The Legacy (The Darkness Within Saga Book 1)

by JD Franx

  Kael shook his head and frowned with worry. “Great, real threat I am. I could care less about this kingdom, let alone threaten it. I mean, seriously, what am I going to do? Make them all laugh to death as they watch my sputtering magic and my sword that always gets stuck on my belt? Yeah, right.”

  While they stood there looking at each other, Yared had a moment of clarity, or insanity. Laughing hysterically, he tried to speak. “Hey, hey, Kael… You had to let that bampyr vitch feed on me didn’t you,” he said. He sounded more like the talkative ass they had first met two days ago, with the exception of his muddled speech.

  “You didn’t give me much choice did you, Yared,” Kael said, frowning.

  Again the Bounty Merc laughed. “Shever noulda purtendid to be nice to you, shoulda kilt you when I ad a chance… but zat’s all right, Kael…” He stopped talking and coughed repeatedly. Catching his breath seemed to help remove some of the fog in his mind and his speech cleared accordingly. “I got something to tell you… your wife, Kael, heh, she was a reeuutiful bedhead, wasn’t she?” he gasped. Still a little mixed up, he shook his head.

  Kael felt like someone had dropped a building on him. Stunned, he dropped back to his knees, but couldn’t speak.

  Yared could though. “Yeah, she was something, no doubt about that,” he began. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog some more. “Did you know that she was dead, Kael? And the big bastard who came through the gate with her?” Again he broke out in laughter.

  The grating sound of his heckling seemed to unravel the fine thread holding Kael’s sanity together. Everything he had seen and experienced in the last two weeks crashed into his mind at the confirmation of Ember and Max’s death. He screamed. The word “No” bounced off of the stone walls and echoed out over the ruined terrain, carrying a profound grief. Not realizing he’d even reacted, Kael lunged at Yared and grabbed his light leather armour with both fists, picking the Bounty Merc up from the ground with little trouble as adrenaline flooded every part of his body. Once off the ground, Kael spun with the force of every muscle he could power and slammed him into the wall of the ruined stone house.

  “Goddamn liar!” Kael yelled in his face, grinding his teeth with anger unlike anything he had ever felt in all of his twenty years of life. The black vines of the death-flower living inside his body instantly jumped to life, coring through the skin of his chest as he felt two of the vines begin to dig their way up into his throat.

  Yared laughed hysterically. “Ooya, there’s that fabled monster everyone fears, Kael. Pure terror you are,” he cackled. “Even dragged your poor wife and friend to their deaths. My guild removed the bodies. I’ve never seen a beauty like your wife, perfect she was. And now she’s perfectly dead,” he howled maniacally, only inches from Kael’s face.

  If Kael had taken the time to retrieve his blades, in his explosive and violent state, he would have ended Yared’s life without a second’s thought. Having taken a human life before, though in self-defence, Kael didn’t want the guilt of another, but an ancient magic flooded his soul and controlling it wasn’t possible. With no weapons at hand, he grabbed the Merc’s throat and squeezed instead. Yared’s throat crackled while his airway was clipped shut almost immediately. His face turned red and quickly flushed to a dark purple. Kael ground his teeth harder and forced more strength into his hands. The bounty hunter’s eyes bulged under the pressure and his blood-gorged tongue slid from between his lips, a hollow rattle escaped from his throat as death neared.

  Lycori jumped to Kael’s side in an instant, her eyes wide with fear as she watched the black vines crawl under his skin and up into his neck, more barbed thorns appearing along the way. Grabbing his face in both her hands, she forced him to look at her.

  “Kael? Calm down,” she whispered, “Listen to me. Don’t let the anger and hatred take over you. You’ve done well so far. Don’t lose it now. Concentrate. I can see the flower’s vines spreading. You have to calm yourself. Please, Kael. This is why people fear what you are. You need to show them that you’re different. He’s lying to you, trying to prove that you’re something evil. He’s a wizard. He knows how to trigger your anger,” she pleaded, seeing that she was slowly breaking through the fog of ancient magic. Kael stared at her helplessly as a tear ran from the corner of his eye. “I can’t… They’re gone.”

  The guilt of their deaths was clear in his eyes and her face blanched white at the depth of his suffering. “You don’t know that, but even if they are, killing him won’t bring them back. I was wrong. Think. Breathe, calm and easy. This... magic is the DeathWizard’s curse. Anger and hatred will twist your soul. Gods above, please take it easy. I don’t want you to turn into what the rest of them did… I care about you. You’re my friend, Kael. Please listen to my voice, to me.” She quietly whispered the last few words.

  Somewhere deep inside his very soul, Kael could feel her words begin to calm the mix of emotions he felt twisting him. Slowly, his rage began to subside. The intense throbbing in his chest and throat also started to drain away as he relaxed his grip on Yared’s throat. The bounty hunter gasped and hacked, and then dragged a torturous breath into his lungs before he began coughing and spitting some more.

  Kael stumbled back a few steps, horrified at what he had almost done. The spikes of anger and inability to control this shortened temper scared him. It was something he never had to worry about before. He stood there with a blank look of desperation, his entire body shaking from the effects of the magic that he couldn’t begin to understand.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  Putting a hand on his shoulder, Lycori said, “Go. I’ll take care of him. Go wait for me by the other side of the fire. I’ll be right there, I promise.”

  “Thank you for coming back for me… I… I…” Kael said, slightly dazed, as he grabbed his bedroll and stumbled to the far side of the fire, the reality of his wife being dead at his own hands starting to set in. He knew it was true. He had seen it with his own eyes, but he had held out hope until Yared told him what had happened.

  Laying down with his tortured thoughts, he listened to Lycori speak with Yared. “Why would you do that? You Bounty Mercs are pieces of shit at the best of times I know, but why?” she snapped.

  “He sat there and watched as you crept up and fed on me like an animal. I know I’m going to die, and that’s fine, this pays that debt. It’s surprising how quickly that magic wakens, isn’t it? You’re welcome, vampyr. He’s your problem now. That anger and hatred will grow stronger until it destroys him and probably you as well, but you already know that, don’t you?” Yared smiled and started to laugh, but it was quickly choked off as Lycori grasped his throat.

  “You are a piece of shit, Merc,” she said, holding up her finger with the ring on it. “He didn’t watch me sneak up on you. I used your partner’s ring until I buried my fangs in your neck. You’ve spent two days with him. You know full well only extreme situations would cause him to hurt anyone. So whether or not what you said about his wife was true, you can die now, knowing what you put him through when he did nothing to you.”

  On the far side of the campfire, Kael jumped at a flash of movement and the sound of a sharp crack as Lycori snapped Yared’s neck. She told him that she could see Yared’s regret in his eyes at what he had done, but it didn’t ease Kael’s guilt for his own actions. He knew deep down, right from the very beginning that both Ember and Max had died the day they were brought through the dimensional bridge. He had watched it all with his own eyes. There maybe a small chance Yared was lying, but Kael knew that it wasn’t likely. Lycori laid down beside him to try and offer comfort, but he fell into a fitful sleep wondering how much more he would be able to take. Something was wrong with him, he was changing inside and out, but worse than that, he was slowly losing himself and he had no idea how to stop it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  People in Talohna keep extensive journals. Five thousand years ago, much of their history was lost during the Catacly
sm caused by the DeathWizard, Jasala Vyshaan. Now, everyone does their part to record the present and keep track of events, even the useless and the mundane. I have decided that if my mind is not locked into some comatose nightmare back home, then I will try to record the events of my new life as well. My new life… Try as I might I can’t help but dwell on my old life and what I’ve lost.

  Memories of my life in Sam’s Bay invade my thoughts whenever I try to focus on the present and what dangers may be lurking beyond our sight. There are creatures, monsters both animal and human, here in this world that want nothing but death and destruction. I should be focusing on the threats around us, but I can’t stop thinking about them... about Ember. From our childhood together to the morning she and I left Rockton, North Dakota, to start our life together in Sam’s Bay. And Max. Meeting him for the first time after regaining consciousness in the hospital, to find that I owed our lives to him. For some weird reason, he never really left. My rehabilitation was long and difficult; surgeries and pneumonia, but he dropped by every day to make sure I wasn’t slacking or giving up. Always staying to push me harder. Relentlessly, that man pestered me. “Try harder.” “Come on, if you quit now you’ll never breath properly again, come on, man…” “Don’t bitch to me, you’re the weakling who can’t walk ten feet without panting like a dog in heat.” It was all I heard for months, yet I will be ever grateful for his shouting and refusal to see me give up when every breath I took was pure torture.

  I have never had a family worth caring for, or one that cared for me, except for Ember and Max, and now they’re both gone. I know they would want me to live and to go on. Neither of them would let me quit, ever. They will always be with me, but my time to mourn is my own and right now, it is all that I can do.

  EXCERPT FROM KAEL SYME’S TRAVEL JOURNAL

  DATE AND LOCATION UNKNOWN.

  NORTH OF THE DEADZONE BARRIER

  FORSAKEN LANDS

  Kael and Lycori continued travelling south the following day. The RedMaw Caverns were located a twelve days walk south of Corynth, and they now knew that taking the shorter route through the Cethosian capitol city would be a dangerous mistake. Their only viable option lay in travelling through the country of Yusat, by way of the Northern Forest Pass in the Corynthian Mountains. But only if they could safely cross the DeadZone Fissure. All of which meant travelling south. A dark mood hung over Kael all day and Lycori gave him the space he needed. It was almost dark and still neither had spoken a single word.

  By the time full darkness had crept in, the two were settled around a small fire inside the remains of a burnt-out stone farm house. Built in a small clearing, the structure was surrounded by stunted, mutated oak trees, but the view to the south was clear of all scrub.

  “We should reach the fissure tomorrow,” Lycori said, pulling provisions for their meal out of her pack. She was the first to break the day’s long silence. “I know you’re not up to conversation, but I can tell you the story about how the fissure came to be, if you like?” With a hollow look on his face, Kael nodded, hoping it would take his mind off the guilt weighing him down.

  With a smile full of compassion, she began. “Jasala Vyshaan was an Elvehn DeathWizard, not quite the same as you, though. Some of the Elvehn have different magic. It’s more elemental in effect and it’s what made her so powerful. The myth says that she was raised in secrecy and was nineteen years old at the time of her death. The fissure is magical and was created by her to protect this territory from invaders. It obviously didn’t work, but immediately following her death, the land Cataclysm occurred. It affected the fissure by widening the rent and causing massive damage to the land up here. You can see it everywhere you look. The Wizards at the Eye believe this fissure has spread underground, out all over the world. Maybe even as far as the Black Kasym, where the worst of the Cataclysm hit. The Forsaken Lands, will never recover from the magic that’s poisoned it.”

  “No wonder people fear us. Such power should be in the hands of God, not man,” said Kael, noticing how nervous she was.

  Even so, she sighed and explained further. “It… it is one of the reasons that your kind are normally killed at birth. I am telling you this because I want you to understand. I also want you to realize that I won’t hide anything from you, no matter the circumstances and no matter how bad the truth will hurt.”

  “The power of God and I can’t even defend myself against a simple attack.” He felt lost. It seemed like his chances for survival lessened every day.

  With nothing more to say, they agreed to take turns keeping watch throughout the night. The stone house was as safe as they could make it, but still vulnerable to attack. With the distinct feeling that they were being followed, or at least shadowed by something, Kael did his best to remain vigilant in keeping his magical senses active. He accepted a piece of dried meat from Lycori and leaned back against his travel pack, content to let the fire’s warmth wash over his aching body.

  “I guess we should have that talk now, huh?” he finally asked, after putting the last of his jerky into his mouth.

  “I suppose, if you feel up to it. We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to.”

  Kael nodded. “Lycori... There’s something I should tell you. I was going to tell you the first night we stopped, but…” He hesitated, still a little unsure if he could trust her completely.

  “I’m listening,” she replied, as she touched his arm.

  With no other choice, Kael pulled the book he found in Jasala’s tower from inside his pack and handed it to her. “I found this the night I spent in the tower. It seems to be an assorted collection of personal accounts and journal or diary entries from long ago. Maybe even some historical accounts that speak about a war with a race of beings called the Ri’Tek.”

  Lycori stopped leafing through the grimoire, looking at Kael with a mix of puzzled amazement. “You can read these, can’t you?”

  “Some. I can read a few, but a lot of years are missing and others I can’t read at all. It looks like someone collected what they could, for whatever reason,” he guessed.

  “I wonder if the Ri’Tek had anything to do with the Ancient’s disappearance? Maybe they were the Ancients,” she wondered.

  “I don’t know. I could be reading them wrong, but from what I’ve pieced together, they’re responsible for the eradication of the Dwarven people and the Fae,” he said.

  “I have never heard of the Ri’Tek. The Ancients were the only race we know of from those times. They were also the race who gave us magic and helped us become what we are today. They wouldn’t have harmed a moral race, let alone the Fae. The Ancients helped end the Demon Wars, as well. Some people even believe the Elvehn are their direct descendants,” she said. Her eyes were open wide and her breath came fast. Kael could see the excitement dancing in her eyes at what he’d discovered.

  “Maybe the Ancients helped the other races with this war, too. The missing documents or the ones I can’t read may explain how the Ri’Tek were destroyed,” Kael offered, before reading to her from the accounts about the Red Plains Elvehn and the end of the war.

  “Is there one there you haven’t read yet, that you can read to me? It’d be exciting to hear first hand history from so long ago,” she asked, full of hope.

  “Yeah, just let me look here.” He smiled at her enthusiasm. It lightened the weight of his heart just a little bit.

  OFFICIAL JOURNAL ENTRY, ARCHWIZARD DIABAN LEVARIUS, 2916 ARE.

  It has been my duty to safeguard the region around Corpus for two hundred and fourteen years now. Several months ago, villagers complained about the possibility of an active, full witch coven in their area. Six witches working as a joined coven is not unheard of, but it has been an extremely rare occurrence for some time. Upon investigating, it did not take long to find out why the two ternions had come together. The presence of a DeathWizard will often bring the witches together and in this case, it is so. Upon discovery, my apprentice and I barely escaped wit
h our lives. We thought we had gotten away without being noticed or followed, but two days ago, the wizard and his witches attacked the town. Even the tall stone wall could not keep them out. The power hurled at us was devastating. Nothing is left standing and the few wizards and citizens who survived are on the run with me. I expect us all to be hunted and slain eventually, if for nothing more than their enjoyment and sport.

  OFFICIAL JOURNAL ENTRY,

  ARCHWIZARD DIABAN LEVARIUS, 2916 ARE.

  I have lost track of how long we have been running from these avatars of pure Evil. It has been five days since the last townspeople and my fellow wizards fell to the DeathWizard and his unholy dead sisters. I have named them such because of the horrors I have seen them commit with the dead bodies of my fallen friends. It is the actions of soulless, dead women. The last attack was perpetrated by my own apprentice, his dead body somehow reanimated and altered by evil magic summoned from Perdition’s darkest spawn-pits. I alone survived. I barely had the strength left to summon Sumac, my family’s elder bloodline heritage, an earth golem. If not for him, I would already be dead. He gave me enough time to escape higher into the mountains. I watched from a steep cliff as the DeathWizard tore him down with wild currents of black and purple energy. Chunks of stone and clouds of dust were all that remained of a creature created by the gods and granted to my family thousands of years ago. My golem stood no chance, and the witches never even had to raise their magic. It will be days before I can summon him again. I must get to the capital of Cethos. They must be made aware of the threat this DeathWizard poses. I pray to the Gods that I succeed.