Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land

by Alex Rey

  Immortal Darkness

  Book 1: Shadow Across the Land

  Alex Rey

  Published by Alexander Reynaud at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 Alex Rey

  Chapter I

  The Creation of a Son

  Yofel: ruler of the most powerful civilization in the world; being of great power and mystery; immortal; grandfather. Recognized as an emperor of his own land—an immortal with the power to break rocks with his bare hands—yet underestimated as an elder in his final days. No creature in the world had ever held as much strength as him—but at the same time, no creature had ever even thought to simply glimpse at his raw power.

  Royal in the eyes of the Mocranians, Yofel wore many ornaments—the likes of which hung from his voluminous robes. Making up for a majority of what he wore, these red-and-purple robes contained enough silk in them to cover up a bear completely. As a result, the majority of Mocranians were led to believe he hadn’t any feet; who else could wear such robes without tripping on them constantly?

  Although his empire withheld great power, no living human, plant, or animal knew about his underground world. The servants of this king—or all in sight, to be exact—would always come to his aid whenever trouble arose in their leader’s empire. Their skeletal features would wash trouble away in a sea of bone.

  It was millennia before the time of Leyoht when Yofel created his son: Carpla. The quiet—yet devious—Carpla was often characterized as being the most cunning spirit in all of Mocrano. Ever since he had gained the respect from his father, Carpla took possession of many sections of Mocrano. But even then, he still stood as a footstool to the emperor.

  Having power over much of Mocrano, Carpla had put into place an unaccountable amount of heinous laws for those daring enough to inhale the air he walked through. Many of these laws were abolished by the citizens; all the while, an unaccounted-for number of rulings waited patiently to be shot between the eyes.

  With the knowledge that he could destroy whatever dare lie in his way, no creature in the right mind wanted to disturb Carpla on any one of his tasks. Hence this fact, any eye peering over in Carpla’s direction would automatically switch back to what it was doing for fear of its owner’s life.

  Even with these powers present, Carpla often sat and meditated on his own—far from the reach of Mocranian society. Sitting on his little floating island, Carpla thought of what he could do to contribute to the empire.

  So many ideas flew through his head. All the while, the stillness of Mocrano surrounded him—never blowing a gust of wind his way. Everything stood still like rocks; no matter how much the Mocranians wanted, nothing seemed to move. It really was a dead city.

  As Carpla continued sitting in his own company, it suddenly hit him! In order for him to make the same kinds of contributions as his father, he would have to start off by doing what Yofel had already done for Mocrano long ago. I need to make my own son, he realized. Yes; he will be the perfect heir to my throne! All who wish to interfere with his affairs shall have their bones ground to dust.

  But even with these thoughts in mind, Carpla knew it would take many millennia for his new son to earn any control over any part of Mocrano. To add to this, Carpla needed to find the right pieces for creating a child. Carpla had to do a lot of work before he could raise and own this imaginary son of his.

  What should I make it look like? he wondered, aware of the many creatures lying about in Mocrano.

  What was something Carpla didn’t see very often in Mocrano? What was rare but—at the same time—self-defensive? What could help bring Mocrano’s enemies to their knees?

  With little time at all, Carpla came to his decision: he wanted to create a griffin son. And as for a name? Molar, he thought, smiling as the name’s resonance echoed within his head.

  Molar was a name belonging to the untouchable: the great beings unworthy to be touched by the hands of ordinary civilians. This was exactly how Carpla wanted his child to feel in this kingdom under the land. It was exactly how Molar was to be treated after he was created—but first, Carpla had to make everybody know and respect Molar just as well as Carpla and Yofel. To begin such a process, he first had to find some bones—griffin bones, to be exact.

  Where will I find a griffin? Even with all his power in hand, Carpla hadn’t any right to kill the empire’s citizens. Instead, he had to take a visit to Earth and find a stray griffin himself. After which he would show this Earth creature just what Mocrano could do. The thought pulled a sigh out of him.

  Nobody in the right mind could have or would have taken on such a task alone. But solitarily slaying this beast came off as the only thing on Carpla’s mind at this time. Why would I think of anything else?

  After pondering these thoughts to himself, Carpla cleared his mind and took off his heavy granite shoes—the likes of which held him to the ground. Without anything to hold him down, he started levitating, his ash-crafted toes barely any distance from the gray sand below. Within a few moments, his weightlessness would carry him to wherever he so desired.

  All around Carpla, an army of floating lands breathed their lives into Mocrano, but the one he floated above served as a tiny island compared to many of the other enormous behemoths surrounding it.

  Peering into one of the islands, Carpla noted, There’s my home, pinpointing his castle among all the other Mocranian ornaments. As the thought lingered in his mind, he continued pursuing his home.

  As he moved closer and closer to his castle, Carpla looked down and noticed a seemingly-bottomless pit occupying the regions below—a pit he was sure would strike fear into the hearts of all newcomer Mocranians. Whether this pit truly was bottomless or not was a mystery to all the living who had stared into its ever-present gaze.

  Accelerating faster and faster along the road, Carpla finally made his way up to his destination. Upon reaching the large, floating land, Carpla immediately took a sharp turn toward his home—brushing past hundreds upon thousands of Mocranian structures. Said structures consisted of huts, towers, and even the average Mocranian citizen. All this and more cycled in and out of Carpla’s gaze in the blink of an eye—all of it appearing like a gray blob.

  Travelling at such high speeds would have obliterated anybody not used to such extremes. In Carpla’s mind, however, the time it took to get to his home was days—days and days of listlessness. Yet even when the time it took to make it home seemed almost eternal, it had really been only a few heartbeats.

  After all that meditating and high-speed action, Carpla finally made it up to his home. His eyes locked on the castle before him, Carpla slowly stalked up a flight of stairs and found himself in a familiar, nostalgic atmosphere.

  --

  Upon arriving, Carpla educated himself on griffins and on what it took to bring them down. At the same time, he prepared a furnace for the griffin’s arrival.

  He wouldn’t achieve satisfaction until he had everything he needed. He wanted to leave the gray desert-like city of Mocrano sometime soon.

  I have my sword, he checked himself, and my orbs. He took a look down at his sword, admiring how similar it appeared in comparison to his stole. Both had the same eye image on them—letting all enemies know the Mocranians would never so much as blink away from their targets, as they would say.

  Carpla picked up a bag of netted glass orbs. Waves and waves of purple mist lingered in these orbs—the purpose of which very few had come to understand.

  With everything in check, Carpla realized, My son waits for me on Earth. And without hesitation, the father-to-be rushed through his front doors—a gust of wind following close behind.

  Hundreds upon thousands of Mocranians
swept past Carpla’s gaze once again—each of them immediately knowing who he was at first sight, but deciding to leave him alone. Not one single Mocranian caught Carpla’s eye; rather did he continue pursuing his destination, a sword in his right hand and a bag of orbs in his left.

  Nothing interesting to see here, he sighed. The same-looking people and the similarly-crafted buildings stood in front of him—nothing more, nothing less. It started getting very old very fast.

  Fortunately for Carpla, just a little more distance brought him to the edge of the city: a gray desert. It was a place nowhere near as lively as the city—nowhere near as abundant and nowhere near as civilized. At the same time, this atmosphere—so quiet and barren—soothed Carpla’s mind. So relaxing.

  After passing a long distance of nothing but sand, Carpla found a large, empty cave. Taking note of the cave’s gaping mouth, he took a step inside and took a seat in the cave’s center. Upon doing so, Carpla set his blade and his bag on the floor right next to him.

  This cave was usually empty, and was given the title Eas by Yofel’s servants—the carmahns—who named it after their emperor’s home world. Little did Mocrano know, the cave served as an artificial building. Its purpose: to transport those inside. Anybody who sat in this cave would automatically be transported to wherever they desired. It performed this process continuously nonstop—whether or not anybody was in it.

  After a short time, Carpla felt himself being carried toward the Earth’s surface. Every little piece of everything lingering in the cave soon found itself instantly ripped apart. But Carpla did not feel the alarm of destruction—instead he felt the excitement of seeing himself coming closer to his goal.

  A flash of light came into play—temporarily blinding him during its short existence. Barely any time had come to pass when Carpla took notice of his new location.

  Interesting, he thought. Mountains surrounded him, towering above the horizon and making him yearn for the openness he had experienced with the desert. To add to this, a cool breeze always seemed to show up whenever Carpla thought he had finally acquired some peace. In front of his own foot, he saw a group of fossilized shells—which he decided to collect for future purposes.

  Looking to his right, he caught sight of a group of humans wearing heavy winter coats made from smaller animals’ fur. Such coats made them appear large and bulky; their faces gave off a lighter color than most of the human faces Carpla had witnessed in his life. Their eyes and noses were also quite small, he noted. Most of the male humans had grown hair over the entirety of their faces, while half their females either carried or stood by their defenseless children.

  Taking notice of Carpla, many of the humans suddenly exploded with alarm, believing the foreign figure to be a threat. Well over half of the male humans took out their spears and began charging at Carpla as the others stood away from the upcoming violence.

  The human spears were made of a slightly flexible wood; iron tips sat at the end of each stick. Not very advanced, Carpla implied as he tossed his blade to the ground, its topaz glistening in the sunlight. Appearing defenseless before the charging animals, he crossed his arms, waiting for one of them to strike.

  While well-aware of the quickly-approaching humans, Carpla lost attention on them, his eyes scanning his freezing surroundings. The ground, he noticed, was cold—but wet—suggesting rain had recently fallen upon the mountain. How the humans could have survived in this temperature stood well beyond his understanding.

  Oh right—the humans.

  With one of the humans coming within a feather’s length of him, Carpla abruptly raised his dusty right hand above his head. As it rose, so did the ground beneath the approaching humans. The humans under the rising ground started panicking at that moment, unable to escape Carpla’s invisible grasp.

  Now in control of the ground, Carpla decided to finish off the humans. In order to do so, he lifted his left hand and held it at the same height as his right hand—a large space coming between them both. As a result of bringing his left hand into the mess of earth, both Carpla’s hands held complete control of the ground. Time to end this!

  Giving the humans no time to even blink, Carpla brought his hands together in a devastating clap. As a result of clapping, he allowed the mass of earth and humans to come together in a sudden collision. Not a single one of them survived such a crash.

  The only humans who survived were the ones who hadn’t stalked toward Carpla. Those who hadn’t stalked toward him immediately retreated from their foe as quickly as possible, fighting the ankle-high snow the mountains had thrown at them.

  As he watched the cowardly humans retreat, thoughts of boredom began to bounce against the walls of Carpla’s head. When am I going to be given a real challenge? he wondered. He bent down and picked up his blade before continuing his journey up the mountain.

  As he continued climbing up the perilous, icy rock, he took sight of hundreds of deceased bodies—some of which he recognized as current Mocranian slaves.

  It was a burden to have in a society—but Mocrano wasn’t without its slaves. Literally millions of creatures of all species and likenesses flooded Mocrano with their labor and sweat—only to receive whipping and torture in return. Such was a system Yofel had set up shortly after making his society; any Earth creature who died would be reincarnated to Mocrano in their natural form to work for the empire.

  Before thoughts of slavery and society could have totally clouded his mind, Carpla found himself in the midst of the mountain’s peak. A pause came to his feet, however, when the sound of snoring expelled out into the air.

  Emerging the peak of the mountain, Carpla took sight of a sleeping griffin: the target of his pursuit. This griffin’s beautiful red-and-orange feathers shared the same color as fire, sticking out in the white, frozen wasteland. How has this thing not been spotted and attacked by a bigger animal? wondered Carpla.

  Nothing more than a single step toward the griffin caused the light sleeper to quickly wake up. With a snort, he shook his head, blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and turned to face Carpla—a sudden look of fierceness flashing in his stare. Locking his gaze on Carpla, he brought himself up on his feet and asked, “What do you want?”

  “It is time,” Carpla said while pointing his sword in the griffin’s direction. “You will become a minion of Mocrano. And I will use your body to create my son. There is nowhere and no time to escape.”

  “No,” the griffin angrily responded. Softening up, he continued “My family and my species has suffered enough! I know there is a female griffin out there for me—I just haven’t found her yet! And you—you Mocranians—it’s your fault my kind is so rare these days! I barely even remember what it’s like to have somebody by my side to comfort me—to—” Grabbing a hold of his tongue, the griffin appeared as if he might burst out sobbing at any given moment.

  “What did you say to me?” Carpla asked, only listening to the first word that popped from the griffin’s beak.

  “I said no!”

  “You’re not telling me what to do!” Carpla snarled in denial. With these few words flying off his tongue, he lifted his sword off of the ground, its topaz gem giving off a bright, rosy light. “You will come with me whether you want to or not! Give in.”

  At the hearing of these words, the griffin released a yelp of fear, shooting a blue flame out of his beak. In self-defense, Carpla swung his sword in the air and protected himself from the flame as its heat dimmed into nothingness.

  In anger and impatience, Carpla threw his sword in the griffin’s direction—only to find it slamming into the ground at the end of its flight. Fortunately for the griffin, he pulled himself out of the way with a flap of his wings. A few more flaps later, he was on his way to retreat.

  A small crack appeared as Carpla left his sword in the ground. I’ll leave it there for later, he decided. At the same time, he left his shoes behind and started floating his way in the griffin’s direction.

  If the griffin could get away
from Carpla, he would have been able to live in peace for another day. But if he couldn’t, every bone his body contained would become the body of Carpla’s new son. This thought floating about in his head, the griffin came up with whatever maneuvers possible—anything to drive Carpla away!

  “I bet you won’t be able to catch me after I do this!” the griffin sneered while looking over his shoulder. Seeing a space between two mountains, he squeezed himself through by performing a spin maneuver. By doing so, he broke off chunks of these mountains and sent them flying off toward Carpla.

  Fortunately for Carpla, he easily sent this debris away with his telekinesis. “You’ll have to do better than that!” he exclaimed.

  Cursing under his own breath, the griffin flew forward—nearly killing himself with every flight maneuver. I’m just going in circles, he realized. Before he knew it, he eventually found Carpla pressing up against his tail.

  “Oh no!” the griffin screamed while taking a look behind his wings. Fear caused him to panic; panic caused him to flap his wings harder in a desperate attempt to escape Carpla’s grasp.

  Before escape became a reality, he found his tail feathers clutched by Carpla’s dusty grasp. Once touched by Carpla, the griffin noticed his energy draining from his body at an alarming rate.

  This drainage caused the griffin to lose control of his wings. As a result, he began to plummet toward the ground in a nosedive. Carpla watched as the griffin’s fragile body made contact with the icy ground below.

  No, he swore, his mind a panicked mess. I’m done for; I’ll die in this little patch of ice without anybody. Nobody’s with me. I should have ended this while I had the chance!

  Carpla watched as the griffin made a futile attempt to fly away to safety. This attempt was interrupted when the griffin felt Carpla’s sword driving into his skin. What? wondered the griffin, I didn’t see him flying with that thing! How did he get it back?

  Only a heartbeat of this unbearable pain had come to pass when Carpla’s blade swept over the griffin’s neck—killing him instantly. It is over, Carpla stated, barely noticing his swelled head.