In A Time Of Darkness

by Gregory James Knoll

  * * * * *

  Grahamas was failing.

  He had made impressive strides since his first attempt to heighten his hearing, but he was nowhere near where he had been in his prime. The Champion could close his eyes, focus on the hooves and drown out everything else, but they were directly underneath him. His teachings and skills were more than simply locking onto a sound close to him. It was also being able to do so at long distances. It was being able to find specific noises without knowing they existed, or without being aware of exactly where they were. It was that aspect he needed to refine, and that aspect that would be the most helpful.

  "Only...how?" Grahamas wondered, raising his head and opening his eyes to stare out across the fields.

  The land before him was barren. Short grass, empty fields and the occasional rock or tree. He wouldn't find anything out there that would help him, minus the passing bird or scurrying rodent. None of which were frequent enough to do him any good.

  It would remain this way for miles, perhaps even his entire trip.

  There had been a time when it was just the opposite. One couldn't go a day without seeing a town or a village. People were constantly traveling, merchants were always set up with a temporary shop along the road, or even the occasional caravan could be seen.

  Now, nothing.

  It had been like that for three hundred years. Not since the Plague Wars had the land seen such bleak, dismal isolation. It was only Kaldus and Roane that seemed to be thriving. The rest of the world, and the rest of the population was dwindling—all because fewer people and towns equaled less things for Idimus to worry about.

  Sharia was once three times the size now, with just as many elves. Though the barrier protected the trees from being destroyed and its inner resources from being plucked, it could not protect the world around it. When the land dried up, those around the forest who once farmed that land either moved on or died. Sharia shriveled in reaction, no longer having everything else to feed off of. The once wonderful home of the elves began to recede.

  Though Forgas had yet to be discovered and mined, the Dwarves worked three other mountains the same size or larger--and had the population to fill them. But Idimus destroyed that as well. He stole more and more gold from the mines; gold he would never use, just to keep it from everyone else. He kidnapped dwarves almost on a daily basis, forced them into slavery, drove them into death faster than they could repopulate.

  And as it was with Sharia—and the rest of Eldonia—the Dwarves began to wither.

  One of the many things Grahamas sought to rectify. He not only wanted to free the people, he wanted to inspire them to live their lives again.

  Killing Idimus would not suffice.

  He had remained in his tower for so long, many thought that he didn't even exist. In essence, he didn't need to. It was his ideals that kept the people so terrified, the malevolence of all those who imposed his will. Fear, intimidation, theft, taxes, violence. The people were afraid. They had forgotten how to hope, or even what hope was.

  They were stagnant.

  They needed a demonstration of faith and prosperity. They needed to see that righteous people still existed, that they could rise up from their bleak outlooks and claim their own destinies—a destiny in which they could be happy.

  The ever looming, imminent war between Grahamas and Gerin would provide that.

  But he needed to win. Gerin was a good General, the best this world had seen in a long time. Though he caught him by surprise weeks ago and defeated him, that may have caused his downfall. Gerin was not like Idimus. He would not simply cower into a locked room and hide away, fearing another defeat and trying his best to run from it. Gerin would come back faster, stronger, and obsessed with revenge.

  He would be every bit the cold, calculating, brilliant strategist that earned him the title “Nightmare” in the first place. Gerin would be his best. The only way to win against him was for Grahamas, in turn, to be his best.

  With a heavy sigh, the Champion angled towards the blaring sun above him.

  Not a single bird.

  He turned towards the ground, and once again to the empty plains. Not a boar, nor a rodent, nor rabbit.

  Time was ever precious for him, and he could not waste a day or even an hour waiting for something to pass him by from pure happenstance. Grahamas needed to make his own noise.

  His first attempt found him stopping his brisk ride and leaning over to take a clod of dirt into his grasp. One he launched into the air. Right after he closed his eyes. He focused. Though he waited patiently nothing came. He knew it never would. The sound was long gone.

  He made another attempt, but it ended with the same result. And then a third.

  Now frustrated and anxious Grahamas leaned back, raising his head up and almost releasing a yell to vent his rising steam. A pang of guilt and regret struck him. Perhaps had he not spent so many years—like the land—wasting away, this undue pressure now would not exist. If he had only kept up on his skills, and with his desire to be the best, he would be riding much faster, and find peace much easier.

  Yet he had not. He had let himself falter and fail, losing not only his skills and talents, but at times his own hope; maybe even his sanity.

  The angst tapped on the recesses of his mind, presenting him images of his burning city, and the countless, terrified faces of the dead that filled it.

  He could only drop his head, press his palms against his face and eyes in hopes to drive out those horrid visions. The more he struggled, the more he fought to escape them, the harder they came. Until it was not only what he truly saw, but fabricated, impossible illusions brought on by his guilt. Reiskin's half rotting face cast with denial and disappointment, telling Grahamas how badly he failed. An old and weary Tallvas, trying to defend the city because the person he passed the torch to—the one he depended on—was nowhere to be found. His old friend Ristalln being overwhelmed and struck down by countless soldiers. Protective mothers and innocent children scrambling to get away, only to find soldiers everywhere they turned; ones who would show them no mercy.

  It was the same scenario he had played over and over in his head for three hundred years. With it, came the unending, unflinching guilt.

  A guilt he thought he would never get over.

  That was, until, he was given a baby with golden hair and sparkling blue eyes. It was she who washed away his past sins, released him from his penance, and taught him to live until he died. To not worry about the past, to not let it stem his desire to improve the future. She reminded him to fight, as long as he stood.

  Now he thought of her, as an adult. All those feelings rushed back to him. He had taken her as far away from the darkness that he could. Gave her to a loving, deserving couple—one of the few he knew to still have hope—ensuring she was raised properly. When he saw her again, decades later, he knew she had been. Saw the woman she truly was. Her resolve, her strength, her honor—again—inspired him to be better. Do better. He began training her; teaching her. About the world, about Highlace, even about Magick…

  Grahamas jerked forward, sighing and grunting in unison, again belittling himself—this time for not seeing something so simple.

  When he had taught Elryia magick, he had not insisted she learn the most complicated spells first. She may not have ever learned it. No one would that way. He started simple, first teaching her how to hover a pebble in her palm, how to chill a mug of ale with a touch, or start a piece of dry grass on fire.

  Then, gradually, he increased her training, until she was one of the greatest magick users.

  So how could he expect to do that with himself? How could he hope to hear a tiny rock hit the dirt when it was thrown thirty yards in a random direction?

  He could not.

  Long ago, he could. His skills he had never been able to explain. Nor could Tallvas. They were far greater than any other humans, far greater than even the most trained elf. His lineage provided him no answer
s. His mother was a simple, quiet woman—a farmers daughter from Rarisou. No one—not even Reiskin—knew his father. Any hope of finding an answer had passed with his mother. In the years Grahamas knew her, she had never spoken of him, and Grahamas believed she found it too painful, so he left it alone, and she took it with her to the grave.

  After she died, he didn't wonder about it. His skills were strong, but not what he would call enigmatic by any means. After years of developing them, though, he changed his mind. At some point he believed he would plateau as Tallvas did, but for a long time there seemed to be no stopping point to their growth. It was only when he was able to hear conversations on the other end of Davaina; able to smell the single flower in Reiskin's hundred foot tower while he was on the ground, did he begin to wonder again.

  Graham toyed with the idea that his father was elven, but that never quite fit. He showed no features—sharp eyes, small facial structures and reinforced joints—that came with elven blood. His frame was too large, his skin too dark and his facial hair too thick. Aside, that would have made Graham only half-elf, garnering him only half the skills. He had twice what even they did.

  The only other theory, after his prior was disproved, was more likely yet more concerning—a spell. One that had been cast and had since worn off. One invoked by Samsun, Tallvas or even Savados—a gift—without his knowledge. It would be feasible from any of them, and a welcome gift then, but it would mean now he could not get it back—ever.

  He could certainly survive without it, but it would make that much harder.

  One final time, mostly out of frustration, he picked up a rock and hurled it, not expecting to hear anything.

  He had realized now he would have to earn his way back, just as Elryia had with her spells.

  Perhaps he could throw them closer, but this was arduous. Stopping, throwing, focusing, riding, stopping. He wanted to make the ride in two days, but if he continued this task, it would be twice that. A concern he voiced out loud "Time will now do nothing but drag..."

  Again he stopped Feiron and leaned over to reach for a rock, but never made it. Simply hung there for a time as a plan whirled about in his head, brought on by his mad uttering to himself. "Drag..." he whispered, then stiffened in his seat as though jolted back to life. ”Drag..." He muttered again, instead of leaving his horse idle, he spurred him on, turning around in his saddle.

  His hand searched through his right saddlebag. Amongst his many tools—hammer, lock pick, flint—was an incredibly long rope with a three-hook grapple attached to one end. He had carried it for years, had once even planned to scale Kaldus with it before he discovered the trap door.

  Today, it would serve a different purpose.

  Once he had freed it from the bag, he wrapped and tied the empty end of the rope to his saddle's horn. He then took the grappled end and threw it only a few feet behind himself. What slack was left, the Champion tied around his forearm, feeding the line that lead to the hooks into his palm. Eventually, the sharp edges caught in the dirt, sending sporadic vibrations along the twine and down his arm.

  But it wasn't the sensation he was after, instead the sound. When it was settled and he was certain it was far enough behind them to not get caught in Feiron's hooves, the Champion turned forward and shut his eyes.

  The first hour was uneventful. Grahamas was too weary, too obsessed with Elryia, the black aura Lornya mentioned and the shivering rope to focus on the grapple. Hearing it was even further away.

  Within the second hour, his control came back. Perhaps it was the fact that he almost slept in his saddle, or that Feiron had slowed due to a lack of motivation. But within that Grahamas was able to center first on his own breathing, then his heart beat, and he found that as a focal point, slipping further and gaining more confidence as he heard it slow.

  He calmed. Narrowed on to the hooves, the sound beginning only as a cluttered, wild series of tromps. Each made their own unique sound, those in the front slightly louder than the back. He locked onto the lesser ones, and from the four punctures he was able to discern two. Once he had those broken apart and separated, he kept a hold onto only one.

  Already he could feel it—that strange, inexplicable sense of deciphering sounds. It wasn't simply hearing many noises and only truly listening to one. Grahamas was able to find a single sound and remove everything else. He was able to search and scan for it as one would do with their eyes when they looked at a far off landscape. All else seemed to leave his ears. He could move from object to object as quickly as one could do with their gaze, pinpointing sounds in an instant.

  It was an incredible feat when he had fully developed, and something not even Tallvas could emulate. Though he feared it buried far too deep, he tried that now. He shifted, pulling back away from the hooves, as though he was looking away with his ears—hunting, searching until he caught a tiny, gentle scraping in the soft dirt.

  His excitement wasn't overwhelming. The sound was shallow and miniscule. Hearing it was impressive, but it was only five feet behind him. And as much as he wanted to push on, he left the grapple where it was and intentionally came back to reality. The Champion, opening his eyes, wanted to both verify he was still headed in the right direction and intentionally lose his focus.

  Once satisfied he shut off his vision, this time finding the sound much quicker, since he knew exactly where it was. The Champion let it linger for several minutes, but by opening his palm and flicking his wrist twice he unraveled two loops from his forearm and added another five feet.

  He had to repeat the same pattern, first finding all the hooves, then the back two, one and eventually creeping along to hear the road being idly clawed at. When he found it, he lost his focus again, then recaptured it. And as it had the first time, the sound came much quicker.

  Grahamas opened his palm and flicked his wrist, giving himself another five feet.

  As the day wore on, and the sun sank into the land, Grahamas was halfway through the rope. Occasionally he would try to confuse himself, and swing the rope to the left or the right. It was harder to find, but still much easier than he imagined. When he had discovered it within a matter of seconds, he rolled his arm the other way and dragged the grapple back into his grasp. He had come to a crossroads—one side leading to northern towns like Quiv, the western leading to Highlace. The land ahead was far more jagged, and far less traveled. Few—if any—came this way. His earlier lines in the dirt could be confused with a wagon trail, or simply a child dragging a stick on a boring ride. From this point on, leaving the grapple would be like drawing a map to where he was going. With curious, roving patrols he did not want to risk someone following him.

  Little to his knowledge, far beyond what even he could see or hear—cloaked in the night and under magick—something already was.

  The Slow, Unyielding Steps Towards Lament

  Elryia sighed, her eyes flicking over the countless choices before them. “I wish Grahamas was here,” she whispered, mostly to herself. He would have already led them through, where she felt like she was not getting them anywhere. No one had said anything, but she could tell they were getting frustrated. And so was she. Every turn, every corridor, she chose a dead end—sooner or later. She had made little progress if any, so much that her confidence was starting to fade. Every decision she had made turned out to be wrong, making the ones which followed that much harder.

  El knew it would be difficult when Lanyan first told her of the quest. Yet he failed to mention just how massive Sharia truly was, nor how many choices she would face inside. If he had, Elryia could have asked him for answers before, even though the noble Elf might not have given them. But there was always a chance he would. Which was the one thing fading now: chances.

  If they spent more than three days without entering the inner forest, they would fail and be led out the way they came. That put even more pressure on the young woman to hurry, and thereby increased her chances for a mistake.

  “El?” Merial asked, drawing h
er attention back to the real world, “Which way?”

  El sighed, not having an answer. She looked down to her right upon a blinking, sniffing gnome. “Gnert? What do you think?” yet she regretted it the moment she asked.

  He crawled forward, looking down one side then the other. “Before us in either direction, we have twelve choices. Beyond that, two potentially three connected to each, which leaves us…” El groaned and drowned him out, their time limit would end before he even stopped talking.

  “Maybe we should split up,” Sam walked beside her, Gnert still chattering in the background. She thought about it momentarily, but in the end they would only get more lost if they separated. That was not the answer, but she needed to do something. They were running out of time, and frustration began to build in her head. The driving factor behind that angst: Grahamas.

  He trusted her to accomplish this, had left it up to her and she was going to fail him. She did not want that, she feared it. He believed in her more than she did herself, and now she needed to prove that his faith wasn’t unfounded. When he was with her, things were easy. She had all the confidence in the world. He supported her, inspired her. Grahamas gave her everything that she ever needed. With him gone, however, she was having a hard time finding it.

  “Any ideas?” Sam whispered.

  Her eyes closed, “One,” she responded as images of her love drifted through her mind. Time they had spent together, times he had depended on her. That final moment of their last encounter with Kalinies and Grahamas whispering, “El, you can do this,” before she blacked out. Deep within her mind the once rampant thoughts—like raging waters—began to settle. Her hand made its way up, fingers extended to the pendant around her neck. In tracing it, all bits and fragments of stress began to splinter and fade. Replacing them, a very small—albeit stern—confidence. One that seemed almost unnatural, as though it was not her own. As if it stemmed from some other, outside source; one she could not pinpoint.

  In that clarity, she locked onto one single memory with blazing accuracy. To a time shortly after her parents were killed. In her angst and pain, Grahamas had taken her far away from everything—east—to the beaches that surrounded Davaina. As they walked, Elryia spoke to him of regret, and her desire to change what happened that day and everything up until. She had wished she’d told her parents more often that she loved them, that she had been more obedient when they asked her to do something, and not so rebellious when she was told not to. Like Grahamas himself when Highlace fell, she was only able to focus on everything she did wrong, and the Champion knew it was tearing her apart.

  So in the most compassionate, understanding manner that was always present when he spoke to her, Graham took her hand, pulled her close and made her focus on the path they had just walked.

  “Do you see our footprints in the sand?” He asked of her. Meekly, she acknowledged him. “We leave the same in life. Each is part of a unified whole, one that leads us onward. Some are faded, others fractured—like the decisions we’ve made. Yet they have all brought us here.” He turned her attention towards the horizon, to a vivid array of pinks and purples, adorning a tiny golden orb barely slipping over the land. Rays of orange pierced out from behind the soft clouds, brightening their edges and staining the ocean below a deep crimson. She had seen many sunrises, but none as dominant or beautiful. “Had we not made this trek, we would not have seen this. Now, we could go back and try to define every footprint we’ve made in an effort to perfect them, but we would trample the ones we already placed. In our absence at attending to those we could have missed out entirely on something grand.” He softened his gaze, took his hands in hers and pulled her close. “The future is scary, El, and we never truly know what’s on the horizon waiting for us. Sometimes it’s beautiful, other times it’s dreadful, but the only way to find out is by moving forward, and trying to better our next step, not worry of the last.”

  It was a lesson she took to heart that day, but she had not felt its true impact until now. And from a metaphor came her salvation. Like the sun rising that day, the thought crept up one moment and rained down the next.

  “Footprints…” She whispered, pacing back and forth along the beginning trail.

  Merial laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ely, are you well?”

  She nodded, but paid little attention to the actual question. It was simply idle, and the young woman placed herself in front of the footsteps again, “We can’t go back… we’d only trample our own footprints.”

  “Follow me,” she said to the entire group before shifting to her left and rushing down the first path.

  Sam whispered, mostly to himself “I hope she’s not possessed again.” but he followed all the same to where she knelt. “What is it El?”

  “Footprints…” she began. “Any dead ends would cause someone to turn around, creating them in both directions.” As she spoke, she discovered that very thing and moved on to the second path, eventually the third. “Though if whomever it was went the right way, they would have no need to go back,” she motioned him to come down and look at what she was. “Hence, one. One set, moving forward.” She smiled, suddenly incredibly proud of herself, as was Sam.

  “How did you figure that out?”

  Elryia stood and began walking down the trail, giving Sam the most honest answer she could think of, “Grahamas told me.”

  Sam chuckled, his eyes narrowing on her as she walked ahead of him, “I’ll remember to thank him.”

  Two hours had passed. Elryia had led the charge, with only two interjections from her companions when they noticed the pattern first. The crown of Sharia’s great tree—Layanese—grew more apparent, but was still a long way off. With each path tread, Elryia noticed her companions becoming less energetic, and the sky around them darkened. When she believed they had made it halfway, she stopped her search completely and turned to address them.

  “I know you’re all tired, and it’s still a long way to go.” She spoke with an odd confidence. “For now, we can rest.”

  “Are you sure, El?” Merial pressed through the group once the question was posed.

  “I am, yes.” Her body turned to demonstrate the large clearing they found themselves in. “We may not find a place as open for a while. And though we’ve established a plan that seems to be working, in our fatigue we may still end up backtracking.” Gort seemed skeptical, and El knew if they didn’t make it in time, and they had spent all that time only to fail, she would incur his wrath for the rest of her life. “We’ll make it. I promise.”

  She believed it. That was all Mare needed. “I trust you, El. We all do.” The brunette woman bowed cordially to her and moved to make herself comfortable, followed by the rest.

  Elryia smiled at them one by one as they passed, and then turned—first to the east, then west—thinking on Graham, wishing him well and thanking him in her own silent way before retiring herself.