The Court of Souls? - Volume 1

by Andur

  It sounds familiar, but I can't touch my hands on the memory. “So what you are saying is that I have a problem because I don't remember who I am?”

  She shakes her head. “No. Not at all. Nobody remembers everything from the start. There are people who remember more and people who remember less. Even if you remember nothing at first the memories and your original personality slowly return with time. That's a gradual process which can't be avoided. For that reason we perform a ritual on every child at the age of five and try to awaken the original personality.”

  She turns her gaze towards my supposed parents. “It's easier for everyone that way.”

  “So there was another me before you performed this ritual? What happened to her?” I ask.

  “That other personality is gone. But like I said it would have happened anyway sooner or later. That's why we activate the original as soon as possible. Imagine how hard it would be for your parents if you suddenly change at the age of fifteen or twenty, forgetting about them? It is hard enough for them as it is.” Her eyes wander to the two people.

  I blink. “Okay. Let's say I simply believe you for now. What happens next?”

  “You aren't in danger of forgetting any more. So you go home with your parents and learn to know them and this world. And when your memories return you tell us who you are and how you can benefit our clan,” Granny answers.

  I decide to keep calling her Granny, for now. “So what happens if I don't have any useful skills?”

  The old woman shakes her head. “That's impossible. Dedessia is a dimension for those beings who are above normal mortals. Never in my five thousand years staying here have I encountered a single normal farmer being reborn in this world. There are demons, faun, fairies, dragons, archmages and other creatures from various mythologies. In addition to their old memories everyone inherits the true nature which is most suitable for them. And that sentence just before, that's knowledge only very few mythical creatures possess. You are at the very least some kind of immortal being. But I can already see the next question in your eyes. I am a fury. Your mother is a succubus and your father is an ogre.”

  I wet my lips and reach between my legs. At this point I don't care what others might think about me. “I am a girl.” It's always good to have confirmation when in doubt. “So I hope having an ogre as a father won't make me sprout hair from my nose and warts on my cheeks?”

  That broke the ice and Granny starts laughing uncontrollably.

  “Gods, dear I hope not!” My supposed mother steps closer and hugs me. I notice her godlike beauty for the first time. Silver hair and a neat face combine perfectly with a curvy body. I mistook her horns for trinkets since they are mostly hidden by her hair. And the lower part of her dress are actually wings which are neatly folded around her hips.

  “I don't look that bad in my demon form. And both succubi and ogres can shapeshift. You must have inherited at least that skill,” Father complains. He is on the average side of things with short, brown hair and a round but nice face. Which surprises me. How did he get his hands on a succubus?

  I feel up and down my own body and touch my back. “But I seem to be a normal human.”

  “You will transform according to the image you have of yourself when you reach the age of fifteen. From then on you will be able to freely change between the human image you have of yourself and your true one,” Chloe explains.

  “Yes, let's perform the test before you leave. It looks like she is taking it well enough. No reason to wait.” Granny walks over to a table to get a crystal orb. “This is a device which can give us a hint at your true nature. It's expensive, so try not to break it please? The one who gave me this lives a three month trip away from here. Place your hand on it.”

  I eye the device with suspicion. “Why do you say 'hint' as if it could come back and bite you later on?”

  Doreen smiles and takes my hand to put it on the orb. “Oh, you are a smart one. I say that because this device is very limited and can't show us the true nature of higher immortals like gods and other deities. Instead it will just show us the nature which is closest to you. I am one of the Erinnyen for example, a deity of revenge. If I use the orb, all I get is that it identifies me as some kind of malevolent spirit.”

  “I understand,” I answer and place my hand on the orb. It starts glowing in various colours, but that's all there is to it.

  Granny sighs. “That's what I feared when you blurted out that sentence about the Sea of Souls. It identifies you as some kind of succubus/angel hybrid.”

  “Does that mean she is a god? That would be a great addition to the clan,” Shawn asks hopefully.

  Doreen shakes her head. “For now it just means that she isn't some simple low. But if I interpret the colours correctly then she is soulbound. Her soul is incomplete. But don't worry, if you really share a soulbond with someone, then your mate is bound to show up sooner or later.”

  “My mate? And what's a low?” I ask astounded.

  “Well, yes. A soulbond is a very intimate thing. Whoever you are bound to, he or she should be your perfect counterpart,” explains Doreen while smiling.

  “She? Stop pulling my nose! I am not into girls!” I answer confidently.

  Doreen shrugs her shoulders. “If you say so. And as for the former question, we classify the beings who are brought here in several groups. There are those who are nothing more than immortals. They remember their past lives and have superior knowledge. Usually they are some kind of heroes or kings. Then there are lower immortals. Mythical beings with powers. Vampires, fae and spirits count as such. Then we have middle immortals. They have some kind of affiliation to a god or deity, or are weak deities themselves. Finally there are higher immortals like me. They are gods or major mythical beings of some kind.”

  Then Doreen ends the lesson. “You should go now. I don't have all day to play with you.”

  “Of course, Mother. Let's go, Elona.” Chloe bows to Doreen and picks me up. Shawn also excuses himself and opens the door for Chloe and me. We leave the library and walk through a living area.

  “Elona?” I ask a little surprised.

  Chloe tenses up and presses me closer. “That's what I called you before... and since you don't remember I thought we simply keep using it.”

  Elona feels wrong for some reason. Though I will need a name and in absence of my real name. “Okay. I am Elona.”

  Shawn opens a final door for us and we step outside into a howling wind. Chloe raises one of her wings to protect me from the stinging sand which is blown at us. Then she starts walking with purpose towards the trunk of a huge tree. The road on which we are moving, the people, the different houses, all that is insignificant compared to the tree. It is huge! “What is that!”

  “That's an offshoot of Yggdrasil. Not much more than a sapling. Mother brought it from one of her travels before she founded this clan. It protects our oasis in this desert by warding off dangerous creatures and pulling up water from the ground to allow plants to grow. Without it the clan wouldn't be able to exist here,” Chloe explains.

  I force my eyes away from the huge plant. “That's the second time you mention a clan. What's up with that and these beasts? I thought we are all some kind of super powerful beings? And why living in a desert?”

  Shawn cuts in from the side. “Dedessia isn't a paradise. The resources are sparse and no matter how far you wander, all you encounter are climates at their extremes. Hot deserts, icy mountains, swamps, green and unbound jungle. It is like this plane wants to test us, send us on to our next life as fast as possible. The hospitable areas are small and few in between endless nightmares to live in. Add to that a flora and fauna which is taken from the deadliest places you can imagine. The only ones who live here exist in those small safe areas or created their own hideouts like us.”

  Chloe continues. “That's why you won't find something like a kingdom or a nation. The biggest community I know of has only about a hundred thousand people and they live far,
far to the east. And that's just because their safe zone is particularly big. Every community is its own clan and from other clans comes the biggest danger. Some of them specialize in stealing the resources of others to survive. They go on raids to kill and plunder whatever isn't strong enough to withstand them.”

  “I see,” I say solemnly.

  Big tree or not, this world sucks! Big time!

  3. ~Sewers.~

  “In Greek mythology, a satyr is one of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus with equine (horse-like) features, including a horse-tail and horse-like ears. The satyrs' chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated with fertility.”

  The Journey to the Afterlife

  Dedessia, the Sea of Souls, Clan: Inanimatum

  Shade, 6 years old

  “I can't believe it! They are making children clean the sewers on a daily routine!” Legna appears out of one of the drainage pipes, pushing unpleasant stuff ahead of her. She is dirty all over and her face is bright red from the exhaustion. “This isn't training! This is our death! We will all die down here. If the slimes don't get us then we will catch some sickness and then we are goners! I am sure that they won't pay a healer for us.”

  Zanders gestures for her to calm down. “Don't make so much noise. The slimes could be attracted by it. And don't you think there is a reason why they send us? We are the only ones who can do this job since we are small and have strong passive regeneration abilities.” He raises his light higher to see further down his part of the sewer. “Shade, shouldn't you use your light? We are the watchers, the others trust us to keep an eye out while they work.”

  I squint my eyes and look away from him. The glowball in his hand is annoyingly bright. “No, I can see perfectly fine. Apparently it comes with being a shade.”

  Aswang appears out of his own pipe, dropping dirt into the main sewer tunnel. “I don't get why they call shades weak. I too want to see in the dark. Diving through shadows, healing up instantly and changing your form once you get stronger. What's weak about that?”

  “Have you ever seen a shadow hurt someone?” I ask annoyed. Though my newly discovered senses are awesome. I haven't told my team how exactly I can see in the dark. It isn't really seeing, but more like sonar. Once I concentrate I get a three dimensional image of my surroundings in my head.

  Our new task in the sewers is supposed to train us, but I think the overseers just want to humiliate us. And to crush our hope of escape.

  They showed us the wasteland and swamps outside the city. Only a few small areas are actually usable to build fields. Inanimatum owns a small city in the middle of nowhere. And if what they told us is true, then even escape can't save us.

  Let's say that we escape the city and let's also assume that we manage to cross the dead zone to another clan. Will they even take us with their limited resources? Or will they dispatch of unneeded mouths right then and there?

  Distraught, I reach for my shadow and push against it. My fingers turn dark and dissolve in a black mist, fusing with the twilight. My mana resources start dwindling and I retreat my hand when it gets tiring. I repeat this small exercise regularly. According to our trainer it is the only method to slowly get full control over our abilities. But what's actually limiting me is my mana pool. “If they just would tell us anything of use! Like how far it is to the next safe zone.”

  Legna appears out of the pipe next to me and dirt splashes onto my feet when she drops a dead animal into the sewer. Her face is pale and tired. The work in these pipes gets to her. “Right! Any other mighty wishes? Stupid they would be! Telling us about other clans. They want to keep us ignorant as far as it doesn't concern our fighting power.”

  The group keeps talking about various things, but before long I have to interrupt them. Something is moving in my tunnel. A deformed mass with a different density than the walls is approaching us. It has the rough shape of a humanoid. I grab the small spear in my hands tighter. “We have a problem. Slime incoming!”

  The slimes are some kind of zombies. The entire sewer system is infested with them and two of the other groups already lost members to the creatures. That takes our barrack down to three teams with five people and one with four. Manticore thinks that they are actually slave soldiers like us who died in the sewers. They are slow and stupid, but they can jump a short distance. The only real danger is being careless and to walk right into them. The two people who died walked unsuspecting around a corner and stepped right into jumping range.

  “On my way!” Legna quickly returns from her pipe and takes the jump down into the musky water of the sewer. She and Manticore are the only ones who can do anything against the slimes. Poking it with our spears only angers the things and that's pretty much the only option Zanders, Aswang and I have.

  Both Manticore and Legna take their positions while I pull my glowball from my pocket and throw it down the tunnel. It lands with a wet smack on the creature's chest, sticking there. The stupid slime draws it into its body, trying to dissolve and absorb the glowball with its acids. Our strategy is already well trained and has proven itself.

  The eerie green light of the glowball illuminates the transparent parts of the slime, revealing bones and partly dissolved tissue, turning it into a perfect practice target.

  I decide that there is no need to watch the scene any further and hide behind the tunnel entrance. Bursts of light from Legna's lightball attacks flash the tunnel with bright light while Manticore shoots her poisonous fingernails at the creature. When their attacks end I take a look around the corner and find my glowball in a puddle of slowly expanding slime with a half dissolved child in between. I hurry towards it and retrieve my hated light-source. I am sure that it is somewhat wrong, but darkness puts me more at ease than the light.

  The darkness is my friend and hides me while the light restricts me.

  “Shade, you are always so quick to hide while we do all the work,” teases Legna.

  “Shut up! When I look into one of your lightballs I can't see for over a minute,” I complain.

  I too want some kind of ranged attack, but right now my mana resources are too meagre to perform any kind of spell. Even if I actually remember a few basic ones. It would be so nice if I were able to test them.

  “Enough you two. Shade isn't a fighter, he is more the assassin type. We should be glad that we have someone with keen senses. Let's return to the exit. We are a little overdue anyway,” says Zanders.

  Manticore wrinkles her nose which is blocked by two pieces of wood. “My sense of smell is also keen!”

  “Then take out those blocks and actually try breathing through your nose.” Aswang follows Zanders and we fall in line behind them.

  Manticore doesn't answer. We all know that she can't take the smell. The last time she tried she lost all her breakfast and we had to share our scarce stolen food with her so that she doesn't go hungry all day.

  We make our way back through the sewer system, always opening and closing heavy metal doors with bars in front and behind us. It is a way to keep nastier things than slimes out of the sewers.

  Halfway out of the mad maze we encounter two of the overseers. They conjured up magelights which hover above their shoulders and illuminate the tunnel perfectly.

  One of them approaches us with a sneer. “Look, there is our little goblin group. What took you so long? Have you seen the others?”

  “Sorry, why are you searching for us? We are just a little overdue because we encountered a slime,” answers Zanders. A half lie. Nobody in our group has the wish to return to our overseers faster than necessary.

  The other man trots forward and past us. “One of the groups was split by a broken door. Only two returned. Follow us, we have to find the other three.”

  Wordlessly we follow the overseers. There is nothing to talk about. They gave us a command and asking questions can only earn us a beating.

  After a while we arrive at the problematic door, but there is no sign of our three missing workers. One of th
e overseers grumbles and attaches the electric stick in his hand to his belt. I find their weapons a little off place.

  It would fit their nature much better if they had pitchforks instead.

  He growls when nothing happens upon using the lever to open the bars. Both overseers together lift the bars of the gate and instruct us to use the lever to lock it. The bars stay in position, but the lever seems to be broken and falls back without someone holding it down. It's rusty and old.

  “You, hold it down and keep the door open until we return!” One of the overseers gestures at Zanders and our comrade's collar glows in a golden light. Zanders takes over the lever with a dead expression on his face and the two overseers make their way into the tunnel.

  When they are gone Manticore steps over to Zanders and waves her hand in front of his face. Everyone's eyes turn to me.

  I already used various opportunities to warn them of telling anyone their true names. Like 'don't talk about the past' and more subtle suggestions. I used every opportunity I got to drop hints. So this time I simply shrug my shoulders and focus my gaze on his collar. “It seems like names hold power.” They are no idiots. Even a dimwit should have gotten it by now.

  Manticore reaches for Zanders's collar and tries to take it off, but it doesn't budge. Aswang shows a little more sense. “Stop. Even if you get it off, they would put a new one on him as soon as we are out of here.”

  Finally she stops her mediocre attempts and glares at Aswang.

  Nothing happens for a few more minutes of waiting. Then we hear running steps from down the corridor. The two slavers with their magelights come around the corner of the corridor. One is carrying two slaves from our barrack under his arms. The other turns back and fires a spell down the corridor, hitting something.