The Vitalis Chronicles: Tomb of the Relequim

by Jay Swanson

  The jungle south of White Shores grew as thick as he remembered it, but thinned out sooner than expected. Much sooner, in fact. The trees were being clear cut, the ground burned in their wake. What they could possibly need this much wood for was beyond the Shade. And then he saw them.

  The Titans flew straight for him, low to the ground, slow, making an attempt to appear as non-threatening as possible. The Shade swallowed hard against the knot that rose from his stomach. Another step towards the brink.

  “Well well,” said the one as they landed. “You're back so soon.”

  “We thought you had no use of our friendship,” said the other.

  “It's not your friendship I'm here for,” the Shade retorted sharply.

  “No,” said the first. “Of course not. But you might like our help in any case.”

  “Indeed,” said the other. “I'd be willing to wager you have no plan of how to get to Ilthuln.”

  “It is a great distance.”

  “And there is much danger.”

  “Especially for one of your reputation.”

  “There aren't many who take kindly to you this side of the sea.”

  “As few as those who wouldn't spit you on a stake on sight.”

  The Shade didn't know how much of this he was supposed to put up with, but it was beginning to grate on his nerves. “I take it your master sent you, then. To propose a solution to my travel needs?”

  “He's not our master.” The first bristled under the suggestion.

  The Shadow King thought it best to curb his tongue, he had forgotten how much they cherished their illusion of freedom. As much as he would have enjoyed twisting that blade, he let it be.

  “But yes, we have been sent to help you make better time,” said the other before the Shade could practice his temperance. “We can take you the first leg of your journey.”

  “To the borders of the Western Kingdom.”

  “From there we should be able to arrange a horse.”

  “Eating horses sounds preferable to riding them to me.”

  “We can't leave our post for long, but we would rather risk that than part from each other.”

  “You'll be able to ride to Ilthuln on your own, if you can manage to avoid the white patrols.”

  “We have things to do. Important things. Which is why we must be certain you are capable of finishing that which you have started.”

  That took the Shade back for a second. “Of course I am.”

  “There are people that stand in your way. Men clad in fur and steel, bearing spears and bows.”

  “Men who have families. Families that live only to die to protect that which you would undo. You would destroy the seal you once swore to preserve, guarded by those you once swore to defend.”

  The Shadow King's resolve overturned the objections in his chest. He could feel his heart solidifying under the pressure of the challenge. He would do whatever it took to see his part of the bargain through. “I'll finish it. I have no other choice.”

  The two Titans eyed him as their wings flexed and folded behind them. Their leathery skin tightened over their arms as they crossed them over their chests.

  “He is right in his assertion. He has no other choice.”

  The Shadow King swallowed hard to hear the ancient say it. His path wasn't as simple as he wanted to believe it was. “Well.” He looked between them, still unable to truly tell them apart. “Which one of you will be carrying me then?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THERE WAS A FACE IN THE DARKNESS. Something hazy, a pale blur in an otherwise black existence. But he knew it was a face; somehow he knew. He could hear it speak, the sound as warped and blurry as the mouth that made it. He might as well have been underwater, the experience was similar enough.

  The voice was breaking through the haze. Slowly but surely he heard his name. “Ardin.” It sounded strange to him, but comforting nonetheless.

  I'm here, he thought to himself. Come find me if you're so interested.

  “Ardin.” The face was clearing up. It was a woman of some sort. “Ardin, listen to me.”

  I'm listening, he thought. Apparently you can't read my mind to know that though.

  “Ardin, where are you?”

  I'm right here. Was she more blind than he?

  “Ardin, I need you to listen. Where are you?”

  “Here.” The word was forced. It was much more comfortable to think than to speak.

  Her dark eyes grew clear to him, locking on him as she searched him out. “Ardin, what are you doing?”

  “Resting.” He wasn't actually sure, but he did feel like he could sleep forever here in the warm closeness of the dark. “I was tired.”

  “You can't stay here, Ardin.”

  “What does it matter?” The words were coming more easily. “I can't go back.”

  “You have to go back.”

  “No.” Whoever this voice was had no idea. No idea what he had done. Not a clue what he was capable of. “I'm tired, I just want to rest a moment.”

  “Ardin.” She was materializing now. He could see dark hair, a long neck, shoulders. She was beautiful. “Ardin you can't stay here. If you don't go back, more people will die. Believe me.”

  “What do you know?” Her assertions felt arrogant to him. Even if they sounded sincere. “I don't even know where I am, or how... how did I get here?”

  “You've been here before.”

  “Is this a dream?”

  “No, Ardin. In the mountains, you were here before.”

  “The wraith?”

  “That's right.”

  “Then you're...” She was clear as a sunrise then. “Alisia!”

  She laughed, the sound musical in the black. “I didn't think that would take so long.”

  “This isn't real then, though, is it?” Disappointment followed his joy like a cat on a mouse.

  “As a matter of fact, it's very real.”

  “How?”

  “This is the Magaic Plain, Ardin. It's the method through which we communicate our thoughts.”

  “Your... thoughts? That doesn't make any sense.”

  “When you met my mother in the Cave, she spoke to you, didn't she?”

  “Yes.” He wasn't particularly fond of the memory. “It was like she was in my head.”

  “She was talking to you from here. The Magi used the Plain to speak to each other. But as time went on some were able to bridge the gap and speak to humans.”

  “Then the wraith...” This still didn't make a lot of sense to Ardin. “What was that then? Was that someone attacking me?”

  “Not necessarily. Where we step into the Plain represents a part of ourselves. It's why you'll need to build up defenses in time. Others can enter your thoughts through this place.”

  “It's so empty...” He found he could turn to look around. Nothing surrounded them save empty black with patches of gray where the ground should have been.

  “You can build whatever you like here, and then bring people to you. Like me. You just want to make sure you build it in such a manner that while no one uninvited can get in, you yourself don't get locked out. That creates a whole new world of problems.”

  “So the wraith was a part of me?”

  “I think so. You were carrying a lot of guilt, Ardin. A lot of pain. There's a part of you that would give up, a part that wishes you hadn't escaped and survived when you had. If those feelings become strong enough, they will manifest themselves here. I struggled similarly when they took me from my mother and left me with the Guard.”

  That did make sense to Ardin. As much as he may have liked to deny it, there was a part of him that wanted to lie down and give up. “Dying has its silver lining... which brings me back to you. How are you here?”

  “The Uriquim.” She pointed at his chest. “The Soul Stone you carry around your neck. It holds a connection to me, Ardin. As long as you carry it, I'm always close. Even when you lost it, having carried it left its mark.”

&nb
sp; “So you're not really here,” he said with more than a hint of sadness. “You're still gone.”

  “I'm here.” She smiled as she touched his arm. It gave him goosebumps all over to feel her skin on his. “This can be as real as anything, Ardin. But it's not where you should be right now.”

  He backed away from her at that. “Why shouldn't I be?” The boy in him was coming out. Tall, gray walls began to form in the void. “Why shouldn't I have peace? Just a little rest? All I want is to be free for a while. Free of the fears, of the expectations... and... there's you.”

  She walked gracefully through the small maze he had raised subconsciously.

  “You're here. Why wouldn't I want to be here?”

  “Because you're needed elsewhere right now.” She put her hand on his cheek this time. The touch was light, gentle, but the sensation was so intense he almost fell into her. “You were meant for things I dreamed of once...”

  “Once,” he said grudgingly. “But no more. Not now that you've been taken.”

  “Not now that I see the cost...” There was sadness in her tone as well. It matched the way she was looking at him now. “You have to accept the fact that you have power. Assume it. There's no other way to move forward. If you continue to worry, to be self-conscious, you'll only continue to trip yourself up. When we focus on ourselves, we're incapable of seeing the world around us.”

  He thought back to the clearing, to Rain and the Woads. “I've accepted it better than I think you know, Alisia.” He thought of the asylum and shuddered. “Perhaps better than you want to know.”

  “I'll be waiting for you Ardin. I know it doesn't feel like much now, but I'll wait for you. Remember the mountains, Ardin? How we said we would go back there one day? We can do that still, if you want it badly enough. But that road lies ahead of you, Ardin. Not behind. You're earning your place next to me. As for me... after all this I think I'll be the one who needs to earn my place next to you.”

  “Alisia... I–” He cut himself short as something dark flew overhead. The ripple it left in the air caused them both to shiver involuntarily. “What was that?”

  “I don't know.” Was that fear in her voice? “Ardin, you have to go back.” Fear turned to urgency.

  Something else flew overhead. The dark chill was more intense this time, lingering.

  “Now.”

  “How will I find you again?” He didn't want to see her go.

  She hugged him in response, holding him closer than he had ever imagined would be possible again. “I'm always close, Ardin. I can't offer you much, but I'll give what I can.” She pushed him away, taking slow steps from him as she kept her eyes locked on his. “Go, Ardin. Go before it's too late.”

  “But Alisia...” He reached out his hand, but she was fading.

  “Go.”

  “I just want to tell you, I–” but she was already gone.

  The walls he had put up around himself were simple, but strange to him nonetheless. They were plain, gray. And now they seemed imposing. The air around him, if air it was, grew cold. He wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. He had to go back. Had to return to himself... however that worked. This was more confusing than manipulating the Atmosphere had ever been.

  He shook the frustration away and clenched his eyes shut. He focused. Imagined himself waking up. Imagined the old Fisherman standing over him, grinning as the worry washed out of his face. He would be tired from waiting for him to heal up. Waiting for him to return. He imagined the warmth taking him and felt it stir in response. And then it was growing, moving slowly through his chest and into his limbs until every part of him tingled. He could feel the mists exiting his body and swirling around him. Was this real, or was this only part of the Plain? He could feel himself, his body somehow apart from his mind. He forced his way in, concentrating on restoring control, and then he was in. He opened his eyes as the world flashed white before him, and he was awake.

  He blinked in the darkness, his eyes dry and unwilling to focus. His breathing was difficult, raspy. He could feel it slide in and out over bloodied lips. Whether they were cracked from some injury or just dry, he couldn't tell. But there was a figure above him. He could just make out the silhouette against a patch of starry sky. Was he indoors?

  He tried to smile, tried to say something to the figure, but a hand covered his mouth before he could try. It wasn't a hand large enough to be the Fisherman. Ardin's mind was slogging forward, but then the truth slit through the haze. It wasn't the Fisherman at all.

  Steel slid against leather as a long knife appeared in the figure's free hand. Stars danced along its edge before it was thrust into Ardin's chest.

  Branston lay awake that night in the burned-out temple. He had been studying it to stave off sleep as much as anything. The longer he thought about it, the more it bothered him to be here. The temple hadn't been built long ago, he could tell by the plaster near the base of the wall. It was still relatively fresh from recent repairs. Maybe the place was ten years old. The rest of the pale plaster had either been blackened by soot or had cracked and fallen off in the heat of the fire. The country folk in the Truan villages adhered to a strange religion. It held much of its roots in old Thranish witchcraft; he didn't claim to understand it. In fact, it made him uncomfortable just to be near one of their shrines, let alone inside a burned-out temple. It was nothing like the tall-spired, majestic temple in Islenda.

  But it wasn't the proximity to the little gods of streams and vales that kept him awake. It was murder. He wouldn't sleep tonight. He was afraid he might never again get the chance, but it had to happen this way. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he had to do. If he tried to act in the light of day, he would never be able to succeed. If he pulled his friends into it, they would share his fate. And as self-centered as Branston may have been, he wished no harm on his champions. In the end, he was all alone, though he hoped they would come to forgive him.

  The crude pillars that ran through the room supported what was left of the caving roof. It wasn't much higher than twenty feet at its vaulted center. Some low walls remained between the tall cylindrical sandstone, though they looked liable to crumble at any moment. He had walked the entirety of the temple four times, pacing the pillars to see if they were uniformly set, memorizing distances between piles of rubble. In the end he knew it all like he'd built and torn the place down himself.

  The cuts on his back and shoulders burned. They were still raw, and probably diseased. Woads were filthy creatures, the one that had attacked him had stunk like rotting meat. He shuddered to remember it. If it hadn't been for that so-called captain, Cid, he probably would have died. He recognized that now, as much as he hated to. He didn't trust the old man, but he was grateful. Perhaps Branston's opinion of him was even beginning to sway.

  When they had picked themselves up and walked through the draw where Ardin had saved Rain, they saw the carnage for what it was. It was enough to make some of the men dizzy. Branston had been left in awe, and though he would never admit it, it made him afraid. Very afraid. No one should be able to do this, he had thought as they rode their horses past piles and piles of black, stinking corpses. No one should be this powerful.

  They wouldn't listen to him, though. No matter how hard he tried to tell them to leave the old man and his boy behind, they refused to listen. Shill respected the old man too much, and Rain... Rain was the worst. She felt like she owed the boy something now. And worse: she loved him. He could see it in her eyes. The way she would sit with him and tend to his wounds. The way she looked at him. Perhaps it wasn't romantic. Perhaps it was out of deep respect or her desperate hopes or simple feminine foolishness. But it was the way Branston had always dreamed she would look at him, not some little commoner from across the sea.

  And what did she know? She was swept up in the moment, in being saved by someone in whom she already believed blindly. The boy represented her hopes, everything she had been told from childhood, every story of redemption, of sal
vation, of the end of the Relequim. All of it. Every last drop was embodied in the boy who lay dying under the same roof this very night. Even if he didn't fit the prophecies perfectly, the level of his power as unleashed on the Woads was enough to confirm her conviction.

  Just thinking about it made him clench his fists as he lay on the cold stone floor of the temple. His shoulders ached in response, but he couldn't help himself. The whole situation was wracking his body in spasms of rage that were nearly impossible to hide. And now, because of this boy, he was forced to risk everything. Rain would never see things as they were, and after tonight she would probably hang him. He sighed, trying to restrain the sound of it but letting it loose nonetheless.

  What he did, he did for love of her. He knew that much to be true. And though she might never see it, though she might never love him, he had to do this. It wasn't in his blood to be noble, not really. But he hoped that maybe, just maybe, she would see to the heart of things and forgive him. Even respect him in time.

  The watch changed shifts as four men walked outside to relieve their brothers. Branston knew that once the first watch had fallen asleep, the best opportunity would present itself. It was then that he must act.

  Waiting for those men to fall asleep was one of the more painstaking experiences of his life. If longsuffering held no meaning to Branston before that night, it earned definition as he waited. He could hear their breathing. Deep. Irregular. One shifted in the dark as he sought comfort in the rubble. Branston knew there was none to be found, the man would sleep soon anyways. Riding through the hills for a few days could make any surface comfortable. But it didn't help that what he assumed was supposed to be tile was shoddily put together and uneven at best.