoroughly trusted.

  Ever since he assumed the role of leader and protector, he had managed to maintain a civil society that prospered and remained fair and generous to all of its citizens. That was no simple feat in a world that was constantly degenerating, with reports coming in to him and his advisors from everywhere of ensuing darkness, depression and disintegration. Yet, his kingdom of Pardatha was a shining jewel in a sea of dull and lifeless objects. In fact, he feared that his domain was becoming too obvious in its success, and that the wrong eyes would stumble upon this aberrant example amidst the mundane landscape of accelerating decay.