Benedict

by Jackson Bennett

  ***

  John stared at the young man who had entered his domain and whom he had watched as he looked up and down the aisles of books, reading some and then carefully placing them back on the shelf where he had found them.

  It had been many years since someone had visited this library and on all those occasions they had destroyed the books when they were unable to read them, which had left the majority of the shelves now empty. Then the ice had come and locked the city away from the rest of the world and the years had passed, to many years to count.

  He had been here all those years, watching and waiting, and for the last two hundred he had been alone. The others of his kind had left to explore and study the rest of the world trying to understand their place within it.

  He knew.

  He was here to guard the book and to await his coming.

  His eye was caught by a glint of metal in the darkness, and he had to fight the impulse to fetch it.

  It was an impulse that was almost overpowering.

  The man was still looking at the shelves of books, with no outward sign of impatience showing. None who had come before had shown such.

  John’s heart began to quicken.

  The man stopped and pulled forth a small book, he had found the book of power on the shelf where it had sat hidden from all eyes, even his.

  He knew he had been right to stay and watch.

  The man began to read the book, and as he did so he began to shimmer and appeared to fade in and out, whilst all around him balls of light in all the colours of the rainbow began to swirl in a dizzying display. Then they disappeared, fading into the man’s head and causing the shimmering to cease.

  The man blinked his eyes.

  Over three hours had past.

  The man stared directly at John. Could he see him? Nobody was able to see his kind.

  John froze, staring back, eyes unblinking.

  The man’s attention was drawn by something else, and placing the book into his shirt pocket he left the library.

  John ruffled his black and white feathers. His people had been told by the Voldin “One would come of the sword, who would show patience beyond all others. They would find the book that was hidden, and bring forth its magic. Follow and aid them when needed.”

  That time had come.

  “The days will be more interesting now,” he thought to himself and hopped along the bookcases following the departing man.

  ***

  As Richard stood there wondering at the time that had passed, a deep groaning behind him caused him to turn, drawing his short swords as he did.

  The sound had come from somewhere to the left of the library door, but there was nothing there except the door that was lying flush against the black plastered wall.

  There it was again, and it was coming directly from the wall. He took a step backwards as a faint crack began to appear in the black plaster. More cracks appeared and as they did so, the plaster that was ancient and lacking in strength began to fall to the ground in a fine black powder. When the dust had settled, the bare red brick wall began to bulge and swell outwards as if about to explode.

  As Richard watched mesmerised, the bricks continued to transform, and before his transfixed gaze they began to change into the shape of a woman.

  In fact not just any woman, it was Rosemary.

  Although, all those days ago back at the stadium he had been too far away to see her face, which seemed a lifetime ago, he couldn’t have mistaken those features for anyone else.

  Richard realised he had been just standing and staring, so he sheathed his swords and stepped forwards to greet his emerging friend.

  She stopped, not completely formed.

  It was definitely the image of Rosemary, but what she was doing here at this time he couldn’t imagine, yet he was glad to set his eyes on her face, it had been too long.

  He raised his hand and reaching out, touched her face. At first the stone was cold and rough beneath his fingers like a statue, but then thinking of his real life friend his hand began to tingle and the bricks began to warm to his touch, becoming softer as if taking on life.

  He withdrew his hand with a start. The stone was changing again, becoming smoother and taking on the golden colouring of Rosemary that was familiar to Richard’s eye. With the transformation she began to writhe in agony, as if she was trying to escape someone or something that was causing her pain.

  She opened her eyes then, which were full of pain and fear, and looked directly into his, the depth of her hurt causing the back of his throat to constrict.

  “What did you do?” she asked in a gravelly voice, gratitude pooling in the deep wells of green, pushing the hurt and pain to the outer rim.

  “I just touched you,” he replied, his heart weeping at the sight of her. “What happened? Your body has the pattern of the bricks on it still.”

  “This wall is not made from natural rock, and as such I cannot fully manipulate it like I would otherwise. This is causing some pain and makes this very difficult,” she said, moving her arms slowly to demonstrate the lack of control she had.

  “I was trying to escape the Prith shadows at Fire Mountain,” she continued “and as I fled all I could think of was you, if you were alright and where you were. Then I was hit by a blast of their magic and I blacked out. When I woke up I found myself here,” she finished, the look on her face wondering where here was.

  “Why were you fleeing the Prith?” he asked, staring intently into her eyes. It had been too long since he had done so.

  “They came seeking you,” she replied holding his gaze, “but the elders would not tell them where you were, so they started to kill our people. A few we could have handled without fear, but they appeared from thin air in their hundreds and we were not prepared for such an onslaught. We had no choice but to flee.”

  “How many have perished because of me?” he despaired.

  “I don’t know, they were too fast and we fled just as fast. We managed to take our secrets with us and those we could not we hid where none could find,” she replied. Seeing the despair in his eyes she added, “They would have come anyway, sooner or later, for we would have been a thorn in their paws that they could not have ignored. Besides we have knowledge of many magic’s that they do not and thus they wish to possess.”

  “Where are you going? Here is not safe for you or me for that matter, and I think Benedict is in danger,” Richard stated glancing northwards to where he had last felt the magic.

  “I know. I am heading for Sanctuary as we had agreed with Benedict months ago,” she said confirming to Richard that Benedict knew exactly what was going on.

  “Sanctuary?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “Go now and when I find Benedict I will find you there,” he said.

  “Look after yourself Richard and be careful. I sense something different about you, what it is I cannot say, but it is there,” she said tilting her head as if trying to gain a different perspective of him.

  Then she raised her hand to his face and brushed his cheek. Where she touched him the skin began to sparkle like a snail trail in the sun and then it was gone. Rosemary stared at him with wonder in her eyes.

  “I too feel it,” Richard said staring at his hands and recalling the sensation he had felt when he had touched the frozen Rosemary, and then touching his face. “But do not worry about me, you know I love adventure. Make sure you are safe, I do not want to lose you,” he replied with emotion threatening to choke off the words.

  They stared into each other’s eyes for the briefest of moments that felt to Richard like an hour, and then she was gone.

  Where she had been there was now just bare bricks and the remnants of broken black plaster.

  For right or wrong he decided not to tell the others about this.

/>   He took a deep breath, turned on his heels and headed back to the camp they had set up with just the briefest of glances over his shoulder.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Revelations

  When Richard reached the building in which they had made camp, Mark was sat outside, his long sword drawn and placed across his lap.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Richard seeing the look in his eyes and tension in his body.

  “Strange noises,” he said letting his gaze roam their surroundings, “You’ve been gone almost four hours. I was about to come and look for you.”

  “Lost track of time,” was all Richard was willing to say and with that he passed Mark and entered the building, but added under his breath “Four hours?”

  Inside Dorina was sat in front of the smouldering fire, and as he entered she glanced up at him, cocked her head slightly to one side as had Rosemary and said, “Where have you been all this time? We were getting worried about you,” in a tone reminiscent of his mother’s when he had been out “finding,” stuff.

  “In the building across the way,” he replied, indicating the direction with his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Oh,” she said looking at him quizzically, the fire flashing with a strange green glow within her eyes as she moved her head.

  “Any food?” he asked trying to ignore the frostiness.

  “Help yourself, it’s in the pot, but is probably over done,” she replied.

  Richard ladled a large bowl full and then settled down opposite her, it wasn’t until he started to eat that he realised just how hungry he actually was, and so devoured the entire bowl full of broth with a speed and gusto that would have left his mother smiling.

  When he had finished his food he looked up straight into the eyes of Dorina, who was staring at him intently as if trying to see into his soul.

  “What?” he said with a slight feeling of aggression towards the woman, for he had never like being watched when he was eating.

  “You are a strange one and no mistake,” she said, and with that she went back to studying the flickering flames of the fire.

  Richard sat there in the warm glow of the fire for a while lost in his thoughts and enjoying the first flames they had had for what had felt like the longest of times. Then he rose and went to relieve Mark on watch.

  Mark turned towards him at his approach.

  “I’ve come to relieve you,” Richard murmured.

  “Thanks. There are some strange noises out there, as if some of the creatures from those stories granddad used to tell us when we were kids had come to life,” Mark said shaking himself from head to toe.

  “Are you serious? Do you mean the dragons that were the size of four houses and breathed fire, or do you mean the snakes that lived underground that had been tamed and made to carry men across the world?” Richard chided his baby brother. “Never mind, they don’t seem to want to bother us, and besides nothing has been here for a long time by the look of the place.”

  “Hmmm,” replied Mark ignoring the goading, “just keep your ears and eyes peeled, I don’t want to wake up tomorrow as something’s breakfast,” he said with a wry look on his face.

  “Good night,” Richard replied shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

  Richard settled down in the same spot Mark had vacated, but instead of drawing his sword he drew forth the little book from his breast pocket.

  He opened the book to the first page and stared at the words.

  After a while he began to read, but this time the words remained clear and bold, and none of the sensations that had accompanied the last reading were apparent. As he read, the words for the most part made no sense to him. They described how the Volin would save the people from the approaching and unavoidable disaster with “stasis devices,” whatever they were.

  He closed the book after reading several pages and returned it to his breast pocket, his mind wandering back to when he had first read it. What had happened? Why had it happened?

  For several hours he sat there thinking.

  He was startled back to the present by a faint cry in the distance. It was a cry of rage and pain mixed together; much like the ones they had heard when they had left the city.

  The sound made his heart race faster much as it had that day, and it was accompanied by the sensation of magic from the north, the direction in which they had been seeking Benedict, but it wasn’t him the feel was all wrong.

  Sound and vision faded together, as if the lights had been extinguished and was replaced with a feeling of certainty that time was running out.

  Vision and sound returned and he rose to his feet and entered the building.

  Bending down he gathered up his bow and quiver of arrows, then approached the two sleeping companions and woke them gently. “We must leave. We don’t have much time. Gather your equipment we leave in ten minutes,” he told them gently, and then he left the room and returned to his post.

  Five minutes later he was joined by Mark and Dorina both packed and ready to travel.

  “What’s going on?” they demanded together as if one voice.

  “Benedict’s in trouble and we don’t have much time to reach him. He’s close and in that direction,” Richard said pointing in the direction of the library and then started to walk, the others following behind.

  As they moved through the eerily quiet town, everywhere they looked was in the same state of disrepair.

  For three quarters of an hour they travelled in silence seeing not a single sign of any living thing. Suddenly Richard halted and crouched down, the two others instinctively doing the same.

  Mark came up silently behind Richard, who pointed to the doorway of a derelict house on the opposite side of the street that they were walking down. In the shadows of the decaying doorway, slumped against the rotten frame was a figure, in what looked like black robes of the kind the shadows they had been encountering for the past days had been wearing.

  They waited where they were for a while, watching and listening, then when they were as sure as they could be that no one else was around they moved further up the street until they were level with the doorway in which the figure was slumped.

  They again stopped and watched for any signs that they were being watched or had been seen. Then hurriedly they crossed the street and knelt next to the figure, keeping to the shadows as much as they could.

  Mark placed a hand on the hood of the figure and gently pushed it back away from the face.

  What they saw took them all by surprise. Mark recoiled pulling away his hand. Richard took an audible gulp of air and Dorina stifled a scream with her hand to her mouth.

  What lay beneath the hood was nightmare come to life.

  The face, what was left of it, could only be described as feline, for it was covered with black, gold and red-stripped fur, and had the ears and eyes of a cat. The left side of its face and upper body, including its arm had been cleaved away in such a fashion that it would have died very slowly and with a lot of pain, and judging by the trail of blood that they could now see it had crawled there to die.

  The stench of death hung about the body, and it was evident from the maggots that infested the putrefying flesh that it had been there for some time.

  Mark searched the body for anything that would give them an idea from where the creature had come from and froze.

  The beasts open eyes blinked and fixed on him, the remainder of its chest heaving as drew breath, then as sparks danced across its clenched right hand its eyes turned a milky white and it lay still.

  Mark released the breath he had been holding and raised a shaking hand to the beast’s neck to check for a pulse, which there was none to be found so he continued to search it. He only found two things on the body and they were hidden in a fold of the black robes, which seemed to writhe in his
hands as if alive as he searched it. There was an ornate dagger some twelve inches plus in size, consisting of two figures entwined about each other making up the blade, and a handle that looked like the leather binding of a book that had letters of a strange kind that none of them had seen before, except Richard who had seen them covering many of the books in the library.

  On closer inspection it could be seen that the two figures were of a man and a large cat entwined as if in a passionate embrace.

  The other object was just as unusual by the mere fact that it was just a plane, unadorned round white glass orb that fit snugly in the palm of Marks hand. Close inspection revealed nothing, no marks or distinguishing features to any of the trio.

  Taking the orb from Mark Richard placed it in one of the pouches in the front of his belt, which he also did with the dagger.

  Mark repositioned the beasts cloak as they had found it, so that it covered its face, then they stood and checking that the streets were still clear they headed of again in silence and with a sense of foreboding, following the trail of blood.

  As they passed yet another derelict building, something caught Marks eye. Under the rubble that had once been a roof of some description could be seen an object made of what looked like corroded copper. Mark stopped and entering the wreckage bent down to remove some of the rubble to reveal his prize. As the rubble was cleared what was revealed was a human skull, with an aged crown of copper still in place. The skull was obviously of great age for where the crown touched it had become green with discolouration, which was most prominent at the temples.

  Mark picked the crown from the skull, leaving it undisturbed as best he could.

  Before Richard could say anything Mark placed the crown on his head and turned towards them, with a grin on his face and a regal pose that was reminiscent of a younger, slimmer Voldiner.

  As he turned, pain lanced into his temples. It wasn’t a severe pain, more akin to the pain you got when a stone has logged itself in your shoe. As he raised his hands to remove it a light shot forth from a crystal, that had until then been covered by the corrosion from the copper, which was mounted in the front of the crown and now that it could be seen was blue in colour.