Silent Requiem (Tales of Ashkar Book 3)

by Kayl Karadjian

  Erendil turned to walk through the door, but placed a hand on the door and stopped, his gaze fixed on the wall of the hall outside the throne room.

  “I need to know where I come from,” he said without looking back.

  Chapter 26

  301st Dusk of the 5010th Age of Lion

  “Well, I can tell ya one thing,” Darius said, his voice piercing the quiet desert. “This’ll be the first time I attempt to get across the Ghadji Desert on foot.”

  “You get used to it,” Raxxil said, the only one of the four who appeared unfazed by the inhospitable environment.

  Already they had spent several nights in the desert, and it was to Arwynn’s surprise that the desert was blazing hot during the day but almost freezing at night.

  “You lived here, didn’t you, Raxxil?” Arwynn asked.

  A lot of time passed, and it appeared as though Arwynn had crossed a threshold. She screamed in frustration inside her own mind for being so stupid.

  “Take it easy, I’m in here too!” said Cadence.

  “I was born and raised a few hundred miles to the east of here,” Raxxil said, his expression still lost in recollection. “They call it the Sunken Ruins now.”

  Should I ask?

  “No,” urged Cadence.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she replied within her mind.

  The sun was setting, and Arwynn grabbed an extra cloak from within her pack and wrapped it around herself. It was eerie, the silence of the desert at night. The only sound that entered Arwynn’s ears was that of the winds blowing dust devils in the air.

  “We’ll have to take a detour to the south to stop at the Oasis of the Wayward,” Raxxil said. “From there, we’ll go straight east until we reach the Oasis of the Fortunate. Lenas is only a bit further east from there.”

  The four of them found a suitable spot to rest for the night, and by suitable it was really anywhere. It was just one big, desolate desert for miles on end in every direction.

  Raxxil built a fire while the other three pitched their tents, then the four of them gathered around the fire together. It had been that way for weeks—travel for most of the day with little rest and even less exchanges, and then retire for the night.

  Arwynn looked at the others’ faces. Raxxil’s mind was buried somewhere, as it had been for months now. Darius’s was just blank. Samantha’s was kind of like Raxxil’s, only she always acknowledged Arwynn when the latter stared too long.

  Just like Arwynn was doing now.

  “Is there something on your mind, Arwynn?” Samantha asked.

  Arwynn wanted to ask all three what the hell their minds were so warped for. She wanted to know why their hearts were being slowly pulled into a hole, like someone watching a vase falling and shattering with inevitability instead of diving to catch it.

  But she only ended up shrugging. “I wish that Serraemas and Erendil could be here. With us. Right, Raxxil?”

  “They can’t,” he said abruptly, his eyes absorbed into the cackling fire. The reflection of the flames danced within his brightened, green eyes.

  “But that doesn’t mean my wish is any less true,” she fired back to no answer. She sighed. “It was never about the end of the mission for me. There’s always someone out there who is against you. Right now it’s Liberty. Next it’ll be someone else.”

  Even though the others still remained silent, Arwynn did not care. She was speaking aloud, maybe to them all, or maybe to just herself. It was dawning on her that four elementalists alone were going to assault an entire kingdom.

  If the last time they lost half of their group by just combatting another group of four elementalists, what was going to happen when they went up against an entire army by themselves?

  Would the mission still be worth it if they all lost their lives?

  “Liberty and the Order of the Faith must fall,” Raxxil said as he clenched his teeth. His eyes flickered from the depths of the fire to Samantha’s eye, who wrinkled her forehead at his words.

  “They must fall?” asked Samantha.

  “Whatever doctrine that they taught you has been tainted,” Raxxil said with a grim face. “It must all burn. Or would you have another Arcadian-Lenasian War?”

  Samantha was taken aback in shock, but recovered after a few moments and flicked her wrist at Raxxil. “Liberty must be dealt with, I agree there. But the teachings of the Faith have nothing to do with this crusade of his.”

  Raxxil looked down and laughed at himself. “They really got into your mind, didn’t they?”

  “There’s no they, Raxxil,” Samantha said. “Only God and his word.”

  “Well, I’ll be more stuck on this juicy quarrel than a cactus pin in my butt, but I’ll be needing some rest now,” Darius said as he got up and went to his tent, but not before giving a smirk and a wink at Arwynn.

  “By the time that this is over, you’ll see the truth,” Raxxil said, his eyes never leaving Samantha’s.

  “And what’s that?” she asked with folded arms and her chin stuck out waiting to hear Raxxil’s response.

  Raxxil ran a hand through his face and sighed. “Do you really think he would have allowed Liberty to do what he did? To enslave all of Onturi, wage war and kill hundreds of thousands, and conquer Ashkar on some quest?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Arwynn asked.

  Raxxil gave her a confused look. “What?”

  “The way Sora explained it, it kind of seems like we want to do the same,” Arwynn said with a shrug. “What happens when we collect of the orbs and we have all the power in the world?”

  “What orb?” Samantha asked.

  “Sora and the others want to rid Ashkar of people and kingdoms like Liberty and Lenas,” Raxxil explained, either not hearing Samantha or just avoiding her.

  “Sora and the others?” repeated Arwynn. “So, not you, then?”

  Raxxil drew back and looked away at the sand dunes beyond. “It makes no difference to me.”

  “Arwynn, what orb?” Samantha asked again.

  Arwynn looked over at Samantha, then Raxxil, and finally back at Samantha as she pursed her lip.

  “Tell me, Arwynn,” Samantha urged, her gaze too darting from Raxxil and back in confusion.

  “We—I mean, they, want to collect a bunch of orbs of power to end tyranny, I guess,” Arwynn said while she motioned with her eyes at Raxxil. “That is what Serraemas and Sora always went on about.”

  Samantha looked at Raxxil in frustration. “You kept this from me?”

  “No,” Raxxil said without looking Samantha’s way, his voice soft.

  “Then why am I hearing this only now?” asked the redhead.

  “Because this isn’t about the orb,” Raxxil replied, his voice getting louder.

  “Then what is it about?” Samantha pressed.

  “The Order of the Faith must burn for what they did!” Raxxil shouted for all of the desert to hear. “They ripped me from my family only to use me as a tool for their games of war. No more will they be allowed to do so. No more, Samantha!”

  With every word that Raxxil spoke the campfire reacted, growing fiercer until it flared up at the last utterance of Samantha’s name and subsided back into a normal fire.

  Raxxil took a deep breath, then leaned back with his hands placed on the sand.

  “I’m… sorry,” Samantha said. “I didn’t mean to provoke you. I know that they have done injustice to you, but it is men like Liberty who twist the teachings for their own gain.”

  “I don’t care,” Raxxil said.

  No, you don’t, Raxxil. Not even Samantha nor I could stop you even if we tried, could we?

  “I need to rest as well,” Samantha said as she stood up. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” mumbled Arwynn.

  Raxxil didn’t even bother to say anything. He also got up and went to go pitch his tent. When he was finished, he looked over at Arwynn. “See you in the morning. Don’t stay out too late, Tana—“

&nb
sp; Raxxil stopped before he finished his sentence, entering his tent instead before Arwynn could ask why. Her gaze lingered on his tent for a while, her elbow resting on her thigh as she gripped and massaged her neck.

  Why did he stop halfway?

  That question lingered on Arwynn’s mind for a while. Like it happened on most nights, she waited until the fire completely subsided before she stood up to go to her tent. Just before she opened its flap, she thought she saw a dark outline skittering across the dunes beyond.

  When she looked again, she saw nothing but sand. She only searched for a few more moments before going inside of her tent. She placed her sword aside, stripped herself of her most outer layer, and laid down onto the mat that served as her portable bed.

  _ _ _

  The first rays of light brightened Raxxil’s tent, turning its darker beige into a lighter one at the herald of dawn. He stirred for a few moments before arising completely.

  He took a few minutes to slap on his armor, grabbed Vrand, and then opened his flaps to step outside. Since the departure of Serraemas, or rather Raxxil’s departure from his friend, it had become the norm that Raxxil would be the first to wake.

  “Time to get going,” he called out to the others before kneeling down to remove his tent. By the time he was done, the others had already risen and started on packing their own tents.

  All but Tanaria.

  Raxxil grumbled under his breath. He stood up and walked toward Tanaria’s tent. “It’s time to wake, Tanaria. There’s a lot of desert to go through.” He waited a few moments, but no reply came. Not even the stirring of anyone inside.

  “Tanaria,” he called again, but nothing. He looked around and mulled what to do, and ultimately decided that impeding on privacy was acceptable at that time. He opened the flap and peered inside.

  What he saw blasted adrenaline through his veins.

  The tent was empty, the only sign of Tanaria being her outer clothing and her blade. Raxxil rushed out of the tent and looked far in the distance in every direction.

  Just dunes of sand met his gaze.

  “Where is Tanaria?” Raxxil asked the others, but their reactions were just like his. Raxxil ran out in a random direction, hoping for any sign of her.

  “Tanaria!” he called, but only the empty desert heard his call. “Tanaria!”

  _ _ _

  Arwynn stirred, a pounding headache the first thing that she became aware of followed by a painful stinging sensation in her back. Then a strange aroma entered her nostril, one that made her stomach roil. She tried to move but found that she could only wiggle a little bit.

  She opened her eyes to find herself lying face down somewhere deep and dark like a cave. She strained her neck to look up, but she faced a wall. She then strained to move her arms or legs, but found that she could not.

  She rolled right-to-left until she had enough momentum to roll herself onto her back. Pain surged through her back from where she had sustained a wound. She tilted her head forward, and let loose an audible gasp.

  Paralysis filled her as horror set in. In the large cavern with her was a monstrous, insect-like creature that reminded her of a bee the size of a whale, only it had a large sac attached to it filled with hundreds glowing eggs the size of one’s head.

  Is that… a vilicid?

  Whatever it was, it had yet to notice her. Instead, it chittered away as it gazed at its sac. Arwynn rotated her head to view at the walls of the cavern, noting a few tunnels in the cavern that led elsewhere. From those tunnels, Arwynn heard the faint skittering of something beyond.

  Arwynn tried to move again, and when she couldn’t she looked at her hands. They were covered in some sort of sticky goo, binding them together and to her lower abdomen. Her feet were also bound together, rendering her helpless.

  What can I do? I don’t have Cadence, Raxxil, or anyone… Am I just going to die here, eaten as some bug’s snack?

  She only remembered pain surging through her that night, whenever it had been. The pain awoke her only to send her slumbering again, and now she was here. Helpless. Alone.

  Arwynn closed her watering eyes. She could not hide away her fear, and above all, she could not run away from the fact that she was weak. Too weak for someone like Raxxil to ever consider her more than a burden. In the end, her only lasting impression on him would be a projection of his dead sister.

  She would never be anything but Tanaria, would she?

  No.

  Arwynn gritted her teeth, willing away such soul-crushing, self-defeating ineptitude. It made no difference if she was going to be a giant bug’s snack. She was going to fight to survive, and whatever was to come she would at least know that she didn’t give in.

  Fortunately, her unique powers were perfect to get out of her bonds.

  Arwynn concentrated on Cadence’s teachings of time mastery. Time was like no other element. While the powers of her friends remained unparalleled in terms of raw killing potential, Arwynn’s was much more subtle. It was an invisible force, yet its depth was limitless.

  She focused one such aspect of time on her bound hands. She wiggled her fingers, flexed her wrist, and pulled her arms apart every which way. Augmented by the power of time, Arwynn stretched apart the goo until its binding was broken.

  If it would have taken Arwynn days to strain against the goo until it separated, then her power had allowed her to do so in just a matter of seconds.

  She did the same with her feet, and once she was free of her restraints, she ran a hand along the wound on her back. She winced in pain as her fingers touched the thumbprint-sized gash where she had been stung by one of the bugs and injected with its poison.

  Blood still dripped from the wound. Arwynn focused on that spot until a scab formed, a process that many would endure for a few days. Any more of a wound, and the toll on Arwynn would have been too great.

  It was the same for others. She could patch some injuries, but she couldn’t do anything significant like re-growing a limb with the power. At least, not yet. She was learning more about time every day.

  Her thoughts moved to the dire situation at hand. In her dark corner of the room she had yet to be noticed. A few feet away from her she saw a collection of sandy bones—likely the remains of someone before her who hadn’t the means to escape.

  In fact, she noticed for the first time that bones littered some places of the cavern. These… things, whatever they were, had been down here for a while. Arwynn shuddered at the realization that such monsters existed on Ashkar. She shuddered even more when she realized that Raxxil grew up on the sands just above.

  Above…

  Arwynn hadn’t the slightest of idea where she truly was. Darius’s and Raxxil’s stories claimed that the vilicid lived underground. She had to find a way to get back up. Leaning against the walls, Arwynn slid her way across to the nearest tunnel.

  When she was just next to the opening, she stopped to hear for signs of anything around the corner. The faint sound of skittering still echoed, though it sounded like it was traveling away from her.

  Arwynn looked back at the monstrous creature just a few dozen feet in front of her, then edged her way to the tunnel’s opening—

  A loud, yet distant boom shook the entire cavern, sending grains of sand down from the ceiling. Arwynn steadied herself as to not topple over, but when the shaking stopped, her gaze fell onto eyes staring right at her.

  The giant bug that shared a room with her let loose a shrill cry that could have been heard for miles away. But it remained where it was, and it took Arwynn a few moments to understand why.

  It was protecting the eggs within its sac.

  All of the sudden Arwynn heard it. The skittering magnified a hundredfold, thousands of chitinous legs scraping against the walls of the underground colony.

  If she didn’t get away soon, she would not make it out alive. Arwynn bolted into a sprint down the tunnel, her only sources of light being the bulbous, glowing bodies of larvae that skittered along
the walls and ceiling of the tunnel.

  These were likely just-born vilicid, as they made no attempt to attack Arwynn. And if just the babies were the size of dogs, Arwynn could only imagine the adults.

  She cursed herself for jinxing it, slamming right into a giant bug as she rounded a corner. She was sent hurtling backward, as did the bug. The bug recovered first, letting loose a similar cry as that of the other one, though not nearly as loud.

  This one was also much smaller in comparison, a little larger than Arwynn. It looked like a giant scarab, with matching pincers. Like the larvae, it emanated a glow from under its chitin. Those same pincers sought Arwynn’s head as the creature lunged at her.

  She rolled underneath the bug, and it flew through the air until its pincers caught onto a bug that had been chasing after Arwynn. The second bug had wings and a stinger that was cut off unintentionally by the attack of the first as the two crashed into each other.

  Arwynn leapt forward, picked up the still twitching stinger, and was on her way before the bugs could recover. The stinger was the size of her arm, and while it was no Cadence, it would have to do. She catapulted herself down the tunnels with no direction. All she knew was to go up.

  The tunnel fed into another cavern like the one that she woke up in, and she was relieved when she found nothing like the mother bug. Still, about a dozen pincer and stinger bugs descended upon her.

  She used the glow from their bodies to evade their attacks, ducking, rolling, and vaulting around the room. She thrust the stinger into the hides of each bug as she passed through, augmenting her attacks so that she punctured a dozen holes within the span of a second as if she had thrust it twelve times in one.

  A dozen bleeding holes in a dozen bugs within a flash, and Arwynn was on her way to the next tunnel. She continued that way without stopping to rest, pure adrenaline and will fueling her ascent.

  Another explosion sounded from somewhere, causing the tunnels to quake. This time Arwynn managed to get a bearing on where it came from. It seemed to originate from somewhere above.