“I’m home.”
The room could not have been more than ten feet, both deep and wide, and the walls were black and textured as if the hut had been gutted by fire. Faint light trickled through the holes in the roof like tiny rays of white sunlight, or bright stars across a black night. A small table sat in the middle of the room with a wooden chair behind it, both the color of ash and mold, and on the table a dirty glass sat next to a corked black bottle.
The quiet sound of crinkling paper rose as Orman sat down at the table and pulled his hood back. With his dark-gray face revealed fully, his teeth and eyes looked quite intense. Every gleaming tooth in his mouth looked as though it might come alive, and the whites of his eyes shone as vibrant casings to the black holes of his irises. He uncorked the bottle and poured dark-red wine into the short and dusty glass. Then he shot the liquid back as if taking medicine.
“Oh,” he proclaimed to an empty room, “I brought you something.” Orman reached down to the black sack at his side and retrieved the severed head of Whiteclaw tribe chief Fordrick Redcroft. He held the head high and then tossed it into a rear corner of the room that was littered with dried bones. “There you go.”
Suddenly, the room came alive, and the sound that seemed like crinkling paper intensified mightily. Indeed, the walls had not been textured and warped by a forgotten fire but instead had been completely covered with dark-black butterflies, exactly like the one that had landed on Orman’s shoulder. Like a mighty rush of wind, they flew toward the head in the corner and smothered the tribe chief’s remains with their swarm.
Orman filled the small glass with more wine as butterflies fluttered around him in the hundreds. This time he sipped the wine slowly, savoring it as a precious thing. He hummed with satisfaction, at peace amid the frenzy. Minutes passed, and then the room calmed once again. Orman raised his glass to finish his drink but then stopped short and turned his head to the side.
“What’s that you say?” he asked.
The rustle of the butterflies came like a whisper.
“We have another guest, you say? A visitor to our home on the Solar Road?”
The sound of the butterflies rose and fell as if they were truly communicating with Orman.
“Take me to them,” Orman said finally, and at his command the hundreds of butterflies rushed toward him, covering every inch of his body. Then, in an instant, the butterflies and Orman had left the small shack in the bay.
• • •
When the butterflies left Orman’s body and his sight was no longer obscured, he found himself in a very familiar place. It was the place by which he had first come to Ferren all those years ago, the Solar Road. Orman looked upward to the great ring of fire hanging in the sky. It swirled and flared around its dark center in the same fashion as a solar eclipse. That was the very reason this place was called the Solar Road, but whether Orman was indeed seeing the sun, eclipsed by another planet, he did not know. No one did. The Solar Road was a mystical place, and even those who were familiar with it knew very little about it.
Out from Orman’s feet extended a long stripe of fine yellow sand, a road as far as the eye could see. This was the road that would take a traveler to Earth from Ferren, or to Ferren from Earth. The strip of sand was roughly ten feet wide, and to either side of it stretched infinite darkness. Even the sky that the ring of fire sat in was dark.
The rule of the Solar Road was simple. You stayed on the road and walked straight. You did not deviate into the shadow. Orman laughed in his mind as he thought of this rule followed by fools. For Orman believed it was in the shadow where people truly found themselves. After all, it was the shadow that had given him a second chance at life, it was the shadow that had given him power beyond measure, and it was the shadow that had shown him his soul. Orman Eil Dragaredd did not walk the Solar Road; he made a home in its shadow.
He turned from the bright-yellow sand of the road and disappeared into the darkness with hundreds of black butterflies flying in his wake. His home was not far from where he was now. This place in the darkness was the place he considered his true home, not the shack on those salty rocks. That was merely an outpost, a hideaway, a feint. His true home was a place only he and his jawhar knew of, and they preferred it that way. Orman thought back to the moment his jawhar had come to him, as it had been while he was sitting in these very shadows. He had meditated in the darkness, down in the place where no one else would dare to go, and then they came to him in the thousands, a kaleidoscope of black light.
There was no other way he could describe it. They did not interrupt the shadow; they were simply a part of it. To Orman they were a marvel that had dropped his jaw. Once they had accepted him, they landed on his pale skin in droves, and that was when the transformation had taken place. Orman had not been born with skin like gray ash. It was a gift, a marking given to him by his jawhar. As they had sat on him in the darkness, they touched his skin with their power, and slowly, like water soaking into a cloth, Orman had become one with them. Now he commanded them by the thousands. They heeded his call whether near or far. He could dispatch them to every corner of Ferren if he chose. Even now, droves of his jawhar waited for him in his home—a home of pure shadow only he and his jawhar could behold.
He ascended the steps of his dark abode, his villa of shadow. The great entryway swung wide as he approached, doors massive like mountainous stone. Now in the entrance hall, the soft flutter of his butterflies echoed off of the walls.
“You said we had a guest,” Orman said, wondering where the visitor was hiding.
At his words butterflies lifted off of the visitor they had been hiding, and the bright-red light of Minas, the jawhar of Sigrid Sif, appeared in Orman’s great hall. The red bird cowered in the shadow and cooed nervously as she looked around. Orman walked forward and extended his hand in peace.
“I understand,” he said. “You are confused. Your zul master has died, and now you have no home and no purpose. Your insides ache with a loss you cannot comprehend. But there is a future for you, my pet, and I can take your pain away.”
The bird trembled as Orman moved closer, the whites of his eyes now reflecting the bright-red light of Minas’s body. Orman touched the neck of the bird gently, and Minas pulled away in reaction. He then bowed his head in respect and slowly moved his hand closer to the bird’s neck. This time, Minas allowed the man’s touch.
“Tell me you wish to be relieved of your pain,” Orman said, “and I can take it away. I can give you a new home. Every jawhar that has ever shared a soul with a zul master has faced or will face the pain you suffer now. I am not the first who has helped a lost jawhar, and I will not be the last. This is a rite that has been passed down for longer than I can measure.” Orman looked into the scared creature’s eyes. “Tell me you wish to be relieved of your pain.”
Minas stared back into Orman’s eyes, and suddenly the man was flushed with all the pain the bird was feeling. The years upon years of love Minas had for Sigrid poured through the bird and into his heart, and tears flowed from his eyes in rivulets. The pain of Minas’s broken bond threatened to wrench Orman’s insides until they were a pulp. Then, like the passing crest of a wave, it was gone. Without words, the bird looked into Orman’s eyes and silently asked to be without pain.
Orman nodded, removed his hand from Minas’s neck, and stepped away. Then he raised a single finger and pointed toward Minas. That was all the command the butterflies needed. They swarmed forward and covered the red bird of light, blotting her out completely. Hundreds of butterflies did their work, while Orman stood and waited. After a minute had passed, the butterflies floated up and away, revealing their handiwork.
Floating in Orman’s home, where Minas had once been, was now a monster. Deep-red eyes were set above rows of long, warped yellow teeth. Long skeletal arms hung at either side of the creature, and it was wrapped in a torn red shroud. Where Minas once had been was now a mindless and hollow red specter.
Orman pointed into
the distance. “Follow the Solar Road, my pet. You will find your new home on Earth.”
The specter floated away and out of the large doors of Orman’s home. Orman watched it go trailing off into the distance like a dull echo and took a deep breath. This was always a reverent moment for him. No matter how many times he took part in this ancient and mystical ritual, he cherished it. He turned from the door and looked back to where Minas had been. Then he walked over to the spot and bent low to the floor. He reached his hand out and picked up a blue phosphorescent chrysalis.
Holding the soft oblong enclosure gently in his hand, he stood to full height and waited. A moment passed, Orman keeping his breath still, and then his miracle occurred. The chrysalis moved and shook, rocking back, then forth, and finally a seam appeared along its length. Then a small black butterfly emerged from the seam, stood on Orman’s palm, and unfolded its wings. Orman’s kaleidoscope had gained a new member. He bent his head toward the tiny butterfly and smiled.
“Welcome to the fold.”
END OF BOOK ONE
For information on Book Two, find your way to:
www.dylanleepeters.com
The Hands of Ruin: Book One Page 21
