Light of the Dark

by N. Saraven

  “This I would be interested in too,” muttered Agony, but Talek elbowed him in the side to stay silent. The warrior wanted to snap back at him, yet he stayed silent after a look at the kobold. The soldier seemed very disturbed by all of this. And knowing that Arisha brought him back to life, Agony could understand it.

  “But it did not go very smoothly,” continued Enargit. “Neila … I cannot put it into words. She became so upset that she almost attacked Setal.”

  “What?” gasped Halgor. “What happened then? Were they mad?” He burst into questions, but the Leader motioned him to stay calm.

  “I would say that they found it … fitting. But something broke down in her, something that was put in by Setal when he created her and should not have been torn down by any means. I have never seen such power before. And even Setal seemed surprised,” he murmured grimly.

  “Setal gave Neila’s powers? Why and how?” asked Agony, astonished by these facts. Enargit looked at him.

  “Setal is Neila’s actual creator, from what I can tell. He gave the possibility for her life.”

  “What the …” gasped the warrior. He obviously took this badly. “Then what about O’Brian?”

  “Yes, he and a kobold were the main subjects. They would be enough as themselves to create a powerful warrior and/or mage. But Setal meddled into this, giving life to Neila,” explained the reptile.

  “You speak of them like some kind of breeding program,” growled Rita, which made the others glance at her questioningly. “I mean, as if they were living for nothing more than to give birth to Neila. Just … objects in an experiment.”

  “Because that is exactly how the Gods see us. We are nothing more than things with whom they can experiment.”

  “This is terrible!” moaned Kira.

  “Maybe I was a little bit harsh. Anyhow, according to them, although they truly believed in this at the beginning, in time they started to form attachments with us, to our lives. So they do not do any experiments anymore,” said the shadow Leader, although his expression told that he did not believe this either.

  “Let’s get to the point, please,” cut in Veilon.

  “As you can tell, Neila did not like this at all. You know her … But before she could release anything bad, Lexénia stepped in and soothed the mood. She left with her to talk to Neila, alone.”

  “And the others let this? How can we know what that woman said to her?” Halgor cried out; however, Enargit motioned him to stay calm again.

  “Among them there is an agreement: they cannot lie to each other if they make promises. So if Lexénia said that she will not hurt her, you can be sure of that. She told her the truth even. I also had a little talk with Neila after Lexénia gave her back. Our stories were the same.”

  “And what is your story?” asked Veilon.

  “I came into the possession of the knowledge of the Creation of our world,” answered the dragon, which made both mages’ eyes flare up. They obviously could hardly hold themselves back from asking more. Enargit sighed, then summed up the story. He found somewhat appalling their thirst for knowledge at a time like this.

  “When they finished, they sent me back to my body. Only then, I realised that Lexénia took Neila’s body too. But she sent her back safe and sound a few days earlier. She slept for a long time, only woke up today,” finished Enargit.

  “And her first action was to run into Indrek’s arms …” Agony swayed his head. “That woman always did stupid things, but this tops them all. And she still got what she wanted.”

  “This all is chiselled and shiny, yet I assume that it wasn’t the act of sharing that brought you here.” Veilon looked deeply into the reptile’s red eyes. “What happened?”

  Enargit sighed again, seemingly in dismay.

  “She demanded this arrangement of theirs in a similar way, when she wanted answers from Setal. Believe me, that power is … something else …” The dragon swayed his head. “I do not know what we can do if she loses control. Which she will for sure if nothing changes.”

  “What should change and how?” demanded Halgor, who started to worry even more. The Leader only glanced at him with similar fear.

  “After we came back, she went to her room. But there she … shattered. She stood by the window and started to cry. When I wanted to go to her, she ordered me out. I wondered in the corridor, what can or shall I do? I heard enough through the door that made me worried,” he finished gloomily. Nobody ever heard him speak so honestly before, which gave the companions more than enough reason to get seriously nervous. The shadow became so baffled, which completely made him lose his condescending manner.

  “A little while ago everything fell silent, so I looked in again,” continued the dragon. “She was sitting beside her bed on the ground, still sobbing. I tried to make her drink something, otherwise her head would start to hurt. She got into her ‘nothing matters’ mood. I could not really talk to her about anything. She kept mumbling about Indrek’s head on a stick.”

  “But she had just made a truce with him …” Rita blinked, stunned.

  “If I can quote Neila when I said the same to her: ‘I never intended to make peace. I wanted to gain time.’”

  Heavy silence fell on the room. The companions glanced at each other nervously, waiting for somebody to make a suggestion.

  “So what now?” asked Agony, breaking the silence.

  “One thing is for sure: Neila must be watched at all times,” said Enargit.

  “That’s for sure,” agreed Veilon, starting for the door, but Halgor blocked his way.

  “This is not your job anymore,” he said softly, yet extremely firm. Only the kobold and the dragon heard him.

  “Because what changed, elven?” the paragon asked sharply.

  “I faced the truth and accepted it.”

  Halgor left without any further words, leaving the unsure kobold behind.

  “So, somebody will watch over Neila at all times. I assume it will be one of you, since we became bloody forgotten,” growled Agony. It was obvious how hurt he felt about this situation. Talek mumbled something as an agreement. They wanted to be there for her, even if she only ‘bites their heads off’, as Rita put it at one time.

  They all knew how so much turmoil could burst out as either aggression or complete apathy. But if they could help, with anything, they wanted the chance to do so. Yet Neila stripped them from it.

  “So now what …?” asked Rita.

  “Our plan is to stop Neila from hurting herself, or anybody else who has nothing to do with this,” said Veilon, unusually caring. “But nobody has a chance against her alone. Didn’t really have before, but from now on, we can be lucky if together we have.” Veilon added this so grimly that it made the others pale, or swallow.

  They had to gather their strength just to stop their friend from becoming out of control. It painted a very grim future at best. Nobody thought that this day could come.

  36. Searching for peace

  Neila stood alone in her room. After she got tired from just standing at the window, she pulled her favourite armchair there and made herself as comfortable as she could. She gazed out to the blue skies, albeit she hardly saw it. Her thoughts swirled around like a tornado in her mind, but she could grab none of them. They blinked before her eyes, then faded away like snow melting on hot sun, just to let another to their place.

  No thoughts stayed for too long, nor meant anything specific. She could not even comprehend most of them. But it was all right for her at the moment. She let these emotions and pictures billow around. Nothing mattered to her. She did not care what her friends were doing, or what was happening altogether. Her warrior side had a hunch that after her last outburst, Enargit probably sought out her friends for help, the ones whom she considered as her family since she had no actual one.

  However, in the last two seasons Neila had abandoned them, which hurt her just as much. She forgot the last time she shared a bottle of wine with Agony, hearing his stories,
or when she last bickered with Talek about something truly unimportant. She did not know what Kira might have dived into that she should not have. She knew nothing about Rita, how she dealt with this world and everything in it, not to mention the caste altogether. She had some idea that Eryn was the one who currently looked after Varomor, but nothing concrete.

  Neila knew hardly anything about the new terrain they lived in, unless it was on her plate. What did they discover? What kind of new medicines, poisons, or teas were found? She did not know how the shadow dragons coped with the many new lifeforms everywhere around them. Maybe they regretted their decisions; maybe they had the most fun in their lives. Neila could not even guess.

  The Master felt incredibly alone. Enargit and Veilon kept her company, yes, but that was not nearly enough. Especially since with them somehow she felt more lonely than when she was actually alone. She abandoned her chosen family for whom she would do anything, even protect them from herself, which she chose to do now. She knew that every single one of them would tear out their limbs if that could help her emotional turmoil, so she kept her distance. She knew that nobody could help her but herself.

  It felt that her whole soul was torn apart, then shattered into pieces, which broke even more. As a result, nothing was left but bottomless emptiness, yet it somehow ached more than anything else. Her emotions swirled around, colliding with each other, making each other stronger or disappear. And she could do nothing about it, only try to bear them as well as she could. Maybe talking would help, as Enargit tried to suggest many times, but what should she say? Or how?

  On the other hand, even if Neila would try to pour her soul out, what could the others do? Pat her on the back, saying ‘there, there’? Hold her close, whispering little lies like ‘everything will be alright’? How could they know? How could they possibly know …?

  They were better off not knowing how badly she was hurting. Sometimes the imagination was less bad than the actual facts. It became obvious that nobody could ease her pain. Unless they found a way to actually go inside her soul, bringing out the things that ached on their backs. Which was impossible, even for Halgor or somebody as powerful as he.

  Neila felt the tears bubbling up. She did not want to cry, but her emotions needed somewhere to go.

  She sighed hoarsely. She even blocked out her own mate, who would be most capable of helping. Yet, even if she wanted him there, usually he was not nearby. An elven stays an elven, no matter what, no matter how different the individual person is. She knew him well enough to let him go instead of trying to pull him down into her own misery. Even though Neila longed for Halgor’s presence more than anything.

  Veilon tried to be there for her, but she saw how exhausted he became, so she rather tried to keep him safe too—far away from her. She always said to anybody who asked that she would handle things. She had survived her childhood, she would this too. In time.

  Neila took a deep breath as she wiped her tears off. She had found a cloth in the side of the cushion which she now used as a handkerchief.

  Even if she tried to do something, it failed. Visiting Indrek proved to be useless. And stupid, as she mused on it. It was such an illogical step from her that she almost blushed when it came to mind. She obviously did not think the situation through properly. Of course, it was easy to point out the faults in hindsight …

  Regardless, they gained a little time with the truce. Time which would be put to good use, training everybody further, so in a way it was worth it. However, she actually was looking for Cameron, with whom she wanted to have a little chat. She planned to give him a chance to explain himself, then maybe tear out Indrek’s heart if he got in the way.

  Yet the bright did not show, so she failed in this matter. After she returned to her room, she realised how insanely she had behaved. She had never wanted to break up with Halgor; it just happened, as if she were not totally in control of her actions. Then came the actual realisation when her mind had a little time to catch up.

  It overwhelmed her.

  The growing pain needed a way out, so it burst out of her alongside a lot of tears, moaning, and whingeing. It helped nothing, only made Enargit even more worried. Because of this, his presence made her heart ache more, by reminding her what she had lost so far. So she needed him out of her room.

  In a way she was guilty, so now she deserved to feel like a rotten fruit. It was her actions which led her down this road. She must have done something to set off Cameron too, although in that regard Enargit always blamed the soultaker spell. He tried to explain it to her, but it was filled with ‘ifs’, and ‘actuallys’, so it felt more like a kinwa-tale. Neila could not understand how a ‘basically nothing’ could cause anybody to turn against their family, so she dismissed it after a while.

  In her eyes, she deserved to be punished because every action had a consequence. She made some bad choices, which now hurt. She tried to improve the situation, albeit she only made it worse.

  Neila took a deep breath as her tears started to stream again. Right now she really needed Halgor because the elven had gone through something similar during the Dragonwars, so he was the only one who actually understood what she was going through. She never stopped hoping that he would come through the door and put his arms around her. It would feel so warm and good.

  At the same time, she felt so irritated by him, as never before. She was furious with him and would gladly try to slap a little wisdom into his thick head.

  When these two feelings collided, they strangely fuelled one another. Just like two giant waves in a raging ocean—neither could defeat the other, only planned to strike back even harder when one fell under.

  Neila felt as if she would break into two. She had no idea how strong such feelings could grow in time. And she feared that they would actually burst out when her mind and body could not contain them anymore. And then what …? she asked herself as she covered her face with a hand, remembering the meeting with Setal.

  Until that point she believed that she had gotten hold of that raging chaos inside her, yet she had to face how wrong she was. Every little thing set her off like some kind of magic which could explode in any moment. A little nudge, and she lost control—like an appearance of a new race of kobold. Then came the map, Eteryon’s teasing, and so on. She lost more and more control each time, until the final blow was delivered by the Gods.

  Meeting with the Creators showed that she never could, or would, have a quiet life. Where she would keep herself busy with research, teaching, or anything she could think of. Setal made other plans for her, which she could not overrule apparently. She had tried to disappear from the worlds after the Dragonwars.

  Now that turned out great … she thought bitterly. Whatever she tried to do to have a nice little quiet life, the world jerked her back right into the middle of things.

  Neila curled up in the armchair, thinking of Halgor again. Every now and then he turned up amidst her swirling thoughts. Especially since she broke her own heart alongside his.

  On the other hand, a hunch emerged from deep down that whispered that something had changed in the elven. Something made the unbearable situation improve, as if he had finally accepted a very important fact.

  She suddenly felt a thin light at the end of the dark tunnel. She always knew that they had a special bond between them. They somehow always knew when the other faced grave danger, or became sick, maybe injured. This bond now lamented that the solution was on the way.

  So maybe Halgor would come to help her, to fight for their future.

  Maybe …

  As for the actual happenings, he stayed away. So Neila had to move on somehow, alone. She tried to face her raging emotions, forcing herself to understand them. Why they were there, what they wanted from her, or what she needed to do to settle them down.

  Neila gazed off, too tired and sombre to get up and drink, even though she felt thirsty. A while ago Enargit looked in, bringing tea with him, although she could not remember when this was. M
aybe a little still remained; however, she had no memory of drinking it, or eating anything for that matter. She had absolutely no appetite.

  As she glanced up, she realised it was almost dark. She had no idea how fast time could fly, even though she did nothing that day. Her arms and legs almost tickled as they grew numb from sitting in the same position for so long.

  Yet she had no energy or mood to move. Trying not to sink and drown in her emotions slowly drained all of her remaining life force.

  Then, just before everything turned dark for the night, the chaos settled down in her, as if it grew tired.

  Neila finally moved.

  Incredibly slowly she stood up, halting between motions. Then she walked to the table on which usually sat the tea with something to munch. She regarded the glass pitcher, in which was her favourite tea, as far as the colour suggested. She poured herself a cup, then slowly sipped it. Her eyes wandered around purposelessly, not really seeing. When she finished, another bottle caught her gaze, which stood just behind the pitcher.

  “Hmm …” she mumbled, remembering when she and Halgor introduced that drink to Rita for the first time. She even smiled faintly as she recalled the girl’s reactions to it. Rita almost spit it out when she took a sip, then tried not to choke on it as it stung her throat.

  “Wow, it’s strong! Huh!” she had panted, or something of the sort; Neila did not remember exactly. It was not important.

  Then it struck her that she had eaten less than a morsel all day long. Although she still did not feel any hunger, she should eat something. Yet when she thought of food, her stomach started to rumble as if it wanted nothing.

  So she chose another path.

  “What harm could a little glass do …?” she asked herself as she poured herself a drink. Her warrior side replied instantly, that even one could do much harm, yet she dismissed it. Nothing mattered in that moment …