by Greg Curtis
“You still resist,” one of the women told him. “You still think you can stop us.” She looked up at him to stare him straight in the eyes. “You cannot.”
“I know that,” he admitted shamefully. And he did know that. He'd known that from the day they'd presented him with a box with the hand of his mother in it. That was the day he had almost lost control. That was the day his hatred had finally crystallised into something even blacker than their souls.
“Why so angry?”
“Why do you think?” he answered her, somehow controlling his outrage and maintaining his outward appearance of calm though she surely knew he was seething with rage.
“But it will all be for the best. We will have the Temple and it will be used for the good of all. The joy of our paradise will grow as all come to join us in it. And your family will be with you again. Soon.”
She was lying of course. Fylarne knew that, which was why he didn't answer her. Sprites lied. They were never going to return his family. sprites never kept their word. The whole damned race lied. And they should be destroyed. All of them.
Thankfully that would happen soon enough. They would all die – horribly. And they had no thought that their schemes would be the very things that would destroy them. Fylarne had to hold back a savage grin as he thought of it. He could not let them guess that they were walking into a trap. He had planned their demise most thoroughly.
“The book,” she abruptly demanded when he didn't reply.
Obediently Fylarne pulled the book out from under his robes where he'd been concealing it, and handed it to her. And he tried not to give any sign that the book was actually his victory, not theirs.
They thought it was from the Temple library. And it actually was. But what they didn't know was that he had sat on the sphinx throne so many times since they had taken his family. And the sphinx was the throne of riddles, puzzles and knowledge. So he had taken the book from the library, and then he had changed it, as he had changed all the books that he had given them for the past four years. He had learned the ancient language. Used his gift to translate it and then alter what was written on those ancient pages. They thought the books he gave them would grant them ultimate power. Instead those books would destroy them. And there was not a trace of magic upon them. Nothing to suggest what he had done.
“Good.” She opened the book and started flicking through its pages, checking to see that it was the same as the others. That it was exactly like all the other books he had given them.
And it was exactly like them. They had all been rewritten too. Reshaped so very slightly, with just a few arcane symbols changed. The ink bent a little into new shapes through the paper. That was the brilliance of his plan. Or maybe the madness. Sometimes he wasn't completely sure which.
But it didn't matter if it was genius or madness. They thought that the books would grant them the command of the ancient Temple. That it would make them its masters. That it would allow them to draw its magical might into themselves and remake themselves as the gods of the skies they truly believed they had once been. Instead thanks to just a few tiny changes he had made here and there, all of their power would be bound. Reclaimed by the Temple. The walls of N'Diel would be broken down and every scrap of magic they possessed would be stripped from them and returned to the Heartfire. They would lose everything.
After that they would be helpless. At the mercy of those they had captured and enslaved. And when they were four feet tall and of diminutive build, that would not go well for them.
Their slaves, free from their magical bindings would rise up against them and slaughter them. Their elementals, any that remained before the last of the magic was stripped from them, would butcher them in a hundred different ways. There would be screaming and bloody death. And when it was done there would be very few winged vermin left. That was his dream.
“It is good?” The fourth man asked.
“It is good,” the woman answered him. “And we will soon be ready. We will fly again soon.” There was a whistful, almost joyous look in her eyes as she said it.
“You will not harm the guardians?” Fylarne asked her for the thousandth time. He couldn't stand the thought that his companions in the Temple would be hurt. They were good people. Honourable and loyal. He did not want for them to be harmed. Not because of him.
“We have told you, they will not be harmed. We will have no need. Not with the might of the Temple behind us. We will fly. We will rule the skies. And those who must dwell upon the ground will know our glory.”
She was lying again, Fylarne realised. But even as every fibre of his being was calling out to him to call her a foul liar, he somehow kept his mouth shut. In the end these winged vermin still had his family. His entire family. He hated her. He wished she would just burn to death there and then. But he controlled himself. Using the pain as he dug his fingernails deep into the palms of his hands as he squeezed them into fists to help him.
But at least she was wrong about the other part. About her people flying again. Taking to the skies. They had never flown. He was certain of that. And their prophecy was not about to come true. But then it had never been true. Even if he hadn't rewritten the books to deceive them, it would never have happened. The Temple would not have granted them the power they sought. Their prophecy was false. He had scoured the library from one end to the other, looking for it, thinking that when he found it he could use it as a tool against them. He had found nothing.
If there was one thing he had learned from sitting on the throne of the sphinx, it was that there was always a prophecy. There was always a monk or an elder or a wizard who had a vision or a dream or spoke to a shining moonlit lake and learnt the great secrets of the future and then of course wrote them down. And all of them were the delusions of wine soaked brains. It seemed that all the worlds were filled with demented drunkards having visions and writing them down. And with people who would believe them.
Whatever exactly the sprites' prophecy was, that they would grow their wings until they could finally fly again and rule the skies, it was a vision of the grape.
The problem was that they would never believe that. And there was always a quest to go with the prophecies. Something heroic and noble. Or perhaps dark and wicked. But something that had to be done to achieve the prophecy. And of course the innocent always had to suffer along the way. That was simply the way of things.
Happily it would soon be done. Everything would be over. The sprites would be destroyed. Land bound. And his fellow guardians were powerful. They could defend themselves even against an army of sprites. They would be alright. He would see to that. Even when the time came to lower the defences. He prayed silently to the Lady of Grace that they would survive. And his family would survive. He prayed that he had done everything perfectly. And he gave no sign of the fury and desperation burning in his heart. Of the treachery he had planned for them. Or the fear that had taken hold of him.
“You still resist,” the woman told him. “You still doubt us. You still think we will harm your precious guardians. And you dream of fighting us. Refusing us. Denying us our rightful place.”
Fylarne shook his head. “I will do as you ask.” He replied once more. “I have no choice. I know it.”
“No. You don't.” She stared at him coldly. “But you keep thinking you do. So, in case you forget. In case you think to say no to us when the time comes.” She reached into the satchel on her belt and pulled out a linen wrapped bundle. One of white linen stained with red.
“No!” Fylarne gasped immediately knowing what it had to be, and he begged her not to show him. “Please no!” He ached for it not to be what he knew it was. But it didn't help. She began unwrapping the bundle anyway, and when she was done he could see the fingers, freshly severed from their owner, sitting on the blood red linen.
“Your daughter's!” She announced calmly, as if it was nothing. And then she handed the whole lot to him. She pressed them into his palm and wrapped his fingers around
them.
“Praise be!” Fylarne collapsed to his knees as he stared at them. “Sylie!” He cried her name out in horror and pain.
Tears filled his eyes and his breath refused to come. Only gasps of unrelenting pain. And in that moment he hated the woman more than he had ever hated anyone in his entire life. But she didn't care. And she didn't care that he had done absolutely everything she and her people had demanded as far as she knew.
She was a monster! They were all monsters!
“You will do exactly as you are instructed,” she told him calmly while he knelt there before her, his daughter's fingers in his hand. “There will be no hesitation. No thought of treachery. No warning given. Do you understand?”
Fylarne continued kneeling there, staring in horror at the nightmare in his hand. Trying to hold back the tears flowing down his cheeks. But they wouldn't stop flowing. Nor would the broken sobs and gasps stop being torn from his throat. And in time he began rocking a little, wanting nothing more than to be dead. To stop this evil.
It took time to find his control again. To become once more able to hear the woman. Even through his undying pain. And to realise that she had been asking him the same question over and over again. And that now she had moved on to threatening him. To promise him more gifts if he didn't answer her and get to his feet.
Eventually he managed to promise her what she demanded. But it took everything he had. All his strength and will. But even then he was unsteady on his feet. And the tears wouldn't stop flowing. But he knew that he had to be strong. If anyone had seen him, they would have been curious. They might have asked questions. And he couldn't afford that. Not if he was to save his family. He had to save his family!
So somehow he forced himself to regain his composure. To pretend he was a guardian instead of a broken wretch filled with hatred and pain. To look the winged vermin in the eyes.
“Then we should begin the inspection,” he told them when he was calm once again. “As is usual.”
“There is no need,” the first man stopped him dead. “We have what we want.” And then he abruptly turned on his heels and started marching back towards the grand portal. The others followed him a heartbeat later, the book tightly clutched in the woman's hands.
But the woman who'd handed him his daughter's fingers remained for a moment, staring at him in what looked like pity. But it couldn't be pity. sprites didn't know such emotions.
“You think we are cruel,” she told him. “That we are violent and brutal. But it is not so. We are loving and kind people who live in the most blessed land there is. And we want nothing more than to extend our blessings to all. And all of those who live with us, know the same. Why do you think that none of them ever return?”
Because they were slaves was his thought, as he held on to the bloody package she'd given him. They couldn't return. He wanted to scream that at her. But why was she telling him this? Now that she'd forced him to aid her cause with such a vile act, was she trying to convince him of its rightfulness? That was madness!
“One day you will understand this. You will know the wonder that is the paradise of N'Diel as it covers all the worlds. You will see its beauty with your own eyes. And you will weep for the ignorance that you have known all your life.”
“But until that glorious day comes, know this. Your family knows this truth. Your daughter knows the truth. And such is the power of that truth within her that she knew what had to be done to convince you of it. We did not cut her fingers off. She did. And she gives them to you as a cry for you to do the right thing. To bring the paradise of N'Diel to all.”
With that the woman turned and followed her companions to the portal, leaving Fylarne standing there, in shock.
Fylarne stared at their retreating figures in surprise. How could she have said such a thing?! How could she imagine that he would believe it for even a heartbeat?! These people weren't just monsters. They were insane!
He wanted to scream that after her. After them all. He wanted to kill them. But all he could do was stand there and watch them leave.
At least it helped a little that they were going, as he hadn't known how long he could keep up his pretence. Maybe they knew that. Or maybe this close to the end, they simply didn't care any more. They owned him. As much as they owned all their other slaves. And whatever they demanded he would do. He had no choice.
Still he hated them. He prayed for their complete destruction as a people. He vowed vengeance on them. A thousand vengeances. A million. And he shook with rage and anguish. But he knew as he stared at the bleeding fingers in his hand that nothing he could do would ever restore his daughter's fingers to her. Nor his mother's hand. There was no making this right. There was only stopping the suffering and punishing the guilty. The four who when they reached the grand portal turned back to stare at him, smile proudly and finally vanish.
Which left him all alone on the terrace, praying to the gods for release and revenge. And wishing that this had never happened. None of it.
Not that it made any difference to his plans. Or theirs. Everything was now in order. Running as he intended. They would come. They would attack the Temple. And then ultimately they would attempt to seize control of it through the enchantments in the books he had given them over the years. And instead it would seize control of them.
And then they would die and he would get his family back. Finally he allowed a small, cruel smile to find his face as he stared at the empty portal. They were all going to die. And maybe, as their former slaves bashed their heads in with whatever they could lay their hands on, the vermin would discover the true price of their evil.
He only wished he didn't have a small, bloody red linen wrapped bundle in his hands. Or a grave in his family home where his mother's hand was buried. That the tears wouldn't keep rolling down his cheeks. And that he could stop shaking. But he never would.
Chapter Six
Recovering from a visit to the temple took time. But after a few days rest Chy was feeling strong again. Strong enough to go to town and do a little shopping. So when he'd heard the chugging of the steam wagon in the distance that morning, he'd grabbed his pack and his coin purse, and wandered out to meet it. It was only a couple of leagues to Stonely and he could have walked it in under an hour, but he wasn't that recovered yet and it was worth the copper bits to sit in a seat for a twenty minute ride.
Besides, he quite liked the wagon. The seats were comfortable, properly stuffed by a decent upholsterer. And they were extremely well sprung which meant that together with the massive springs that attached the body of the wagon to the wheels, riding the wagon was less like sitting and more like bouncing all the way to town. Maybe it was childish, but he quite liked that. The newest steam wagons had pneumatic tyres, and that, he thought, had to be even better, though of course the rubber kept perishing and they went flat all the time.
Of course the steam wagon was noisy and a little smelly – though the smoke was better now that they'd fitted a ten foot high smoke stack to the machine – and it could have used a roof to keep the rain off. But fresh air was good for you so the physicians said and he wasn't bothered by a drop of rain now and again. Then too he often got to talk to the other passengers. Not this morning though. For some reason the wagon was almost empty and he had a seat to himself. But still he got to lean against the side of the wagon and look out over the land as he bounced his way to town.
He was lucky to live where he did, Chy thought. It was such a pleasant land – especially when spring returned to the world. There were great fields of grass and copses of trees to break them up. Here and there willows and redwoods fought for space with black pines. Sheep and cattle grazed contentedly in the sunshine. And the wild flowers were just coming into bloom. It was warm enough that he didn't even need his coat, though he still wore it. It was the finest piece of clothing he had. And Stonely was becoming a more upmarket town as the years passed. New stores kept opening. Ones that sold the finer things he couldn't get anywhere else.
Charlton on the other hand, sitting on the other end of the wagon's line, was remaining closer to its farming and forestry roots. It didn't have the newer shops selling luxury goods that Stonely did which was why he went there less often. But then he supposed, it didn't have the higher prices either.
Of course there was one other reason he generally avoided Charlton. His family lived there. And while he loved them dearly, they were trouble. And they'd rob him blind!
He couldn't go there unless he wanted to be dragged home by his brothers and sisters, sat down with his mother for a cup of tea and a chat about where he'd gone wrong with his life, and then fleeced for every coin he had while she lamented his lack of a wife and the fact that he lived so far away. Two leagues was apparently half a world away in her view.
He loved his family, but there were limits! If only his siblings would get off their arses and actually do some work! Find jobs. They didn't even have to work in the factories or the mills that were the life blood of Charlton. They could read and write and knew their numbers. Mother was very strict about that. So they could get work in offices. Not play mandolins in the streets like Jaynes, or run around performing errands like Aisha. Maybe they were gifted with stringed instruments and voices – Percival certainly was – but a steady job would bring them more than a few coins thrown at a hat every so often.
