by Derek Barton
“Meld to me.” The same voice in his head commanded.
All but one of the Balshazra shrank and the lizards including the prince’s vision owner swam to the Lead. It puffed up and swelled to three times its normal size to accommodate the stowaways.
The Lead opened its mouth wide. From inside, the lizard somehow produced a bio-luminescence spark of purple-tinted light. The spark revealed the area in a quick two-count burst. He continued to produce the flashes all around them. Taihven glimpsed their immediate surroundings: a flowing murky pool of water that flowed down the center of a tunnel corridor, several adjoining circular tunnels and a series of odd-shaped, stone statues placed on a platform at the end of the tunnel forty feet behind them. The structure appeared to be man-made.
Without a sound, the Lead slithered toward the adjoining tunnels. The secrecy and the tension that Taihven felt through the vision owner made him wonder what the Balshazra were doing. This was not a simple exploration of another land. This was indeed a scouting or a fact-finding investigation. Ahead, faint, flickering light cast shadows, but no movement or alarm was raised. They traveled along a side tube for some time.
The corridor ended in another chamber similar to the first room that they had gated into, but this one had torches ensconced into the walls. Another platform was adorned with more humanoid statutes. Two twin sets of stone stairs wound up to another level overhead. An archway was cut into the eastern corner of the platform that led off into the dark. A waterfall coming out of a stone pipe on the northern wall flooded into the pool.
As the Lead slithered over to the archway, the sound of footsteps filled the room as someone came down one stairwell. Two creatures that walked like men, patrolled together and both brandished a metallic hook and torch combination. Each of the humanoids had long ivory beaks and thin ears that peaked out of their long hair. The Lead pressed up against the wall within the shadows.
The men-creatures squawked at each other as they made it to the platform. One with black and white, spiky hair surveyed the pool and swept his torch out over the water, using the light to examine the pool. The other male with reddish brown hair maintained his patrol over to the matching stairwell and halted at the foot of the steps. It swept its own hook-torch to play his light at the other end along the statues and platform.
When the black-and-white guard’s light exposed them hiding in the corner, the Lead shot forward. It opened its mouth again and knocked the man-creature off its feet with a ray of lightning. Balshazra rippled off the Lead’s back in waves like rats leaving a ship. The first patroller rushed back across the platform, but the blitzing swarm of Balshazra buried the other guard en masse and toppled him over into the water.
The commotion from the two attacks caught more unwanted attention. A loud series of footsteps and shouts could be heard from above their heads. At least a half dozen more men-creatures were stampeding toward them. One, balding with white hair, shouted in an unrecognized tongue and pointed at the ceiling.
Taihven spotted for the first time, several, chained metal boxes which were hung unnoticed over the Balshazra party. Inside them, Taihven saw six or seven massive beetles. They were at least a meter wide each with massive glowing bellies. The beetles crawled to their cage’s edges.
“They have Reaxes!” The Balshazra Lead warned all. A quick flashing image of a rocky island with massive active volcanos came across Taihven’s mind. Several of the beetles could be seen crawling out of the lava flows.
On cue, the beetles commenced to belching small fiery globs down upon them. This new addition turned the battle tide against the raiding party. Burning lizard bodies had begun to litter the platform and pool.
“Proafdes!” The Lead barked aloud.
“Donsiam Donstoa Reas Vash-kekaa.”
Taihven glimpsed a ring capturing an image of the familiar marsh waters of the lizards’ Home. The retreat was swift, but not without more casualties.
The prince was caught off guard by the last vision’s events. Experiencing the different memories and reliving the chaotic events were taking a toll on him. Again, he heard the mage’s words invoking a new gate.
The ring started by Proafdes opened before his mind’s eye. Inside the ring was a familiar desert of white glassy sand and stunted trees.
“Stop! Stop, please!” He shouted.
His own memories of fleeing from the Soul Render Cubes within the desert surfaced in his mind. His remembered the terror and the haunting words. TIME HAS COME FOR EACH ARTADEUS TO ANSWER FOR US! TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO ANSWER IN BLOOD!
Taihven shuddered.
“We will stop.” Kayema Re’amal spoke. Her head tilted in confusion and concern showed in her large doe-like eyes.
“Perhaps you would like to see more at another time?” Akuem offered.
The embarrassed youth coughed and shook his head to clear it of the painful thoughts. “I would. Sorry, but I...uh, I am just tired.”
The four other reptiles removed their paws from him and bowed to Akuem. Then they backed away and left the room together. Proafdes had glanced over her shoulder as she left and gave him a knowing grin as she left. “Imaadrasj.”
Taihven looked up at Akuem by his left shoulder. “What did she say?”
“Mage.” he answered. “You are of power like Proafdes. That is a true gift, Prince Taihven.”
“You are all gifted, Akuem. Each of you can cast Lightning Spells and you can alter your bodies at will! I would have never imagined the existence of such a creature.”
He shook his head. “No, We are not Imaadrasj. Our abilities come from our natural bodies. Lightning is part of Us and empowers our shrinking as well. Few can learn new power like you and Proafdes.”
“Really? So, it is jus—” Taihven’s words were cut short as an intense cramp tore along his side.
Taihven toppled over onto his knees and he hugged his stomach. He could not scream as the pain crippled him. He was barely aware of Akuem’s paws upon him as his body convulsed on its own. His leg muscles coiled in on themselves and bunched tightly together. His arm muscles were next and the prince squeezed into an odd ball of flesh. Taihven’s neck and head were bent inward. Akuem was powerless to help as the youth’s body folded into an insane fetal position and imploded as it vanished.
PART VIII — UNLEASHED:
Noontime of Helmlaadar 13th~~
#1
The world swam back into focus as Taihven found himself lying flat upon a metal floor. He was still holding himself around the stomach and curled into a fetal position. Wherever he was, it was without windows and there was a slight chill. Pain vaguely pulsed through his whole body. His back and limbs all protested the rough physical treatment they went through.
Whatever had happened, he realized he should not have lived through it. Was that a nightmare? Was it another illusion or a progressive symptom to his malady – am I getting worse? Will Letandra be forced to hide me away in some vault like a dirty secret or worse, an insane patient? The questions nagged him as he laid face down.
“O Lady Haethraa, I am truly lost.
Need your light to shine my way.
Can you hear my pleas?
Bless me with your shield over my head.”
Taihven whispered the small prayer aloud. He found himself increasingly more religious these days as his problems mounted. Right now he needed someone to focus on.
Taihven tried to sit up, but his sore back muscles cramped up. The cramps were severe and all he could do was breathe through the pain. After a few long minutes, he managed to raise up onto his elbows when his nose started to bleed profusely. He stemmed the flow as best he could with his jacket sleeves. It took a scary amount of time before it dried up. And another symptom of a worsening malady, he mused.
The prince sat up and put his back against a wall. The whole room was dramatically tiny and confined. He swept his arms wide and they collided with the walls. A sudden nightmare vision of being buried alive ran across his vivid imagination
.
Taihven raised his hand in front of him and wrote the sigil in the air to evoke a Hand Torch spell.
“Eeeyah!” The prince shrieked in shock. Another man sat in silence across from him. The stranger stared at him without expression. He was sitting cross-legged only three feet across from Taihven.
“Who are you? Where are we?” He demanded.
The man did not break his expression or stare. Taihven determined he was alive since the man’s chest did rise and lower with each breath.
He held the flame in his palm closer to the man’s face, “Answer me, damn you!”
His cellmate did not move or gave the slightest indication that he knew Taihven was inside the room with him. The prince surveyed the room around him. His fears were beginning to be confirmed. The walls were all a bronze metal and inscribed with hairline etched runes and magical symbols.
“Please, let this be another dream,” He whispered to himself.
The stranger was dressed in old yet once elegant clothes. His skin was pale and prematurely wrinkled. It was stretched tight over the cheekbones of his face. The whiskers on his face and along his chin were all bleached white. Scraggly hair dangled down over his left eye. Other than pale green eyes, the man was for all accounts an albino.
A sudden realization flooded Taihven’s mind.
“You… you were Bareth Cros’seau’s boy? But you cannot be!”
Then I am in the Soul Render, his thoughts raced to a horrid conclusion.
Gravely laughter erupted from Cros’seau’s thin lips. Insanity and life bled into his eyes and an icy grin cracked across his face.
“You are an omen of great evil to come, boy!” His cackles filled the room.
Cros’seau leaned across and a motion from his hand doused Taihven’s Hand Torch.
***
The two sat within feet of each other in utter darkness. Auste could hear the boy’s shallow, fast breaths. He did not have to dig into the prince’s mind to taste his terror and feel his racing pulse. While Taihven’s panic built, he could smell it in the air like a foul cloud.
Minutes passed on and neither spoke. He knew Taihven’s eyes were searching for him in the pitch black, but there were no sources of light ever in the confines of the Soul Render.
“My name was once Auste Cros’seau. Your father stole that from me. Now, I go by many names. I have waited a long time to meet you.”
“Why am I here?” The youth whispered.
Auste basked in his first victory. He had worked tirelessly to enact his revenge. For the majority of seventeen years, he developed his mental powers and searched for the resources needed to bring about the downfall of the Artadeus family.
“Why am I here?” Taihven repeated with more urgency. “What are you going to do?”
“You should save your energy. You cannot fight Fate. This is your prison, not mine.” Auste replied. “Always has been.”
“I have never done anything to you. It was your fath—”
“—Your family stole everything from me. Do not dare to be the victim! Your father… your king lied for years to his own people. Kept his murderous secrets hidden even up to his death. His sins led you here. It was his orders that were carried out to butcher my sister, murder my parents and throw the rest of us in a box to be forgotten — all in the guise of justice and protected peace. His disease was one price he had to pay. You see, it was his evil and the black magic that he tapped into, which damned you all to this path.”
“I do not know how, but somehow I was shown what happened to you. I saw what my father did and I do not approve of his actions.” Taihven appealed.
“Oh please,” Auste chided Taihven. “I do not care whether or not you approve or condone what he did. It was done! The blood, our blood was spilled and your blood cursed in the very same ritual. This is not something that you can talk yourself out of. You will rot as you deserve in this metal tomb. And all the while you pound on the walls here, I will be back in Tayneva. I am going to lead the Viestrahl in a path of hellfire and slaughter across your lands right up to Wyvernshield’s moat gates. You will feel the helplessness and the same misery I did, all the while knowing that I will rape your sister and mother. Then when I am done with what is left of them, they will be tossed to the beasts to be ripped to pieces.”
Auste ended his tirade, reached out with his mental hooks and sunk them into Taihven’s mind and will. He took in the rage that washed over him. The fires of hate streaked through him. So wrapped in the emotions, he was not even sure if they were his or the boy’s across from him or both.
“This is righteousness!” He roared, lunged forward and grabbed Taihven by his shoulders and brought him a nails-length from his face. “What I do not kill in Tayneva will become my slaves and I will rule the Throne in the Cros’seau name as it rightfully should have been all this time. You robbed us, stole our legacy and if it was not for my father raping your mother, your filth would have gotten away with it.”
“What? What did you say?” Taihven whimpered. Auste spat in disgust and dropped his hands from him.
“Your mother was raped, Brother! You are the abomination of both our families.”
He broke off to allow Taihven to take in the revelation. Auste giggled out loud as he felt the belief over take the boy. Confusion, devastation, betrayal swam a mix within Taihven.
“Why?” Taihven begged, “How did you do this?”
Auste continued, “It took seventeen years to find my way out of this prison. Find my way from here through the In-Between to Tayneva and follow our shared bloodlines. Each time I brought you here to the Chaos Realm, I was a step closer to getting back. With your soul-line, I can journey back and forth now between these realities. You do not understand, but it was this warped land that your father thought would keep us in exile forever that altered me. It tainted and yet empowered my mind. You, Taihven Artadeus, being the ultimate key to my cell door and the key to getting back my Throne.”
Once more he allowed silence in the cell. Auste had his prize. The child squirmed like a worm on the end of a hook.
“You will never get our Throne! I will tear your throat out—” Taihven had struck his hands out and searched the cell for Auste. He kept swinging his hands out, clawing at the air.
“I have already gone — I am only in your mind now. You have taken my place forever in the Soul Render.”
#2
Electricity flowed over his skin and through it. Auste would never get over the unique sensations that he felt when he crossed over into the In-Between. He floated and moved alone in what was a vast, emerald-green sea. When one was a part of the In-Between, reality did not actually exist. Your body disappeared and everything was felt and seen through your consciousness. Your vision was not limited to what was in front of you.
There were no lands above the sea or any ground beneath the waves. As far as he could tell there were no surfaces to breach. It was beyond his scope of imagination and abilities to make any sense of it. All he ever discovered in this bizarre landscape were the millions of what he called soul-lines. The soul-lines were identical, silvery glowing strands which were wove together in massive bands or ropes and crisscrossed the sea in every direction. The massive groupings of soul-lines all came from a distant white center like spokes of a gigantic wagon wheel. If one followed each line, one could trace the origin and life of each person in existence.
Or perhaps this was an intricate weave of a pattern to some massive dreamcatcher? He wondered.
Auste’s strand, his father’s and mother’s, everyone that connected to him by blood and everyone that interacted with his life were tied together. Other massive bands connected with theirs or went parallel with their band at times.
Traveling in the In-Between was extremely taxing and short-lived. The extensive imprisonment in the Soul Render had given him time to grow his mental energies and capacity to stay in the In-Between. When he drew Taihven into the Chaos Realm, it displaced Auste and forced him from the
metal cube into the In-Between.
Auste gathered his energies to focus on one particular strand. Being that the lines were identical it was easy to lose track and follow the wrong soul-line. He had precious little energy and time left to waste.
He had traveled and followed the same soul-line for years, countless times. The strand’s energy called out to him and drew him. The single strand was wrapped around two large bands. It was Taihven’s strand that paired the Cros’seau and Artadeus family lines. Auste felt that he finally had the entire complex map of Taihven’s line set to memory. He weaved along it and as it slipped in and out around the bands of their families.
