He was wrong.
Returning to his mother, Latson found that she too had died. He never got to say his last words to her either. Day after day, he thought that if he had only stayed with her, maybe he could have saved her, or at least gotten to hear her voice one last time.
Latson was in a state of shock when the authorities lifted him and took him to jail, and he did not resist. What good was living now, anyway? His parents were dead, and he had already exacted his revenge. At fourteen, he was not familiar with the intricacies of the legal system. He was told by a guard that his case would be sorted out in time.
It never was. Three miserable days later, a half-elven man came to his cell, offering him a way out. It involved service, and honor, and training himself to become a weapon the likes of which he had never seen before. In the beginning, he was not impressed. He accepted the proposition more out of boredom and fear that he would rot away his life in the dank prison cell that reeked of helplessness and urine than from any sense of his duty to the realm.
Over time, he had come to accept his position, and put his whole broken heart into his training. He had become one of the Guard, the ten elite and secret bodyguards of the king. Five of the Guard were within striking distance of the king at all times. The other half were sent on critical missions throughout the Lands of Daranor.
The training was the best in the world. Soon he had learned to control his blinding rages, and since he had turned twenty, he had not lost his memory once.
He had slowed their dark elf attacker on the plains north of the King’s Highway as long as he could, but once the skull knights had all reassembled and caught up to her, he knew that he had to escape. Everything about the life of a Guard was so regimented, so controlled. He was not allowed to die in this way. The thought of not being allowed to die had been funny at first, but had lost all humor as the perfection demanded of him became a part of life. There were missions in which a Guard was allowed to die, but this situation was not one of them.
So he had escaped, and doubled back on the trail that they had left on their journey south. Soon he found that they too had changed directions, and were now heading back north. He had been following them for nearly a week, and the heat of the Savannah plain was beginning to bear down on him. It was far better now than in Darhyn’s time. Although the land was not fertile, grasses and shrubs had begun to take root, and there were even a few trees that brought necessary relief from the sun. There was a memorial and trading post at the previous site of Castle Rathskellar, although it was frequented by few travelers.
After two weeks of traveling, he arrived at this post, and that was where he lost the trail again.
Chapter 5: Corizaz of Freeton
Corizaz stood pensively on the edge of the precipice, his gaze spreading out southwards over the land. He was relaxed but concentrating intensely. The wind whipped his black and green robes about his body and dried a trickle of sweat that appeared on his forehead.
Suddenly, he sagged back and dropped his shoulders in frustration. He scowled. She was on her way back to tell him something, but he already knew. She had failed.
He usually did not tolerate failure in those who served him. But, she was different. She was special, because her failure meant that it was his failure as well.
She was bound to him already, bound under a control so deep that to sever it would mean to end her life. He knew that she would become further ensnared as time progressed, until he shared her completely. He was not thinking of marriage, as such petty institutions were made for mortals, not for beings such as he. Still, he would completely share her soul, and set her up to be his deputy.
He had never done anything that benefited another, unless it benefited himself first. Still, a casual observer might have mistaken what he did for her as kindness. When he met her, she had been a raving lunatic, wild hair sprouting in clumps from her head and eyes overflowing with undirected fury and confusion. Tattered pieces of cloth and animal skins hung randomly from different parts of her body, not serving to protect her modesty or her skin from the elements. She lashed out at everything she saw, birds, animals, and him. She had obviously been living away from civilization for quite some time.
He did not know how long she had been like that. Living as a madwoman for even a short period of time had a way of causing someone to appear older than she really was. He assumed that she had been like that for years, at least. The harsh living had toned her body and a purity of spirit had emerged from the crucible of the wilderness.
He was not sure why she did not flee from him. Perhaps it was that she was not afraid, and perhaps she was curious to see someone who was not afraid of her. At times, he would tell himself that it was because she yearned for him, but he could not be sure that he wasn’t just imagining things that he wished to be. He had reached out to touch her shoulder, and she let him enter her eyes.
He was immediately swallowed up in the whirlpool of her mind, churning in the waves of doubt and confusion and feeling the winds of self-insignificance buffet his consciousness. It hit him so strongly that soon her madness was spreading to him. He was unprepared for what he saw, and had he been still merely human, he might have drowned there with her. His destiny was not to share with theirs.
Finally, he pulled back, stopping her madness from spreading to him as well. He looked at her coldly, with a face that betrayed a mixture of hatred and fear. Then his gaze softened somewhat. He had never known another like her, but he immediately knew what had happened. How could he not? He had been seeking a way in for over a hundred years. She was not the first It had destroyed. Corizaz silently cursed. What kind of God would create something so beautiful and then reward those who sought it with insanity?
He knew what he had to do. Without giving it a second thought, he grabbed her with both hands and brought her square to face him. She did not resist.
He again looked deep into her eyes, this time instead of exploring he bored straight into them, knocking aside her consciousness and destroying her thoughts. He burned through them, destroying her memories, erasing her emotions, sweeping away her values. He had to be very careful, he knew. The mind served two functions. The basic system, that which told the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe and taught the legs to walk was thankfully still intact. If not, he would have had to make her like the others, but for some reason he couldn’t. Maybe it was that her body looked so nimble and strong, and death did not befit her. Maybe it was that she could serve him better alive by blending in. Whatever the reason, he replaced her higher mind, the one that served to think, feel emotions, plan for the future, and hold values, with a gentle numbness that gradually spread to her body. She had smiled then, with something that might have been relief, and sank into his waiting arms.
It was only later that he noticed that the scratches and markings on her forearm formed a meaningful pattern. The key to the riddle was locked in the mind that he had just destroyed.
The stirring behind him broke into his thoughts. It was unusual to hear a creature where he was. After all, it wasn’t called the Isle of the Dead to attract tourists. The island was perpetually shrouded in a thick fog. Sailors went far out of their way to avoid it, lest they strike the hull of their ships on some hidden rock. It had been the perfect place for Corizaz to recuperate after his unfortunate defeat at Freeton.
He had been very foolish to leave himself so vulnerable behind only two lines of defense. But he was younger then, and had learned from his mistakes. Wasn’t that what life was all about? Still, he often cursed himself for his lack of planning. If he had not had extraordinary luck, he might have perished years ago and fallen far short of his goal. As it was, there was an abundance of soulless organic matter left on the fields of the Savannah Plain following the War of the Orb. It had been a simple matter to use it to construct for himself a new body, although the process had taken nearly five years. What an advantage he missed, though, by not being able to bury the dead of that war. The army he could ha
ve raised! Now he was forced to pick off travelers, the homeless, and special enemies.
He did not know who had built the graveyard and imbued it with its power. It was someone who was talented, of that much he was sure. Yet, the maker was not meticulous, as Corizaz was. Small, important details had been left out when the cemetery had first been constructed. In the ten years since he came there, Corizaz had been able to tweak the processes of creating skull knights and had experimented with making many more creatures.
Streams of magical essence, magergy, crisscrossed the entire Lands of Daranor. At peace, the magergy spread out over the land like a blanket, covering everything. Humans and other creatures created it, sending off small flakes as they went about their daily business. When people became impassioned, they released more from their souls. Most people wouldn’t feel it, or even know it was there. They might sense it at times when it was particularly strong. The love between two young people was really the creation of a channel for the magergy that flowed between their life-forces. Those few who were really in tune with it, magicians, could tap into the currents and transfer magergy to energy, creating change in the world.
Several prominent streams traversed the Isle of the Dead, and the graveyard was situated at the epicenter. Once a creature’s soul had fled the body, the magergy could infuse it with new life. Although the body was indestructible, it was difficult to create. Impurities in the body were quickly eaten up in the soil during the required incubation. The corpses rotted before they had enough time to absorb all of the magical energy required to run their bodies.
He had been able to improve on the process by finding the precise locations of the magergy streams and creating magical lenses to focus the beams more intensely on a small patch of earth. He had also found that casting powerful spells immediately before burying a corpse caused a loss of local magergy. Magergy rushed in to fill the void, often overcorrecting slightly until it settled back into equilibrium.
By focusing more magergy into the graveyard, he had been able to reduce the time required to create an undead creature from six months to two. Reducing the time in the ground was important not only from the standpoint of making more skull knights in a given amount of time, but also because now he could make different creatures. A horse could not withstand six months in the ground. By the time it came out it would be so decayed that although it might be able to stand, it could never support a rider.
The stirring grew louder and he knew that his next batch was ready. They were already breaking through the ground, a half dozen or so skull knights and his newest experiment. The knights stepped forward, dazed, and Corizaz began to murmur the spell that would bind them to his will forever. They eagerly complied, shuffling forward, one of them limping slightly.
He was less pleased with his other creation. A small bird hobbled in the ground, flapping its bony wings. The advantages of having flying undead creatures were obvious, but he had never been able to produce one. Wings were fragile, and began to decay after only a few days in the ground. By the time the creature had absorbed enough magergy, its wings were always little more than bone and useless.
The bird stepped around, trying to relearn to walk. Frustrated, it attempted to fly, but flapping its wings hard did not lift it from the ground. Corizaz scowled. He would continue to work on it. Perhaps if he bound some sort of leather sheet to the wings…
He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. There was so much to do, and things were starting to move so fast. But soon, she would be with him, and his plan would move into the next stage.
***********************
The dreams didn’t stop. In fact, they only got worse—much worse. And actually, they weren’t even dreams. Dreams were what you had only when you were asleep. Dreams were fantastical creations of truth and imagination, situations where you recognized your surroundings but the laws of nature could be stretched and bent. Dreams told of the past, present, and a future that might or might not be.
What he had were more like memories, but they were so vivid and lucid that he had begun to have trouble differentiating them from real life. He even felt what he had felt then—he felt the pit of his stomach drop out, felt his blood run cold in his veins, felt like half of his soul had been ripped from him, felt like he would never be happy again. They came mostly when he was asleep, but they tormented his waking moments as well. He would be forced to replay a situation from a past long-forgotten, the dormant memories bubbling over from somewhere inside of his soul. Of course, he had long remembered the main events. How could he ever forget something like that? Yet, he had no idea that such an extraordinarily detailed recollection was buried inside of him. His mind had always been good at analyzing the current situation and connecting it with small tidbits of information hidden away. It was a valuable skill. For instance, it made him seem funnier than he was. Rather than always making up a new joke, he could usually recall a clever thing that someone else had said in a similar situation, and modify it appropriately. Now, it scared him to remember what he had forgotten.
He saw himself back at home, after it was over. For the first few months, he honestly didn’t think he could survive and retain his sanity. His mind’s ability to recall details now became a curse. Everything he saw reminded him of her. He would never have imagined that their lives were already so intertwined, like the ancient ivy plants twisting together through the trees of his home. He would walk down a path, and painstakingly remember each of the dozens of times that they had trod that very same path together. He would pass by a patch of flowers where he had once planted a rose bush for her. Somehow, the plant knew, and had begun to wither.
He couldn’t even eat anymore. Each dish reminded him of a time when they had cooked it together. Even the sight of a simple papple would remind him of the times that they had ventured off alone together to pick them. In order to get a good catch, one usually had to wander off quite far, as all the trees in the main orchards were picked early on in the season. They didn’t need to go far, however. She could always get the fruits that no one else was daring enough to reach. The ones that were far out on the thin branches that even children knew they couldn’t grasp without falling. It wasn’t that she never fell—sometimes she even enjoyed it, grabbing a few choice fruits on the way down.
Still, they did go to remote trees, just to be alone and to lie feeding each other cool, crisp slices. She had always peeled off the skin for him, just the way he liked it…
And so it went. There was a long story for each memory. He tried to cherish them, but it was too painful. How true it was that you could never realize the value of something until it was forcibly taken from you.
His own pain he could deal with. After all, he was not in a position where weakness was allowed. Thousands looked to him for strength, and he knew he could not betray them by failing to be strong. Yet, he was totally unprepared to deal with her pain. It should have been him. She had promised.
It should have been him.
The last time he had seen her, he believed that she was still there. In her eyes…he knew that he had looked into her soul. Yet, her mind had been so terrible. She was foaming at the mouth, shrieking out in some strange tongue, hysterically jerking her body about in a haphazard fashion. But her eyes had been so…pleading.
The guilt ate him up inside until it spit out a hollow shell. It should have been him. He was only eighteen. He could not imagine the pain that she had been in—no, he corrected himself—the pain she still was in. He knew that she would be tormented like this for the rest of her life. He only prayed that the end would come soon. As he did he felt an even deeper pang of guilt for wishing this. He had to hold onto her for as long as possible. There had to be a way to heal her. Yet, how could he heal her when he couldn’t even find her?
The months stretched on to seasons, and she did not return home. Every day he wondered if she would, if whatever had happened would simply ‘wear off’ and she would come home healed and ready to live.
&
nbsp; She had always healed quickly. He remembered the first time that he noticed her. He always knew her by face, but he hadn’t really learned about her until one day when he was passing by and saw some older boys playing with sticks in a fire. One boy would take a stick out and hold it at arms length from his companion, who would proceed to strike the branch quickly. The wind from the blow could put out a small flame. If he struck quickly and closely enough, the boy could extinguish the flame without burning himself.
She was only eleven years old at the time, and wanted to play with the boys, but they were a few years older, and suggested that she attend to some girlish diversions instead. They kept taunting her until she began to leave. Thinking to give one final insult, one rather obnoxious boy picked up the largest branch from the fire and held it out.
Her lips sealed in a tranquil rage, she walked straight up to him and without saying a word struck out with her hand and grasped the burning end of the stick. It was so sudden and forceful it was as if her arm was a snake striking its prey. The boy holding it didn’t flinch, but everyone else took a step back in shock. She held her ground, her face smooth as an alabaster statue. The smell of burning flesh and gentle curl of smoke was the only indication that she was in extreme pain. No one knew how long she held the stick. To the boys it seemed like eternity, and to her it certainly seemed much longer. Finally, she dropped the smoldering remains and left the rest feeling as if their manhood had just been sucked out from their chests.
He had run after her then. At first, she hadn’t wanted him to help her, but he knew that a burn like that would become infected if not treated properly. He gradually nursed her hand back to pink normality, and in so doing gained her trust and admiration.
Lands of Daranor: Book 02 - ProphecyQuest Page 10
