Blood And Fire

Chapter 35-Origins of Evil

CHAPTER 35

     "Well, Sparx, you certainly have been busy, haven't you?" says the father pixie.  He regards his daughter with a pained expression, one that is reserved for when a parent realizes they can no longer shield their child from the world.

     "Honey, I wish the world was a nice place.  There has been a war waging between dragon and vampire for a very long time.

     "We pixies try to keep ourselves hidden from everyone, enjoying our own paradise and exploring all there is to see.

     "But, I have feared for a while that our kind will no longer be able to sit idly by and be mere observers as good and evil continue their struggle for dominance.

     "Humans are at the fulcrum of the conflict.  We see in them the capacity for either.  The choice lies with the individual.  Humans have not inhabited our world as long as pixies or dragons.  But, because the Creator chose them to be protected from all that is evil, when the time comes, we must side with them as well.

     "Vampires are only one type of evil, Sparx.  We have never given you the images of the Rift continent, but we believe that it is from there that all evil originates.

     The crows with the bloody eyes that were attacking your friend's dragon, which was the work of the Skiwa.  They are a strange and evil people of that forsaken continent.

     "It was believed that as long as they were left to their home, undisturbed, that they would refrain from using their wicked conjurations on the rest of the world.

     "Humans are as curious as Pixie folk, but whereas we are content with exploring and observing, humans have a thirst for conquest and exploitation.

     "Human settlements have encroached upon the Skiwa lands in recent years.  We have witnessed killings by both parties.  In many ways, the Skiwa are justified in their actions.  It does not seem fair to them that the Creator smiles so favorably on the humans."

     Sparx interrupts at this point, "but the old man I saw with the crow was human dad!"

     "Human, yes, Sparx, but the Skiwa have made a pact with evil.  They have turned their backs on the gifts the creator has provided and chosen a dark talent from deep within the Rift Continent."

     "Father, I don't understand," confesses Sparx.  "You say that the Skiwa have chosen a dark gift from the Rift continent, but if the Creator made that as well, then how can it be evil?"

     "An astute observation, my daughter," replies the pixie father.  "Yes, the creator made the whole world and all life upon it.  However, something else came here, Sparx, something very wrong.  For all we know, it was trapped deep within the bowels of the planet, like a dark seed.  Or, perhaps, it was somewhere beyond, drifting through space with its sinister purpose and just happened across our beautiful world – tainting it with its foul malignance."

     "What is it, daddy" Sparx asks.  She had been hanging on every word her father had been saying.

     "None of our people have ever seen it, Sparx, but we have seen its manifestations in various life forms.  The Skiwa are one, vampires are another.  Some believe that all life used to exist peacefully before the ancient evil arrived.  No life required the flesh of another to sustain itself.  That is believed to be the work of the Evil, also."

     "Dad, what if this Evil has got a hold of Nick?  He's always been a vampire, but he's never killed a human before.  The creature I saw tonight, it wasn't him.....his eyes – they were like pools of oil.  The way he killed that other vampire and feasted on its blood...he liked it.  He enjoyed killing," Sparx recalls, tears coming to her eyes.

     Sparx's father holds his daughter to his chest and pats the back of her head.  "There, there, Sparx.  I wish this hadn't happened to you.  I think your friend Nick is very unique.  No vampire has ever been a Dragonrider.  It's an oxymoron if I've ever heard of one.  I suspect that he is a key to all this somehow.  I think you should take me to meet him."

     Sparx gasps at this suggestion and gapes at her father with an astonished expression.