The Path Of Destiny

by Mike Shelton

  “No, Daddy. Get up. Get up.”

  Christine jumped from her Cremelino before she had even stopped. She fell down and reached an arm over her father’s body. “We will take you back to the house, but I don’t think I can lift you up.”

  The barn creaked louder and the wall furthest from them fell with a loud crash to the ground. Only about thirty yards separated them from the building, and the heat was becoming unbearable. The grass nearest them was starting to smolder and the fire moved towards them at a quicker pace.

  Stefen got on his hands and knees and tried to stand. “I can’t do it, Christine. Leave me and save yourself. You need to get away.” He coughed and almost choked as he tried to get a clean breath but couldn’t.

  Christine bent down to him and Lightning moved over next to Stefen. The Cremelino then lay down on her stomach.

  Roll him over on top of me.

  Christine felt infused with hope as she helped her father back up on his knees. As she pushed him over, he fell across the horse. A loud groan escaped his lips. Portions of his clothes were burned away, revealing multiple burns along his back and legs.

  Lightning stood up, with Christine’s father draped across her neck. Christine jumped onto the horse, sitting behind her father.

  The rest of the barn rumbled and fell, collapsing to the ground, sending sparks of burning wood out into the air. Christine batted them away, with a few sparks burning quick holes through her jacket. Turning around, they raced back across the field, away from the fire and towards their home. Her father hung lifeless in front of her. She held one hand to steady his body.

  Turning back around as they rode, tears filled Christine’s eyes. Their entire farm was burnt. The fire now raced across their neighbors’ farm and would continue, she presumed, until it reached the river a few farms away. She could see others running around, trying to save what they could. She wondered how it could have started.

  As they stopped suddenly at their back door, her mother and Emily came running outside. Upon seeing her husband’s condition she covered her mouth and silent tears ran down her face.

  “I will ride to get a doctor,” Christine told her mom.

  “City doctors won’t help.” The voice of her younger brother, Jain, came around the corner of the house. “They are the ones who set the fire in the first place.”

  “What?” Christine couldn’t believe it. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do. I saw two of them running across our back fence just before the fire broke out.” Jain raised his voice. “I tried to chase them, but they were too fast.”

  “It could be anyone!” Christine retorted.

  “Enough arguing.” Their mother stepped between them. “This solves nothing. If Jain said it was men from the city, then I believe him. Why would he make it up?”

  Christine was about to argue when a groan from their father interrupted them. Christine turned around. “I will get you to a doctor shortly. Lightning is fast.”

  “No.” Her father groaned. “No. It is time I speak to you of things. Jain, help me down.”

  “What things?” Christine jumped down and moved to his side.

  Stefen lifted his face and coughed again. “I will be leaving you soon. My wounds are too great. You must know the truth before I go.”

  Jain moved to his side, next to Christine, and helped his father sit up. “What truth?”

  “Get me into the house. Are we safe here?”

  Christine looked back towards the fire. A slight breeze seemed to be blowing the smoke and flames away from their home. “For the time being.”

  They helped their father into the house, laying him down on an old cloth couch. He winced as his back hit the cushions.

  “I love you, Dad,” Jain knelt down next to his dad. “I am sorry for how I have been.”

  “I know that you do, son . . . I know . . .” He trailed off in a weak whisper. “You are just trying to protect us.”

  Caroline brought water down to his lips in an old ceramic mug. He sipped a few swallows, then laid his head back down. Emily leaned down to him also and just held his hand. She was the youngest, and most of her work and chores were done in the home. Since their dad had been indoors for the past months, in weaker health, they had developed a closer relationship.

  “It is time,” whispered Stefen. “My children, it’s time that you know.”

  “Know what?” asked Jain.

  “Of my boyhood and my family.”

  An excitement grew inside of Christine to finally hear her father’s secrets, but she could hardly stand to see him in this condition. He had never spoken much of his growing-up years.

  “I have not always lived in the farmlands,” he began as surprised looks popped up on the children’s faces. “My mother was a farmer, and my father came from . . . the . . . city. He was a teacher.”

  Jain looked at Christine with surprise. She didn’t know what to think.

  “We lived in Anikari in a large house when I was young. My father, although not a noble, was treated well, as he taught the children of nobles. He was a nice man, and generous from what I can remember, and very intelligent. He died when I was only a young boy. About eight years old.” He stopped, his breaths slow and labored.

  Stefen closed his eyes and winced again. Emily came in with a cool cloth and put it on his forehead. He smiled weakly at her, his blue eyes dull and pained.

  “My father’s sister moved in with us to help my mother with the children. I had a younger brother and sister. My aunt did not like my mother, since she came from the farmlands, and somehow they kicked her back out to the farms, and my aunt and uncle kept the three children with them. My mother did it because she thought we would be better off that way . . .”

  He paused again and asked for a drink.

  “Let us get a doctor for you,” Christine pleaded. She couldn’t stand to see her father like this. “You need to get the smoke out of your lungs, and you need something for your burns.”

  Her father weakly moved his arm and dropped it down onto her hand. He rubbed his fingers across her smooth skin. “I am sorry, Christine. I have been weak already, and now this. A doctor won’t help me. I . . .” A deep, hacking cough brought pain to his face.

  “Daddy,” voiced Emily, trying to hold back the sobs.

  After a moment of silence their father continued, his voice softer. They all leaned in to hear better. Christine’s mother stood behind them. She had heard the story already.

  “With my mother gone, my aunt and uncle started to treat us badly. They made us do all of the work around the house and stables. They sent us to school, but always insisted we would never be able to learn as much as the other kids would. We were always treated differently because we didn’t have a mother and father around, and because our mother was from the farmlands. I, being the oldest, had to somehow try to console my younger brother and sister.” Tears came to the big man’s eyes.

  Stefen began to cry at the memory. “It was so humiliating. We ran away a few times, but they always caught us, brought us back, and beat us. We saw my mother at times and she would always assure us that she would bring us to her someday, after we were done learning in the schools. My brother ran off, never to be seen again, and a year later my sister died from a childhood disease.”

  “One day the house caught fire and some men pulled me out. I was sixteen by this time. My aunt and uncle died in the house while sleeping. To this day I don't know how the fire started, but I think it was from one of my mother's friends. They killed my aunt and uncle to bring me back to the farmlands.” He began to grow paler. He paused for a few minutes.

  “I blamed myself for their deaths, though I was glad it happened.”

  Emily leaned in and wiped the tears from her father’s eyes with the cool cloth. Jain stood still, not moving. Christine felt her chest tighten, and anger began to rise as she thought about the years of useless violence that had destroyed so much.

  “Then why didn’t you wan
t to fight?” Christine whispered. “You were always the leader of peace. That is what you taught me. But now another fire and more violence. When does it end?”

  “There has to be a peaceful solution. Somewhere. Somehow. Life can’t continue like this. If we go killing city people, we are killing a part of me and a part of you. Even though I don't like to admit it, I am part of the city of Anikari. I went to school there, I learned a lot, and some of those people living in the city are my relatives . . . and yours.”

  He stopped talking, and everyone sat in silence for a few minutes, just soaking in what Stefen had revealed to them. Caroline already knew, but for the children it was a new concept that they may have relatives in the city.

  Stefen started coughing hard again. Jain lifted him up slightly, but still their father had trouble reaching for a full breath of air. Caroline tried to give him more water but he just pushed the cup away. He became more pale and weak. His lungs wheezed as he struggled for a breath.

  “Dad, don't die. Please,” pleaded Jain.

  “I love you.” Emily grabbed his hand.

  Christine stood next to her mother, both with tears streaming down their pale faces. They both knew the time had come. Stefen’s life was fading out, and there wasn't anything else that they could do about it.

  “I'll take you to the doctor on Lightning. There is still time,” offered Christine as she began to run out of the house. She had only gotten a few steps into the next room when her mother softly called her back.

  When she came back in, silence enveloped the room. Time stood still. She looked at everyone’s faces. Emily covered her eyes. Jain stared with a look of horror. Her mother, Caroline, was leaning over Stefen, stroking his graying hair with one hand and holding his hand with the other. His eyes were closed and his chest still.

  “They killed him.” Christine wailed uncontrollably.

  “It was his time,” whispered her mother.

  She is right, Christine. We all have our time. Now it is your time to take up the cause.

  Christine shut the Cremelino out with such force that the horse neighed loudly and stumbled outside. Christine didn’t want to be consoled. Not now.

  “It’s not fair. They took his life from him once and now they took it away from him permanently.” Tears streamed down her face.

  “It's all right, Christine. Things will be better.” Jain put his arm around his sister. She had barely noticed how quiet he had become during the words of her father. “He is better now in the hands of God. He will watch over us.”

  “They never listened and they never will,” she shouted uncharacteristically. Tears slid down her face. “His aunt and uncle, the boys that beat us up, the King that does nothing, and the cowards that burned our farm today. They all deserve to burn. I am not part of the city. I am a farmer, and I am happy to be an outsider, if that is what they want to call us. They will pay for what they have done to my father.”

  Christine pushed Jain’s arm away, making him stumble backwards. Anger boiled up inside her. All the feelings and frustrations of dealing with the King and Richard, of the persecutions, of Darius leaving her, of her father dying, all built up to a point that could not be contained any longer. It was too much for her. She had finally hit her breaking point.

  “Christine. Please sit down,” said her mother.

  “I hate them. The King, his condescending councilor, the stewards, the noble Sans, all of them. They don't want peace and they don't want us.” She ran towards the front door, with Jain chasing after her.

  “Christine.” Jain embraced his sister. She fought him at first, then stopped and cried against his shoulder.

  “I hate them. I want to kill them,” she kept saying. “They don’t deserve what they have.”

  “We will find a way for peace,” said Jain, knowing that his words sounded hollow against his recent feelings of wanting to fight.

  Christine barely registered his change of behavior since their father had died. “There will be no peace for us.” Christine pushed away. “There will never be peace!”

  “You are just upset now.”

  “Yes, I’m upset. Our petition failed, I have been threatened by the councilor, and now my father is dead. What is happening to my life? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t push us all away Christine. We are all in this together.”

  She looked at him through teary eyes. “You are a good brother, Jain, but I don’t know what I will do now.”

  “Now your family needs you. Now your neighbors need you, Christine. Look around you.”

  Smoke still stood in the air, and the fire was farther away. Their barn stood burning and smoldering. She knew the fire had hurt other farms too, but she couldn’t help them. Not right now. Not today.

  “I can’t, Jain. I can’t help anymore. I have nothing left to give.” With that she turned and dragged her feet slowly in the opposite direction of the fire. She couldn’t believe how her life had crumbled in the last five months. She felt hollow and hurt. A while later she found herself, for the second time that day, in the Field of Diamonds.

  The grass, brown during the winter, supported patches of snow in the more shadowed corners. The large oak stood like a skeleton in the now-grey sky.

  Anger grew, boiled, and steamed inside of her. She breathed out and watched a rush of fog escape her lips. She walked aimlessly around the lonely field. Her tears stopped. There was nothing left. She ended up next to the pond, standing in the mud. She picked up a large rock and hefted it through the air as far as she was able. “They will pay. They will pay!” was all the sound that escaped her trembling lips.

  The soft sound of someone walking on the stiff brown grass made her turn around. Her Cremelino was walking down across the bare meadow. Compared to the anger Christine felt inside, the beauty of her white horse lifted her spirits. She seemed to give off a soft glow that trailed behind her as she walked with cautious steps towards Christine.

  Christine reached out her hand and ran it in loving patterns across the top of Lightning’s nose, moving down her beautiful, soft, snow-white mane. Bright light erupted in her mind. She closed her eyes and once again felt a reassuring, calming presence.

  You pushed me out, Lightning said softly.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Tears rolled again down Christine’s face.

  I miss him too.

  Miss who? asked Christine.

  A light laughter ran through her mind. Darius.

  How did you know?

  Oh, I know. He is very special. More than you know.

  You talked to him, didn’t you?

  Yes, I did. It surprised me. That hasn’t happened in a long, long time.

  What does it mean? Christine asked her Cremelino.

  Get on, let’s ride, was Lightning’s only answer. We have some work to do to get ready.

  “Ready for what?” Christine voiced out loud. She jumped onto her Cremelino and began to ride.

  But Lightning didn’t come forth with any further answers.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  COMMANDER

  Darius batted away the large birds that swept into him as if to consume him alive. They were so close he could make out the individual thick black feathers of each bird. The giant vultures came swooping out of the large trees as if they had been hiding for days, waiting for something to eat. Darius stumbled as he tried to run. His hand scraped against a large ice-covered boulder. A large bent branch he found and picked up became the only protection from being pecked, and even that was working less and less.

  One sleeve of his tunic hung off his arm. The screeching birds tore away at the thick fabric. Small scratches dripped blood down Darius’s tired arm, attracting the birds even more. He swung his stick in wild circular motions while he searched for cover, but none could be found. Large trees and small bushes wouldn't stop the ravaging birds.

  The exhaustion of fighting the birds overcame his senses. The power began to respond to his needs and build up inside h
im. He pushed the urge back down. He told himself he wanted to do this on his own.

  All of a sudden an arrow flew through the cold afternoon’s winter air, piercing one of the birds in its breast. Large black feathers drifted away in the mountain breeze, landing as a stark difference on the white snow. The other vultures hesitated a moment, as if deciding whether to turn away or continue attacking. Darius stood still, breathing hard, not yet knowing what was happening. Another arrow splitting one of the other large birds seemed to make the decision for the rest of them, and with a noise of protest they flew off over the tall pines.

  Darius began to let the power die down.

  He looked around with wonder to find out who had shot the life-saving arrows with such skill. To his surprise, out walked Sean from behind a large tree. Darius’s mouth, dry from the fight, just hung open in apparent surprise. Sean’s lips curved into his cocky smile as he sauntered towards Darius.

  “You’re lucky I came when I did.”

  “Where did you come from?” Just seeing Sean made the power come alive again inside him. Sean represented everything he hated about the attitude of the nobles. He had taunted Darius since he was a young man.

  “I came to help you and find out what you were doing up here for so long. I have been following you for a few hours. Wasn't hard. It was obvious you weren’t trying to hide your tracks.”

  “A few hours?” Darius finally got hold of his senses. “Why did you wait until now to help?”

  “Well I'm not supposed to be here, you know. But you looked so desperate with all of those birds attacking you.”

  The adrenaline from the recent fight with the birds still raced through Darius’s veins. Sean drew out the anger in him as usual. “If you’re not supposed to be here, why are you?” Don’t lose control. He’s not worth it.

  “Let's get your wounds cleaned and the blood wiped up, then we can talk. Any smell of blood might bring worse things than those birds after us.”

  Darius knew Sean was right, so he found a nearby stream, which, although it had ice around the edges, still flowed freely in the middle. Cleansing himself with the cold mountain water, the water felt like ice to his warm skin. One of these days, Sean was going to push him too far. He glanced over at him through the corner of his eyes. Sean set up a small fishing pole and tried to catch something from the stream. He smiled with thoughts of just pushing him into the stream.