Age of Azmoq_The Valantian Imperium

by Rajamayyoor Sharma

  I woke up in the morning, after an extremely uncomfortable night atop a tree. The sun had just risen, and was covering the canopy in its light. I didn’t have any new plan to track the two, so I decided to follow the one I came up with in the night. I got down from the tree top and started to search for any markings that would show me the way. I was initially able to find some, and started to follow them.

  I soon realized that they were my own, as they were done by a larger blade, like the one I had, and not by the small daggers that the murderers were carrying. I then thought I could trace my own markings till the point where I definitely got separated from them. On my way, I picked up some fallen fruits and berries to satiate my hunger.

  But this method seemed useless. I was sweating profusely as I made my way, trying to retrace my own steps, searching a small area around it for other markings, and then try and find my own original marking. By mid-day, I was completely lost, having confused the new markings I made with those I made the previous day. I was leading myself farther and farther into the forest.

  Some time passed. I started to feel strange. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was my hunger, but the forest seemed to slowly start shaking. It seemed to stretch and contract. It happened slowly. Then, the world seemed to slowly revolve around me. The rage I had felt, had left me, and was replaced by fear. The colors of the forest, always dark green, started to get brighter. I could see other colors sprouting up, like yellow, orange and bright blue. I thought maybe I should rest, so that I don’t faint again. I thought maybe this had happened the previous day as well, but I was too angry to notice. I climbed up a nearby branch and slept.

  When I woke up, I felt better. The world wasn’t shaking or stretching. The forest seemed darker though. I figured it was just late in the evening. I found some jackfruit and some more of those red berries I ate earlier, for a meal. Then I started to realize that the forest seemed less dense. The leaves around me had a dark blueish tinge. There seemed to be a mild fog in the air. Which was surprising, as I had never seen any fog in these forests so far. The forest which so far, even in the darkness, always seemed positive in its character, felt eerie and scary. The sounds of the forest, which I always ignored, were conspicuous by their absence. I could hear each leaf getting crushed under my feet as I walked. And then I heard a sound.

  It sounded like a person calling out. They seemed to be crying for help. The sound was faint, but clear. It was distant, but there was something familiar about the voice. I walked towards the sounds, shouting out to them. “Can you hear me? I am coming! Don’t worry!” It took me a while to locate the source of the voices. As I moved towards the voices, I noticed the forests were getting darker, the leaves became dark blue in color. Forests seemed to be dying, like a human who was turning blue due to suffocation.

  Fear returned. As I approached the voices, I was shivering. I felt short of breath. I felt my arms and legs tingling from lack of breath. The fog seemed to get denser. And then I could see shapes. There were two people, sitting on the forest floor. I ran towards them and waved. I could hear them say in a faint voice, “Help us.” The voices definitely sounded familiar. It was impossible for them to belong to the people I thought they belonged to. And then I saw the two. My heart stopped.

  It was my parents. It was impossible. They looked exactly the same, like I remembered them from a decade back, just before they died. Even the wounds were the same. My father’s chest was crushed and my mother’s torso and legs were severely wounded. These two people wore clothes that were torn and bloody in the same places. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  “Help us, son,” pleaded the man who looked like my father.

  “You weren’t there for us in the past, son,” said the woman. “Please help us now, at least.”

  I froze. I couldn’t say anything. It couldn’t be true. They had died.

  These two continued to plead.

  “Please son, save us!”

  “Son, don’t let us die! We want to live… We want to live with you.”

  “Please don’t let us down.”

  I couldn’t take it. This couldn’t be real. “Who are you? This can’t be real! My parents are dead!”

  The woman said, “Do you not recognize your own mother? When the tree fell on us and we came back home, you made a promise that you would take care of us and that ‘You will destroy the entire forest’… Do you remember that?”

  I hadn’t told anyone of that promise I made when I saw them return from the forest, all those years back, injured by the fallen tree. When I had made that promise, my mother looked at me and patted my head. “Don’t feel so angry, my son. I’ll be alright.”

  “How do you know what I said? What is happening here?! You can’t be my parents! They died years ago,” I screamed out.

  “Did you see our dead bodies? We didn’t die… we were left here. Do you really think that a falling tree killed us? Don’t you think that was just a lie? And the truth is something different? We have been waiting ever since for you to come and save us. And to avenge us. Avenge the injustice.”

  It was true. I hadn’t seen my parent’s dead bodies. Parshtel, my master and Gale, Florence’s mother had decided that I was too young to see them just wither away. So when they passed away, I stayed at Grim’s place till their cremation was complete. I always hoped that they were still alive.

  Doubt began to creep in. What was happening? Were they really my parents? How could they have survived here, after all these years? My heart was racing. Fear was getting mixed with self-doubt and hope, a desperate hope that these were my parents and I could rescue them now.

  “I… I will save you… don’t worry,” I said feebly as I moved towards them. Their eyes seem to be hopeful, almost happy that I was saving them.

  “Thank you,” both said together. I started walking towards them cautiously, when something started to change. Their bodies began to fade. They began to decay, as if death had suddenly decided to take them again and started to destroy their bodies with extreme malice. My rage resurfaced.

  “No, don’t go! I won’t let you! I will save you! I will avenge you! I will avenge all my loved ones! I promise!” I screamed as I tried to run towards them, to hug them, hold them. But somehow the distance of the last few meters seemed to expand forever. Even as I tried to run towards them, I wasn’t getting any closer. I could see them fading away from me, again. And then they were gone. With the hopeful look that their son would save them.

  I stopped running and just screamed. Everything faded away.

  Chapter 9: Out into the world

  As I woke up, I wasn’t sure what was happening.

  I seemed to be moving. But I wasn’t walking. I was being carried. By a familiar figure. I had recently been carried in the same manner, by the same person. It was Grim.

  “Grim! What is happening? Where… where are my parents? Where are we?”

  Grim heard me and put me down immediately. I wasn’t sure where we were.

  “Are you alright, kid? You scared the life out of me when you ran away like that! What happened to you?”

  Besides my body pain, I was feeling fine. No dimensional distortions, no fear, nothing.

  “I feel better now. I am not sure what happened to me either. I’ll tell you everything that I do know. But first, how are you? How is the village guard, Parshtel and Fred? And how did you find me?”

  “Don’t worry about me or anyone else right now. We need to get you back to the village immediately. You were deep in Blue Haze territory. Tell me, how do you feel?”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt. Having just seen my parents, after all these years, the fear and hope that came with their appearance, then rage of seeing them disappear again, I had felt a lot of emotions the last time I was conscious. But after regaining consciousness and seeing Grim, I was just dazed and confused. I looked around to see that we were near the top of the forest canopy. That just added to my confusion.

  “I don’t know how I feel righ
t now. Too many things are happening.”

  I told him about what had happened to me, the chase and then what I had seen.

  “I see.” Grim looked serious. “You are incredibly lucky. What you have experienced is something rare. Few people survive such an experience to tell the tale. In fact, you are the first person I have seen, who has survived for this long. We need to hurry back to the village to get you the right medicine. Let me carry you.”

  I was embarrassed. “No, no. I am feeling strong enough to walk.”

  “We wouldn’t be walking on the forest floor. I doubt you can travel on the tree tops fast without experience. It’ll be easier and better if you let me carry you.”

  Then without waiting, he hoisted me over his shoulder. “Mind your head… Be careful about your eyes.”

  And he just jumped onto the nearest branch. Then to the next. And next. He was travelling in the forest by jumping or moving from branch to branch at the top of the forest canopy.

  Grim said to me as he travelled. “The way to travel deep into this forest without getting utterly lost is to stay near the top of the canopy. That way, you can always see the sun and the hills, so will know your direction. Unless you do this, your chances of survival in this forest, especially the area where I found you was zero.”

  “What do you mean? What area?”

  Grim was unusually chatty.

  “Well, we call it the Blue Haze territory… It is based on the effect most people feel when they enter that area. That part of the forest is dominated by many hallucinogenic shrubs and trees. They secrete a toxin which is also called Blue Haze. It makes a person hallucinate, see things that make him or her scared and distraught. But the hallucinations are of a peculiar nature. They also create some hope, so that the person doesn’t run away from the area. These fears and hopes are present, somewhere in depths of that person’s mind.

  No one can differentiate these visions from reality, and many don’t want to. The person stays in this territory, and dies there as the toxin shut the body down, not knowing anything but the hallucinations, perpetually stuck in the cycle of hope and fear. It takes less than half a day for the blue haze to kill someone. For the person under its effects, it would seem like an eternity.”

  I felt a sense of relief. I had hallucinated that my parents were alive. They hadn’t been left in the forest to die. I felt silly at ever having thought that. But it was incredible that I was lucky to survive.

  “That is scary, Grim. How did I survive? How did you find me?”

  Grim took some time to answer.

  “Let’s say that the answer to both questions is luck. I can’t explain it any other way. When you ran out, I wanted to stop you immediately. But I couldn’t, as I had to rally the villagers to help Parshtel and the others. By then, you had disappeared. I picked up some provisions and set out to search for you. I was able to locate some of your markings, but I wasn’t sure if they were yours or left by those two.

  For almost a day I wandered in vain, looking for you. Then in the evening, I heard an explosion. I followed the trail of the broken wood and damaged trees, and found you. You were lying in the middle of the explosion. So I picked you up and started to rush back to the village. You then woke up after a few hours.”

  He then added a question. There was a lot of curiosity in his voice, a tone I had never heard in Grim’s voice.

  “I am curious, you didn’t tell me how the explosion happened. What did you do?”

  What could I tell him? “I have no idea. I don’t remember anything.”

  “Curious…” Both of us were quiet for some time. Then Grim continued.

  “You didn’t seem to have been harmed by the explosion, so maybe you just stumbled onto an area where some exploding gas was accumulating and exploded… Yes that seems to be the only possibility.”

  While the explosion was curious, but I had more pressing questions.

  “How is everyone? I saw the village guard down with Parshtel and Fred severely injured. And how did you recover so quickly?”

  “Well, there were casualties. Magnus passed away almost instantly. The others are alive, but critical. Johotei is the worst hit. Parshtel and Frederick are bed ridden as well. The darts that the assassins used were poisonous. Olmot had no chance of survival, having been hit at such close range by six of those. The others, because of their Villasborean upbringing, have been able to fight the poison for longer. Florence should be able to concoct an antidote soon. They’ll take some time to recover, but they will.”

  It was heartening to hear that most of the village guard survived. But how was my master so fit? I thought he was injured as well, and had taken the most number of darts directly onto his body.

  “What about you, Grim? How were you able to fight the poison? And I saw that man tear into your shoulder with his dagger. How are you able to function?”

  “Well, what can I say? I heal fast.” That was all the explanation I got.

  I felt more and more, that my master’s ability was greater than what any of us could imagine. What I saw at the Grand River, what happened in the village, his recovery, all seemed super human. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen this side of him in the years that I had worked for him. But with the laconic and often foreboding personality he had, there was no way I could know more than what he chose to share. Maybe that’s why he donned such a personality, to prevent anyone from getting close.

  As we travelled back, I realized how tired and hungry I was. I probably had a couple of fruits and some small berries over the last two days. My hands and legs were drained trying to cut through foliage for hours on end. I would have died in the forest if Grim hadn’t found me. Added to that, the Blue Haze… It was a miracle that I survived Blue Haze after all that.

  “Grim, how do you think I survived the Blue Haze? I feel, given its night time, I was there for almost a day. And how did you endure it as you searched for me?”

  “I survived because I knew what territory I was in. I was breathing through a cloth which substantially reduces the amount of toxin I inhaled. As to your survival, I cannot say.”

  I was not sure if he said anything else, as I lost consciousness again. Probably a combination of starvation and the toxins, which were still in my body.

  When I woke up again, I saw Florence, tending to someone on the bed beside mine. I sat up with a start.

  “Hi, Flora,” I called out. She turned and smiled at me. She looked exhausted and pained.

  “Hi there,” she replied, “I am so glad at least one of my patients is up. How are you feeling?”

  As my surroundings came into focus, I saw the man she was tending to, was Johotei. He seemed extremely pale and weak. There were orange lines running all over his body, which looked like his veins had turned orange. He seemed asleep. As I looked across the room I was in, I saw all of the village guard, but for Magnus, lying down in the same state. It looked like they were all on the verge of death. I could see why Florence was so disturbed. I even saw Parshtel and Fred, who were unconscious, though there weren’t any lines on them. “I am feeling… fine… How are they all doing?”

  Flora looked at Johotei. “They all are still critical. We are doing all we can to save them. But the poison was unique, something none of us have seen in the village before. It took me sometime to devise a potion that could effectively counteract its effects. Till then, I used all the potions I had to keep the poison from progressing. However, a couple of days back, the final batch of what is hopefully the right potion, was synthesized. I am now seeing the effects of the poison reversing slowly. Let’s hope that they start getting better soon.”

  I remembered my master telling me that a potion was being synthesized. I was pleasantly surprised that it was synthesized so fast.

  “Wow, Flora! That is amazing! You could synthesize a potion just in a couple of days. That is genius.”

  Flora looked at me quizzically, “Thanks, but it took more than just a couple of days. My dear, it took us a
lmost two and half weeks to get the potion right. And that too, we made real progress only when we added Grim’s blood to our syntheses.”

  That meant I was out for two weeks!

  “What are you saying?! Was I asleep for almost two weeks? And… Grim’s blood? What does that have to do with anything?”

  Flora gave me another tired smile. “I am so glad you are finally up. You were closer to death than any of us realized. The toxin had taken substantial hold of your body. How you held on for a day in the Blue Haze territory and the half a day that Grim took to get you here, I do not know.

  Thankfully we had the antidote to Blue Haze ready, as we have seen the toxin affect few people in the history of the village. Still given your condition, it was a miracle that it worked. Then your body just took time to heal. As the toxin acts on the mind, unconsciousness for some time is common.”

  I slowly started to get off the bed. I felt weak. But my brush with death was such a surprise. “I had no idea Blue Haze was this deadly!? I am glad that we had an antidote to it… I am sure the antidote you have prepared for the others will also work well… How long do you think they will take to recover?”

  Flora looked pained again. “There is no way of telling, having never encountered this poison. Had it not been for Grim, we would have lost them for sure. Now at least there is some hope of recovery, given their progress in the last two days.”

  Here was some more evidence of Grim’s super humanity. “How did he help?”

  Flora returned to taking care of the village guard. She was moving from person to person, dabbing their heads with a cloth soaked in a violet liquid.

  “Well, for one, the poison had no effect on him. I mean, when I bandaged his injuries and asked him to rest so that we could help him get better, he insisted on heading out for you. By the time he returned with you, his injuries had already healed as he had removed all his bandages by then.