Malloriel
Creative Mastermind
Please ignore the intro here if you'd just like to read the darn story already. 
Intro:
In another incarnation, this was posted as Chronicles of Chaos, to which it does belong, but that's more the umbrella under which it lives, not its actual title. Included is not the whole chapter, but a little under half. My count brings it to 3640, so if you're NOT interested in reading half a chapter, don't worry your pretty little heads. ^_^
I've given it a major passing over, added many new bits, at least two pages in the past few hours and as many as four since the last revision. I'm hoping it reads more smoothly, gives more insight into the character and makes the reader feel a bit more of what he's going through. Any critique is welcome, as are any general opinions, but I am looking for a good beta reader or two. My writing is on no actual schedule, so pieces submitted for beta review would be sporadic at best. For anyone willing to help, please note me, or provide an e-mail address where I can send you a version to play with.
I hope to add the latter half of the chapter as well, but if I get bites for betas, the Chrons might be out of luck. If you've read the other version, you know what happens by chapter's end anyway. I'll just have changed a few words.
I feel it goes a bit faster than intended as it winds down toward the end, which is all newly rewritten material, so I'll probably spend some time fleshing that out further to give more substance to the characters involved, motivations, and thoughts. Seems a bit "loose endy" to me currently. So off to work go I to make it shiny.
Enjoy as you will.
----------------------------
Untitled: Chapter 1
The torch burned dimly in the stifling shadow of the corridor. Though it shed its light enough to see into nearly every crevice in his path, the deeper shadows of the cells he passed pressed in upon him like forgotten beasts of Darkness. The route he followed was simple, if long, and impossible to get lost within, but it was far easier to believe that the deeper one went, the less likely seeing the surface ever again became.
The journey through three ever deepening levels of bleak dungeon gave Kale Westingdale far too much time to think, and each time he thought he'd managed to quiet his mind, the voices of the villagers returned to scald him again.
“That boy’s a monster,” one of them had growled as Kale passed.
“Bad stock, you know,” a woman had claimed to a neighbour, who'd nodded and responded with, “What else would you expect from the son of that mad man, hmm?”
It was all he could have done to keep his feet moving and his fists at his sides. Oblivious of his thoughts, the accusations had kept flying, like vicious little demons tearing down all resistance to their deadly rumour.
“Pity the Gods don’t strike him now, harming their Children that way. How he was to be getting away with it so long is beyond me, I’ll tell you right off, but his days is numbered now, filthy Daimoran that he is.”
Kale had struggled to keep the scowl from his face; they had used Ral's surname as an invective! As some kind of curse to condemn him for being born of the same blood as some other man who’d done great wrong. They'd spoken as if they'd actually known something, when he knew they gossiped and sniped in their blissfully ignorant world day in and day out. Ral was just one more appetiser on the list of dishes in which they could delight.
“I heard the lady avatar is looking for him so she can make him her supper,” an older woman had jested. He had seen a malicious twinkle in her weathered eyes as she'd spoken.
“I heard she was in sick-care still, too weak even to eat.”
“Nah, you both be wrong. She be in the bar drinkin’, fair as you please. It doesn’ take tha’ long fer a thing like that to heal. The dragons wouldn' allow tha', now would they? Why, I bet she even -” The man had tried to say more, but those nearby had already started laughing, and beating him lightly with their hats.
“Don’t be stupid, you old son of a bard’s wench!” one of them had said with a smile. “Nobody heals from a wound like that so quickly. Even an avatar needs rest.”
The lot of them had moved off after that, laughing and shaking their heads at the absurdity of it as Kale had finally passed through the front gate of Perrinwold Keep.
At least some of them could forget their anger for a while as they busied themselves with daily chores. Kale, however, still quivered inside as their words bounded savagely through his thoughts and followed him down the cold stone length of the fourth and final lower dungeon.
The sound of his own footsteps echoed hollowly off the claustrophobic confines of the corridor as eventually he slowed to a stop before three widely spaced cells. Each cell boasted a door half as high as a man and a barred window not even large enough to fit a hand through. Shielded slats lay at the bottom of the doors with a thick slab of metal to lock each in place. They looked almost too small to allow food to scrape by, but he could imagine little other purpose they could serve. The cells all held the same empty, unused, and deserted quality shared by every cell he'd passed in the levels above. The difference here was that he knew one of them also held his dear friend, and he wasn't leaving until he had his chance to speak with him.
“Ral?” he said quietly enough not to echo. Silence blanketed the air once more, thick with the weight of the earth pressing against every wall, and lonely without the memory of a voice. He took breath to ask again when the sound of cramped shuffling came from the second of the three chambers.
Kale dropped to his knees before it and lifted the torch to shine within. Two blood-shot eyes squinted against the light, yet still managed to sparkle behind a mask of grime and fear under the flickering shadow of iron bars.
“Kale?” The prisoner rasped. Behind the raw, grating crackle of a voice that sounded like burnt leather being dragged across gravel, Kale could still make out remnants of his friend's familiar tones. It sounded as though he'd been kicked in the throat, or choked, and when he considered the attitudes of the villagers, he suspected it had been a combination of the two.
“I’m here Ral, it’s me.”
“I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see you again before they . . .” he broke off, swallowing hard as he struggled both with his emotions and the pain of forcing speech through his damaged vocal chords, and Kale wondered if he'd ever hear his friend sing again.
“I can’t let you go off all by yourself and not expect to get a letter in the middle of the night with you begging me to haul your chops out of the fire, you know. I was already half way here to state your defence before the letter could catch up to me.” He watched as tears glistened in Ralanir’s eyes, which creased at the corners in an achingly pained and grateful smile.
“Kale, I didn’t--”
“I know you didn’t.” Kale’s voice grew serious, and almost as dark as the shadows around them.
“I just saw her, laying there on the road. She wasn't moving. She--” he paused to swallow back the tears. “She was barely breathing, and the black just kept coming out. It burned. It made my eyes water, and I couldn’t breathe, but I tried to make it stop, Kale, I tried so hard--” He choked on his words with a dry sob, and Kale felt his heart tear at the sound. Never had he seen his friend in so dire a state.
“I took up my scarf and tried to clean it away to see the wound, but then everything was getting so dark. I think I must have passed out, because next thing I remember is opening my eyes and this man was standing over me. He's shouting and calling for help, and I can't speak or move. I know all he sees is me covered in her blood and her not moving. I can't even see the scarf any more, and my fingers had gone numb, so I can't feel it either. Kale, they think I tried to kill. . . She’s an avatar, Kale!” He rattled out another ragged sob, but kept talking, forcing the words through a throat that must surely ache more than anything. “They keep saying I’ve been the one, Kale, but I don’t know what they’re talking about!”
“Ral, there have been other attacks.” he said gently, and watched the torch’s reflection in Ralanir’s eyes as they widened.
“I-I-I didn’t do this, Kale! I swear I didn’t!” Panic raced an obvious path through Ralanir's every visible fibre.
“I know you didn’t, I know. That’s why I’m here. Is there anything you remember before you woke up next to her? Before the villager found you.”
The once lively gaze of Ralanir darted around his dark enclosure a moment, his eyes as wide as Kale had ever seen them.
“N-no. Nothing! I've told you all I remember! I passed out from her blood, and then . . . no, wait,” he swallowed, it seemed, to soothe his throat again as he collected his thoughts, obviously struggling to recapture the memory. “There is something. I remember a man. A different man. He was too tall, and dressed all in dark colours. I couldn’t see his face, I think it was covered, but,” he shuddered and closed his eyes, but no sooner had they closed than they opened again as if he was unable to stand the images they bore. He stared at the edge of the door with something haunted shimmering behind his gaze. “His eyes made me want to die,” he whispered.
Kale frowned in confusion. Ralanir had never before shown signs of the fabled Daimoran Madness, and Kale certainly didn’t want to admit that he ever would, but the fact did remain that Ralanir’s father had gone mad, a trait that was easily passed on to future generations.
“What was he doing? Do you remember anything else?”
Ralanir shook his head, and continued to stare. “Just his eyes,” he said. Slowly, his gaze lifted to Kale. “Am I going mad, Kale? Is this what my father felt that night?” His friend’s words so mirrored his own thoughts that he wondered if he didn’t also have some telepathy. Kale shook his head, though.
“You’re not going mad, Ral. Your father, he had some problems, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have them. You didn’t do this and I’ll find a way to show them.”
“But, th-they won’t just let me sit here until you get what you need,” he said in a rasp both terrified and resigned.
Kale smiled reassuringly. “I’ve already spoken to the magistrate here. He’s an old friend of my father’s. He’s not too happy about the request, but he’s given me some time to figure it all out. He said something about owing my father a favour anyway, and that he had better think twice about making another request like it again, so for both of you, I won’t fail.”
Ralanir brightened somewhat with a hope that tethered itself to the cell around him. “How long did he give you?”
“He said he could delay for a month, maybe two, but that I couldn’t expect any more than that. I don’t think I’ll even get the full two, but a day is better than no time at all, right?” He watched as Ralanir nodded feebly, but hope did lighten his eyes a little more.
“Whatever happens, just be careful. You’re the only family I ever had, and the only person in the world who believes me.” He choked out a laugh stained with desperation, and cast tear-slicked eyes upward. “Svintla, Kale, I don’t even believe me.”
Reaching into his pocket, a small smile on his lips at the curse he'd taught his friend so long ago, Kale withdrew a small package wrapped in white.
“Here,” he said softly, struggling with the feeding slat at the cell's base. It ground across the gap in halting bursts as he jerked it open. There was just enough room to slide the little package through.
A look of confusion whispered shadow-like across Ralanir’s brow as he picked it up, but it soon melted into a look of wonder.
“It’s warm,” he said, parting the corners of the kerchief, and releasing the sweet aroma of honey rolls to the dank air of the cell.
“The gods bless you, Kale!” He whispered reverently before he inhaled deeply of the sweet honey scent.
Somewhere behind them a rusted door closed in forlorn resignation as a guard passed through. Kale’s head lifted to the noise, but he did not yet rise.
“It looks like they think I’m done here, old friend.”
“May Jahriel smile on you always, and grant you speed and luck for all your days. For the sins my family has committed, I’m baffled as to why I should be blessed with you as my friend, but I will not question it.” He held a hand up to the bars and slid what fingers he could onto Kale’s side.
He gripped them as best he could. “Look far enough back and your family must be as influential as mine once was. The Daimoran name hasn't always been so cursed, I know it. But you are my brother, Ralanir. Blood or no, we have always been family. I’ll find out who did this, and free you soon.”
With a final squeeze to Ralanir’s fingers, and firm, encouraging nod, Kale straightened and moved off toward the oncoming guard, leaving cold darkness and warm honey rolls to keep his friend company.
The defiant feeling of determination slowly started to turn in his stomach with each step he made toward the freedom and fresh air of the world above. Doubt laid claim to his thoughts. Though he had bought the time with a family favour and brought hope back to the face of his closest friend, he couldn’t honestly say that Ralanir had not, after all, tried to kill the avatar. It took either a great fool or a mad man to go after so powerful a creature in the first place, but now he wondered if Ralanir might not have been both. Human shape or no, avatars, and the dragons to whom they belonged, were nearly impossible to harm. And besides, though Ral was a fighter -he knew his way around a rapier well enough-, he didn’t have the follow through to kill even those who had done him great harm intentionally. It just didn’t make sense. He was utterly honour bound.
The guard fell in behind Kale silently when he was met half-way to the cells, oblivious of the thoughts that troubled his 'delivery' as Kale kept them entirely to himself. He could almost feel the guard's eyes straining to find some missing element that would mean he'd helped the most dangerous prisoner in Perrinwold's most recent history.
In times like these, I wouldn’t trust anyone either. A man comes down to speak with someone imprisoned for attacking avatars? Kale shook his head. One can only believe there must be more than one person in on it.
Two torches bobbed their way back to the surface where they were replaced in their brackets at the top dungeon’s entrance. He was only mildly surprised when his silent companion from the local militia took a seat with three others already engrossed in a game of cards. He’d expected more of an entourage to the gate now that there was freedom at his fingertips, though as he thought it over, if he hadn’t killed the first guard when given the chance why bother providing more of them? For that matter, if he’d killed one of them, he wouldn’t be walking out at all.
With a nod from what may have been the captain, a smooth-faced youth, his leather armour two sizes too big, accompanied him to the gate. He would have been insulted had he been a criminal. Instead, he was only barely aware of the passage across the long path, its twists and turns down the overgrown hill feeding the knots in his belly.
This journey, too, was a blessedly silent one. The only dialogue to be found manifest itself within the furtive glances cast him by his guard the whole way down. Though Kale refused to participate in the exchange, he couldn't help but imagine what was thought of him, the man who would speak to an unholy scab of a murderer hidden somewhere below their very feet. Twice, he thought the lad on the verge of speech and felt an involuntary tensing of each muscle in his body, but prudent uncertainty seemed to hold his tongue in the end. He really wasn't sure he'd be able to control himself if another person began spouting off with their small-minded scape-goating, regardless of their age or village status.
In what blighted Anthian dream could a man like Ralanir manage to harm an enchanted being like that anyway?!
Without any bloodshed whatsoever, they reached the gate. At once, it felt as though only a moment ago he'd been kneeling at Ralanir's cell door while an eternity had passed since last they'd spoken. As the gate swung behind him to lock with an awful air of finality, a lonely sense of aimlessness drifted over him to settle like fresh fallen snow about his shoulders. He knew well how the snow, so light and silvery as it fell, could crack and shatter even the strongest branches as it collected.
A hand swept over his face as he leaned back against the high stone wall around the keep's perimeter and sighed within the shade of a friendly old tree. Peeking through his fingers he noted how the crowd from before had dispersed, and wondered just how long he'd been inside. The sun yet shone, though it seemed set much lower in the sky. Longer than he'd thought, yet not so long as he would have liked.
“Mother,” he sighed under his breath, “where do I go from here?” It was a prayer he'd whispered often in his life, yet never had he felt the need for her guidance more than he did now. Everything always worked out when she offered a suggestion. Inwardly he acknowledged that she'd likely know as little as he were she there even now, but the child inside craved her presence and reassurance.
Time passed him by as his thoughts meandered and crossed paths with each other without any epiphanal results, and he knew he was only putting things off. Much as he might prefer to spin out the remainder of the day lounging, if indeed it could be lounging, against the wall, there was serious work afoot, and resting on his laurels would see none of it completed.
The sun shone warmly upon the flagstone-paved street, and as he moved into the light he felt its heat upon his back. It could do little to warm the cold stone of dread that rolled around in his stomach, but seemed willing to try none-the-less.
Where do I even begin? He thought, kicking a pebble away to watch it bounce between the larger stones. They took away his blades and refuse to let me see them. His clothing was burned to prevent others from suffering exposure to the avatar's toxin, so I can’t study them either. There’s nothing but blackened, withered grass where it all happened, and no matter how long I stare at it, I see nothing of use.
He wiped a hand over his face once more to shade his tired, olive-green eyes, moving without purpose through the tidy little streets of Perrinwold.
I can't even begin to understand. An avatar of all things, and they think a mere man could harm her? Where was her enchantment? Where was her skill? Where was her resistance?
Resistance met his next step as he collided with an unexpected force. It rebounded from his more solid frame and began a tumble toward the stones below with a very disgruntled sound of protest. His body moved without conscious direction, so that by the time his mind caught up with his actions, he found himself speared by a merciless set of stormy blue eyes. The woman, to whom the eyes belonged, glared daggers into him.
“If you wouldn't mind?” Her voice carried a distinctive edge that bore more threat of violence than promise. Kicking into gear, his brain finally alerted him to the fact that he'd managed to sweep her into his arms before she could hit the street.
Abashedly, he lowered her to the ground, releasing her as one might a venomous serpent that had yet to decide if it would strike because it was distracted with adjusting its cloak. She pulled the cloak's hood about her face and seemed to disappear within its shadows.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, extending his hand in apology. “I'm a little . . . distracted.”
Her eyes flared within the murkiness of the hood, and she looked ready to start some sort of argument with him, which he believed would begin with the removal of his proffered hand, when something flickered behind the storm. He didn't know her well enough to say with any authority, but it looked like it could have been either uncertainty, or calculation. Whatever it was, it passed briefly and left a woman almost demure where a challenge once stood.
“No, it was my”, she paused a moment, as if searching for the word, “ . . . fault. Please, excuse me. Never think on it again.” She backed away from him with her head down and face obscured before going around him.
Turning, he followed her with his gaze a moment. She'd sounded more than genuine, but there was something almost entirely false about the whole change in attitude. To call her merely intriguing was therefore a severe understatement. Before he knew it, he found himself at the corner of an unknown street, seeking her cloaked form in everyone who passed.
Confusion and guilt crept upon him as he blinked in the late afternoon light. He didn't have time to be following some flight of fancy, no matter how striking the eyes.
Raking his fingers through his hair with a heavy sigh, which he found himself using more in the last twelve hours than ever before, and finally made a decision, and so, to no one in particular, he made his decree.
“I need a drink.”
Intro:
In another incarnation, this was posted as Chronicles of Chaos, to which it does belong, but that's more the umbrella under which it lives, not its actual title. Included is not the whole chapter, but a little under half. My count brings it to 3640, so if you're NOT interested in reading half a chapter, don't worry your pretty little heads. ^_^
I've given it a major passing over, added many new bits, at least two pages in the past few hours and as many as four since the last revision. I'm hoping it reads more smoothly, gives more insight into the character and makes the reader feel a bit more of what he's going through. Any critique is welcome, as are any general opinions, but I am looking for a good beta reader or two. My writing is on no actual schedule, so pieces submitted for beta review would be sporadic at best. For anyone willing to help, please note me, or provide an e-mail address where I can send you a version to play with.
I hope to add the latter half of the chapter as well, but if I get bites for betas, the Chrons might be out of luck.
If you've read the other version, you know what happens by chapter's end anyway. I'll just have changed a few words.I feel it goes a bit faster than intended as it winds down toward the end, which is all newly rewritten material, so I'll probably spend some time fleshing that out further to give more substance to the characters involved, motivations, and thoughts. Seems a bit "loose endy" to me currently. So off to work go I to make it shiny.
Enjoy as you will.
----------------------------
Untitled: Chapter 1
The torch burned dimly in the stifling shadow of the corridor. Though it shed its light enough to see into nearly every crevice in his path, the deeper shadows of the cells he passed pressed in upon him like forgotten beasts of Darkness. The route he followed was simple, if long, and impossible to get lost within, but it was far easier to believe that the deeper one went, the less likely seeing the surface ever again became.
The journey through three ever deepening levels of bleak dungeon gave Kale Westingdale far too much time to think, and each time he thought he'd managed to quiet his mind, the voices of the villagers returned to scald him again.
“That boy’s a monster,” one of them had growled as Kale passed.
“Bad stock, you know,” a woman had claimed to a neighbour, who'd nodded and responded with, “What else would you expect from the son of that mad man, hmm?”
It was all he could have done to keep his feet moving and his fists at his sides. Oblivious of his thoughts, the accusations had kept flying, like vicious little demons tearing down all resistance to their deadly rumour.
“Pity the Gods don’t strike him now, harming their Children that way. How he was to be getting away with it so long is beyond me, I’ll tell you right off, but his days is numbered now, filthy Daimoran that he is.”
Kale had struggled to keep the scowl from his face; they had used Ral's surname as an invective! As some kind of curse to condemn him for being born of the same blood as some other man who’d done great wrong. They'd spoken as if they'd actually known something, when he knew they gossiped and sniped in their blissfully ignorant world day in and day out. Ral was just one more appetiser on the list of dishes in which they could delight.
“I heard the lady avatar is looking for him so she can make him her supper,” an older woman had jested. He had seen a malicious twinkle in her weathered eyes as she'd spoken.
“I heard she was in sick-care still, too weak even to eat.”
“Nah, you both be wrong. She be in the bar drinkin’, fair as you please. It doesn’ take tha’ long fer a thing like that to heal. The dragons wouldn' allow tha', now would they? Why, I bet she even -” The man had tried to say more, but those nearby had already started laughing, and beating him lightly with their hats.
“Don’t be stupid, you old son of a bard’s wench!” one of them had said with a smile. “Nobody heals from a wound like that so quickly. Even an avatar needs rest.”
The lot of them had moved off after that, laughing and shaking their heads at the absurdity of it as Kale had finally passed through the front gate of Perrinwold Keep.
At least some of them could forget their anger for a while as they busied themselves with daily chores. Kale, however, still quivered inside as their words bounded savagely through his thoughts and followed him down the cold stone length of the fourth and final lower dungeon.
The sound of his own footsteps echoed hollowly off the claustrophobic confines of the corridor as eventually he slowed to a stop before three widely spaced cells. Each cell boasted a door half as high as a man and a barred window not even large enough to fit a hand through. Shielded slats lay at the bottom of the doors with a thick slab of metal to lock each in place. They looked almost too small to allow food to scrape by, but he could imagine little other purpose they could serve. The cells all held the same empty, unused, and deserted quality shared by every cell he'd passed in the levels above. The difference here was that he knew one of them also held his dear friend, and he wasn't leaving until he had his chance to speak with him.
“Ral?” he said quietly enough not to echo. Silence blanketed the air once more, thick with the weight of the earth pressing against every wall, and lonely without the memory of a voice. He took breath to ask again when the sound of cramped shuffling came from the second of the three chambers.
Kale dropped to his knees before it and lifted the torch to shine within. Two blood-shot eyes squinted against the light, yet still managed to sparkle behind a mask of grime and fear under the flickering shadow of iron bars.
“Kale?” The prisoner rasped. Behind the raw, grating crackle of a voice that sounded like burnt leather being dragged across gravel, Kale could still make out remnants of his friend's familiar tones. It sounded as though he'd been kicked in the throat, or choked, and when he considered the attitudes of the villagers, he suspected it had been a combination of the two.
“I’m here Ral, it’s me.”
“I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see you again before they . . .” he broke off, swallowing hard as he struggled both with his emotions and the pain of forcing speech through his damaged vocal chords, and Kale wondered if he'd ever hear his friend sing again.
“I can’t let you go off all by yourself and not expect to get a letter in the middle of the night with you begging me to haul your chops out of the fire, you know. I was already half way here to state your defence before the letter could catch up to me.” He watched as tears glistened in Ralanir’s eyes, which creased at the corners in an achingly pained and grateful smile.
“Kale, I didn’t--”
“I know you didn’t.” Kale’s voice grew serious, and almost as dark as the shadows around them.
“I just saw her, laying there on the road. She wasn't moving. She--” he paused to swallow back the tears. “She was barely breathing, and the black just kept coming out. It burned. It made my eyes water, and I couldn’t breathe, but I tried to make it stop, Kale, I tried so hard--” He choked on his words with a dry sob, and Kale felt his heart tear at the sound. Never had he seen his friend in so dire a state.
“I took up my scarf and tried to clean it away to see the wound, but then everything was getting so dark. I think I must have passed out, because next thing I remember is opening my eyes and this man was standing over me. He's shouting and calling for help, and I can't speak or move. I know all he sees is me covered in her blood and her not moving. I can't even see the scarf any more, and my fingers had gone numb, so I can't feel it either. Kale, they think I tried to kill. . . She’s an avatar, Kale!” He rattled out another ragged sob, but kept talking, forcing the words through a throat that must surely ache more than anything. “They keep saying I’ve been the one, Kale, but I don’t know what they’re talking about!”
“Ral, there have been other attacks.” he said gently, and watched the torch’s reflection in Ralanir’s eyes as they widened.
“I-I-I didn’t do this, Kale! I swear I didn’t!” Panic raced an obvious path through Ralanir's every visible fibre.
“I know you didn’t, I know. That’s why I’m here. Is there anything you remember before you woke up next to her? Before the villager found you.”
The once lively gaze of Ralanir darted around his dark enclosure a moment, his eyes as wide as Kale had ever seen them.
“N-no. Nothing! I've told you all I remember! I passed out from her blood, and then . . . no, wait,” he swallowed, it seemed, to soothe his throat again as he collected his thoughts, obviously struggling to recapture the memory. “There is something. I remember a man. A different man. He was too tall, and dressed all in dark colours. I couldn’t see his face, I think it was covered, but,” he shuddered and closed his eyes, but no sooner had they closed than they opened again as if he was unable to stand the images they bore. He stared at the edge of the door with something haunted shimmering behind his gaze. “His eyes made me want to die,” he whispered.
Kale frowned in confusion. Ralanir had never before shown signs of the fabled Daimoran Madness, and Kale certainly didn’t want to admit that he ever would, but the fact did remain that Ralanir’s father had gone mad, a trait that was easily passed on to future generations.
“What was he doing? Do you remember anything else?”
Ralanir shook his head, and continued to stare. “Just his eyes,” he said. Slowly, his gaze lifted to Kale. “Am I going mad, Kale? Is this what my father felt that night?” His friend’s words so mirrored his own thoughts that he wondered if he didn’t also have some telepathy. Kale shook his head, though.
“You’re not going mad, Ral. Your father, he had some problems, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have them. You didn’t do this and I’ll find a way to show them.”
“But, th-they won’t just let me sit here until you get what you need,” he said in a rasp both terrified and resigned.
Kale smiled reassuringly. “I’ve already spoken to the magistrate here. He’s an old friend of my father’s. He’s not too happy about the request, but he’s given me some time to figure it all out. He said something about owing my father a favour anyway, and that he had better think twice about making another request like it again, so for both of you, I won’t fail.”
Ralanir brightened somewhat with a hope that tethered itself to the cell around him. “How long did he give you?”
“He said he could delay for a month, maybe two, but that I couldn’t expect any more than that. I don’t think I’ll even get the full two, but a day is better than no time at all, right?” He watched as Ralanir nodded feebly, but hope did lighten his eyes a little more.
“Whatever happens, just be careful. You’re the only family I ever had, and the only person in the world who believes me.” He choked out a laugh stained with desperation, and cast tear-slicked eyes upward. “Svintla, Kale, I don’t even believe me.”
Reaching into his pocket, a small smile on his lips at the curse he'd taught his friend so long ago, Kale withdrew a small package wrapped in white.
“Here,” he said softly, struggling with the feeding slat at the cell's base. It ground across the gap in halting bursts as he jerked it open. There was just enough room to slide the little package through.
A look of confusion whispered shadow-like across Ralanir’s brow as he picked it up, but it soon melted into a look of wonder.
“It’s warm,” he said, parting the corners of the kerchief, and releasing the sweet aroma of honey rolls to the dank air of the cell.
“The gods bless you, Kale!” He whispered reverently before he inhaled deeply of the sweet honey scent.
Somewhere behind them a rusted door closed in forlorn resignation as a guard passed through. Kale’s head lifted to the noise, but he did not yet rise.
“It looks like they think I’m done here, old friend.”
“May Jahriel smile on you always, and grant you speed and luck for all your days. For the sins my family has committed, I’m baffled as to why I should be blessed with you as my friend, but I will not question it.” He held a hand up to the bars and slid what fingers he could onto Kale’s side.
He gripped them as best he could. “Look far enough back and your family must be as influential as mine once was. The Daimoran name hasn't always been so cursed, I know it. But you are my brother, Ralanir. Blood or no, we have always been family. I’ll find out who did this, and free you soon.”
With a final squeeze to Ralanir’s fingers, and firm, encouraging nod, Kale straightened and moved off toward the oncoming guard, leaving cold darkness and warm honey rolls to keep his friend company.
The defiant feeling of determination slowly started to turn in his stomach with each step he made toward the freedom and fresh air of the world above. Doubt laid claim to his thoughts. Though he had bought the time with a family favour and brought hope back to the face of his closest friend, he couldn’t honestly say that Ralanir had not, after all, tried to kill the avatar. It took either a great fool or a mad man to go after so powerful a creature in the first place, but now he wondered if Ralanir might not have been both. Human shape or no, avatars, and the dragons to whom they belonged, were nearly impossible to harm. And besides, though Ral was a fighter -he knew his way around a rapier well enough-, he didn’t have the follow through to kill even those who had done him great harm intentionally. It just didn’t make sense. He was utterly honour bound.
The guard fell in behind Kale silently when he was met half-way to the cells, oblivious of the thoughts that troubled his 'delivery' as Kale kept them entirely to himself. He could almost feel the guard's eyes straining to find some missing element that would mean he'd helped the most dangerous prisoner in Perrinwold's most recent history.
In times like these, I wouldn’t trust anyone either. A man comes down to speak with someone imprisoned for attacking avatars? Kale shook his head. One can only believe there must be more than one person in on it.
Two torches bobbed their way back to the surface where they were replaced in their brackets at the top dungeon’s entrance. He was only mildly surprised when his silent companion from the local militia took a seat with three others already engrossed in a game of cards. He’d expected more of an entourage to the gate now that there was freedom at his fingertips, though as he thought it over, if he hadn’t killed the first guard when given the chance why bother providing more of them? For that matter, if he’d killed one of them, he wouldn’t be walking out at all.
With a nod from what may have been the captain, a smooth-faced youth, his leather armour two sizes too big, accompanied him to the gate. He would have been insulted had he been a criminal. Instead, he was only barely aware of the passage across the long path, its twists and turns down the overgrown hill feeding the knots in his belly.
This journey, too, was a blessedly silent one. The only dialogue to be found manifest itself within the furtive glances cast him by his guard the whole way down. Though Kale refused to participate in the exchange, he couldn't help but imagine what was thought of him, the man who would speak to an unholy scab of a murderer hidden somewhere below their very feet. Twice, he thought the lad on the verge of speech and felt an involuntary tensing of each muscle in his body, but prudent uncertainty seemed to hold his tongue in the end. He really wasn't sure he'd be able to control himself if another person began spouting off with their small-minded scape-goating, regardless of their age or village status.
In what blighted Anthian dream could a man like Ralanir manage to harm an enchanted being like that anyway?!
Without any bloodshed whatsoever, they reached the gate. At once, it felt as though only a moment ago he'd been kneeling at Ralanir's cell door while an eternity had passed since last they'd spoken. As the gate swung behind him to lock with an awful air of finality, a lonely sense of aimlessness drifted over him to settle like fresh fallen snow about his shoulders. He knew well how the snow, so light and silvery as it fell, could crack and shatter even the strongest branches as it collected.
A hand swept over his face as he leaned back against the high stone wall around the keep's perimeter and sighed within the shade of a friendly old tree. Peeking through his fingers he noted how the crowd from before had dispersed, and wondered just how long he'd been inside. The sun yet shone, though it seemed set much lower in the sky. Longer than he'd thought, yet not so long as he would have liked.
“Mother,” he sighed under his breath, “where do I go from here?” It was a prayer he'd whispered often in his life, yet never had he felt the need for her guidance more than he did now. Everything always worked out when she offered a suggestion. Inwardly he acknowledged that she'd likely know as little as he were she there even now, but the child inside craved her presence and reassurance.
Time passed him by as his thoughts meandered and crossed paths with each other without any epiphanal results, and he knew he was only putting things off. Much as he might prefer to spin out the remainder of the day lounging, if indeed it could be lounging, against the wall, there was serious work afoot, and resting on his laurels would see none of it completed.
The sun shone warmly upon the flagstone-paved street, and as he moved into the light he felt its heat upon his back. It could do little to warm the cold stone of dread that rolled around in his stomach, but seemed willing to try none-the-less.
Where do I even begin? He thought, kicking a pebble away to watch it bounce between the larger stones. They took away his blades and refuse to let me see them. His clothing was burned to prevent others from suffering exposure to the avatar's toxin, so I can’t study them either. There’s nothing but blackened, withered grass where it all happened, and no matter how long I stare at it, I see nothing of use.
He wiped a hand over his face once more to shade his tired, olive-green eyes, moving without purpose through the tidy little streets of Perrinwold.
I can't even begin to understand. An avatar of all things, and they think a mere man could harm her? Where was her enchantment? Where was her skill? Where was her resistance?
Resistance met his next step as he collided with an unexpected force. It rebounded from his more solid frame and began a tumble toward the stones below with a very disgruntled sound of protest. His body moved without conscious direction, so that by the time his mind caught up with his actions, he found himself speared by a merciless set of stormy blue eyes. The woman, to whom the eyes belonged, glared daggers into him.
“If you wouldn't mind?” Her voice carried a distinctive edge that bore more threat of violence than promise. Kicking into gear, his brain finally alerted him to the fact that he'd managed to sweep her into his arms before she could hit the street.
Abashedly, he lowered her to the ground, releasing her as one might a venomous serpent that had yet to decide if it would strike because it was distracted with adjusting its cloak. She pulled the cloak's hood about her face and seemed to disappear within its shadows.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, extending his hand in apology. “I'm a little . . . distracted.”
Her eyes flared within the murkiness of the hood, and she looked ready to start some sort of argument with him, which he believed would begin with the removal of his proffered hand, when something flickered behind the storm. He didn't know her well enough to say with any authority, but it looked like it could have been either uncertainty, or calculation. Whatever it was, it passed briefly and left a woman almost demure where a challenge once stood.
“No, it was my”, she paused a moment, as if searching for the word, “ . . . fault. Please, excuse me. Never think on it again.” She backed away from him with her head down and face obscured before going around him.
Turning, he followed her with his gaze a moment. She'd sounded more than genuine, but there was something almost entirely false about the whole change in attitude. To call her merely intriguing was therefore a severe understatement. Before he knew it, he found himself at the corner of an unknown street, seeking her cloaked form in everyone who passed.
Confusion and guilt crept upon him as he blinked in the late afternoon light. He didn't have time to be following some flight of fancy, no matter how striking the eyes.
Raking his fingers through his hair with a heavy sigh, which he found himself using more in the last twelve hours than ever before, and finally made a decision, and so, to no one in particular, he made his decree.
“I need a drink.”
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