The moon blazed red like a sickle cloaked in blood. Its curved edge was sharp as a knife, rimmed with a vibrant black. It sat against a shadowy canvas, the glittering stars marching overhead and the grey ashy clouds veiling the blade. Visir blinked, and the moon changed. Swollen and bloated it adorned the sky, white as milk with an eerie opalescence. Its pale, ghostly radiance fell through the shelves of darkness and filtered like water through a small hole in the earth. Visir watched from inside the hole, the light flooding down on his pallid skin so that it gleamed bright and clear. Shimmering, his body illuminated the underground cavern like a torch of white flame. The ray of moonlight faded as an ashy hand blocked its gaze, but Visir still glowed.
He descended into the murky depths of the cavern, the rock walls slick with moisture and clad in a skin of dirty moss. The path was tight and winding, with tiny stairs wrought out of the great roots of an oak tree that grew strong and tall from above. Its roots burrowed deep, with skin of a pale almond, streaked with dirt and grim and armored in scales of lichen. The smell was wholesome and hearty, with the ripe scent of wet wood and the cool crisp fragrance of the earth. Visir’s body lit the way down and down, the roots growing larger and larger until they began to slither up the walls like thick snakes and arc over the rocky roof, draped in brown hair.
He followed the roots until he came to an opening under the ground. It was a wide hall built under the earth with a high ceiling and rounded walls. The entire place was running with the gnarled roots of trees, entwining like thread and knobby like an old man’s hands. The walls raced with writhing wooden serpents, with sliver-thin slits running across the wood. The slits glowed with an iridescent green tint, showering the hall in an emerald illumination, with Visir’s pale figure fading.
In the heart of the hall, the roots all met to form a throne of wood. The gnarled limbs laced together like twine and rose from the ground and arced at the armrests. It reached higher at the headboard with a green heart that seemed fixed into the wood of the ancient throne. The limbs were white and pallid like a sickly child’s face with veins of green running like streaks of liquid through the wood. The veins spilled out at the contorted feet in a sappy pool, the liquid still as glass with a metallic gleam. Two torches of emerald flame shivered upon either side of the throne, wrought from the wood as it curled off the headboard, the light dancing against the glassy green substance below.
Resting in the pale wooden throne, there was a figure. It was no man or women, no human even, or animal. The figure looked to be completely wrought of curving and curling and twirling and arcing wood, but brown, rather than pale. Two legs it had, great curving elms and two arms, with talons for fingers. Its head was cloaked in shadow as a great black mantle draped over its face. All Visir could see were three wicked green eyes, all looking at him. The creature of wood glowed with a feeble green light from inside, peeking through the gaps in his skin and oozing out like pus does a wound. The light pulsed at where the creature’s heart should be, thumping in giant beats that shook the entire hall.
The figure tilted its shaded head at Visir. “Do you wish to kill me as so many of your fellow people have tried?”
Visir tried to speak, but a sort of film bound his throat. Nothing came out.
“My brothers and sisters have all died,” the creature went on to say, its voice weak and pained, talking in the creaks of wood. “Perished because of you.”
The wooden lord’s body brightened, then faded. “The Lords of the Earth cannot protect those who wish to destroy them. Without us, your race will fall. It will crumble from beneath your very feet. All that you have made, all that you have ever achieved will be nothing once I am destroyed.” The creature straightened its knobby spine. “It is me who keeps this world alive. It was me who was born from this earth, this very ground, just like all my siblings. We were created to rule and protect this world, wrought by the Creator of All. This world cannot stand such abuse as it does now. Your race has plagued it, drove the life out of it. It is dying, and when it does, every thing will go down with it.”
Visir felt the film shatter in his mouth like a thousand rivulets of icy water rain down his throat. “Who are you?”
“I am the Lord of All Life.” The figure rose from the wooden throne to stand like a tower, like a tree, looking down upon Visir with those three wicked eyes. “My brothers, and my sisters, we used to rule this world, from above the ground. We protected the natural life, the waters, the trees, the mountains, and the skies. We were the ones the Creator cherished most, and we ran amongst this world as it was our home, making friends with the unicorns, the fairies, the dryads, the myriads, the centaurs, the satyrs, the whole lot of the ancient majesties of the world.
“And then Men came.” The figures voice was stronger, and deeper, but then faded to its sickly rasps. “They thundered from across the sea, on boats of wood, with banners of some other god. Burly and monstrous they bounded upon our clean and wholesome shores like the very soldiers of death. They wore the hides of animals; the skin wrapped around their bodies with their dark black hair and braided beards. They came with iron, steel, fire, everything, and invaded our beautiful and bountiful lands. From north to south, from east to west they conquered, driving out the unicorns, the fairies, and the centaurs, all of them, with the sword and the axe and the fire.” The creature spoke the word with spite. “The old world, the world of life and nature, fell, and the creatures of the old world fell with it, to never rise again. My kind, my people, tried to protect the land, but it was no use. We had no other option then to burrow down into the earth, with thousands of our kind slaughtered and butchered.
“And from that time, the Conquering of the Old World, my siblings and I have had to watch the forests burn, the grasslands perish, and the waters blacken. Many more of my kind have died ever since, and now, I am alone. Though most say once my race was exterminated, their spirits, and their bodies found refuge in the trees of the forests. There they dwell, living on in nature and tending to the land. It is said that when Men chop down the trees, an animal dies, somewhere. And when each tree gets cleaved, I feel it. I feel my siblings die, and the pain stabs at my heart, until I am what I am now.” The creature sat back into the wooden throne. “I am the Earth. I see Life, Death, and Rebirth. I watch the years pass by, the millions of them. I watch the world change, and the world fall.”
“It hasn’t yet,” Visir said. “The world is not dead yet. You still live.” His voice echoed off the walls, the floor reverberating like the beats of a drum.
“It is dying, plagued by those who live on it.” The figure’s eyes began to burn through the darkness of its cowl. “Life, Death, and Rebirth, the great three things of this world the Creator has given us. We have seen Life, and we have seen Death, but this world has yet to be reborn. That much is not in my hands anymore, for I have but the strength to carry it out. I have been weakened, as has the earth itself. Since I cannot give anymore to this world, I give you this, for you are the Son of Dhaerer, my brother.”
The figure’s wooden arm reached out to Visir, but nothing was in it. It touched him on the forehead lightly like a faint breath of wind. The touch was smooth, cold, hot, and soothing. The creature’s hand began to pulse, brighter and brighter, until all Visir saw was green and white and, “You are all that is left of me, protect the Old World,” said the creature, the voice fading with the light.
Eller could not look his brother in the eyes. What will he think of me? I killed father. What have I done to our family? A sudden anger ripped at him. They cared nothing of me. Why should I care about the family when they did the same toward me? I killed father, mother, the whole lot of them because they didn’t care about me; even the lump of a man Oppilus from his dammed Myro.
“We thought you were dead,” Eller brought himself to say. “I thought you were dead.”
“Prince Ellean is dead,” answered his brother. “I am sworn to the Lord of Truth, Azai 'o Duro. That is where my allegiance lies, to the White One.”
“Why…why did you not come back? Father was distraught.” He took it out on me!
“Because Azai spoke to me,” Ellean said. “As I laid there, dying on the battlefield, he spoke to me. He saved me from death. I knew I could not return after my revelation. I knew I couldn’t abandon the one who saved me. I had to find him. I had to return the favor and give myself to the Lord.”
Eller did not know what to say. This is not Ellean. This is some mutation, some spellbound mutation. He’s been bewitched. This is not my brother. “Father’s dead,” was all tat trickled out of his mouth. The words were like poison as he uttered them. “Mother’s dead. Illyr’s dead.”
“How did such atrocities come to you?” Ellean asked. “Was because of my death?”
“No,” Eller answered softly. He could not say it.
Ellean sighed. “The Lord sees the truth, Eller. He has told me. I know what you did.”
“I killed them.” Eller slouched. “I killed them all.”
“Yet you speak the truth,” Ellean said. “The Lord will smile upon you for that much, as will I. Though why? I must ask, Eller, why did you do such a fell deed? And do not lie, for I will know.”
“He was terrible to me, Father.” Eller recounted the brutal memories. “When you died, when the soldiers returned from the battle, Father was miserable. He screamed, yelled, cursed, prayed, pleaded, everything. Never was he the same as he was the day he left the Serpent Gates. No, when he returned one son short, it killed him from the inside, and he changed. He looked at me like filth, and cursed at me. Father blamed me for your death, he said I was the reason you were in the grave and I was not. You were his favorite, yes, heir to the Seastone Throne, and I wasn’t. He tortured me, hated me, cursed me, and claimed he had no other son or rightful heir, and that the Seastone Throne would go to our cousin Eander from Syel. And so I killed him, along with the rest of them. I put the torch to the entire city, watched it burn. I thought it would make everything better. They say everything’s better in Lieth: the food, the sun, the sea, the women, the wine. And so I killed him.” Eller dropped his head.
Ellean stroked his grizzled chin. “Father… I don’t understand.”
Eller did not respond for a long while, staring out into the velvety blue expanse, following the white soldiers march across the sky. A salty wind made his pale green eyes tear. “Come with me, brother,” Eller whispered. “Come with me to Lieth.”
“I am sworn to forever serve the God of Truth,” Ellean said. “I’m afraid I cannot go with you.”
“Please,” begged Eller. “You are my only family left. You are all that I have. You are all that I haven’t destroyed. Please…”
“My vows…” Ellean said. “Their sacred. If I disobey I will die, you must understand that. They are not some flimsy words you say when you are wed. They mean something. They are more than just words. I swore myself to Azai 'o Duro. I cannot abandon them.”
“Please, brother.” His words were soft a lamb’s fur. “For our family.”
“I’m sorry, Eller,” Ellean said. “I am no brother of yours anymore.”
When Eller had brooded down from the turreted tower atop the stone house, and drunk away his sorrows with a fine red from Tyos, Shaalad and Rhazzan walked down the steps with deep groans and moans from the old wood, creaking like an elderly chap when he walks with the aid of his cane. Shaalad seemed conflicted, his stern, expressionless features told Eller that much. Yet at the same time he seemed relieved, or rather satisfied. Eller tried to read his changing mask of a face as the pirate thudded toward him.
“Rhazzan will repair the ship,” he said as Eller watched the pirate bound away under the floorboards and into the cellar.”
“How long?” Was what came to mind. “How long will it take to repair? How long does he say?”
“Five days,” Shaalad said, his voice gruff. “With an added two-hundred astraci to the original deal of seven-hundred gold.”
“Five days!” Eller was astounded. In five days I could swim to Lieth! “Why so long?”
“Rhazzan says there is more damage then we know. He also said that the job would have likely taken him ten days to complete, if not the proper materials, or the damage is more severe than explained.”
“Damn you pirates,” cursed Eller. “Greedy and sneaky in your cursed ways. Curse the whole lot of you.”
“Your recent anger has blinded you,” Shaalad said. “That wound has blinded you, gave you a taste for the real world. And since that, the world has not been too kind to you. Your kind are the accursed. The ones who believe they live in a world of security and succor and that nothing bad will ever happen. Well I’m sure you see not that that is folly. You lived in a sense of false protection, a self-illustrated vision of the world and when you get the first real taste of what this place is really like you tumble out of control, out of your minds. That painting you had drawn up inside your head is no more than a child’s dream. And you have lived in that dream for far too long.”
“Have you ever had your arm cut off?” asked Eller. “Have you ever plunged your bare flesh into Black Flame that old Magister of yours has? No, you haven’t. I may not know as much of the outside world as you, but I know more than you think. I have experienced it, first hand, if you follow me.”
Shaalad gave a chuckle. “What lack of an arm has done to you. Come, it seems you are in need of a drink, and a strong one at that.”
The tavern sat on the rocky edge of an island, its pale red-shingled face looking down into the water with stained glass eyes. It crimson reflection shimmered against the glassy blue surface of the water, and distorted as a rowboat pushed through the narrow canal. Eller looked up at the sign as they entered, the lettering crooked and dangling with the faintest of talons. He wondered whether the next gust of wind would sweep it away. He was wronged when one came, howling off the salty waterways and curling about in the air like a whirlpool.
The Dead Daughter it was called, named for when the owner, Dairg, first opened the place, his daughter died in her bed. It was originally called The Titan’s Fool, for Dairg had a certain proclivity for the Titan of Utae, for it was from those lands away south he came from, exiled for betraying the High King in battle.
The tavern was a homely place, with wooden bars and wooden tables and chairs set up across the paneled floor, with patches of missing wood. The windows were so stained one could barely see through the glass, and the curtains that draped over them were so frayed they looked more like straw than cloth. When first they entered, Eller could smell a lingering, stench of alcohol and smoke, mixed in with rotten food. It flooded into his senses like a deluge, fast and quick, and he couldn’t be rid of it. Even for his recent odor, this was on a complete other level of disgust.
The people were just as vile. Most were pirates, of a sort. Some old and gnarled. Some young and eager. All smelled worse than the other. They dressed in rags, drenched in sweat and filth, spotted with dirt and grim. The roughspun tunics they wore were corded and belted with worn leather and their hair was long and matted, stuck in frayed dreads and brimming with dirt and sand. Their teeth wee yellowed and dotted with black and cloaked in furry plaque. Some, Eller found, didn’t have any teeth at all, rather just blood red gums, ripped up and blackened with worms of green-white pus and plaque wriggling across the pools of saliva.
Shaalad showed him a seat near a window, the sunlight no more than a pale grey blur as it soaked into the tavern which was mostly lit by ruby-red torches or hooked scones mantled upon the walls. At the right corner, there was a great brazier that breathed puffs of ruddy light across the dim place. A serving wench arrived soon after they sat, asking for drinks of their desire. Eller treated himself to an entire glass of Myrrn red, and Shaalad a pint of Arbenn Gold Ale, a favorite of his. The wench, clothed in a revealing, frayed tunic, stretched at the waist and breast, jotted down the orders on a sheet of parchment with an ink quill and strode away, tending to other’s desires. Eller could not take his eyes off her pale blue eyes, and the way her silky almond hair tumbled down her back and pitched at her backside.
They received their drinks a short while after, and Eller treated himself to a long gaze at her beautiful face and curvy body. Shaalad’s ale was brimming over in an iron pint with scars running across the metalwork. His fat lips slurped at the bubbling pale foam as it crawled down the iron and settled on the wooden table. Eller took his tall glass of Myrrn in hand, the red liquid longing to kiss his lips again like it had so long ago in the Hall of Shaeia. How long ago that seemed now to Eller. Sometimes lifetime away, for in the gap between then, his life had changed. Though he didn’t know for the good or ill yet.
Music played from a raised platform in the corner of the tavern. A string instrument of sorts in company with a trumpet sang in chorus as they played to the beat of Tarhtun’s most beloved song, The Exiled Wench. Or at least it was the men’s favorite song. Either way, the crowd in attendance sang along, their deep, gruff voices chanting the words like they’ve heard it a thousand times. They beat the wooden tables with their fists and howled like wolves at parts.
Eller watched the play as a pair of men walked toward Shaalad and him. They were definitely not from Tarhtun, and not even from Gallows End. Nobody else seemed to notice, and if they did, they didn’t care. Shaalad seemed to pay them little mind as they approached. The two men were burly men, with pale skin and black, silky hair of onyx that parted at their forehead and fell down on either cheek. They were garbed in deep blue tunics of roughspun wool with a paler cloak fastened about their backs with an iron brooch resting heavily on their chests. Eller’s heart sunk into his stomach, and then shot up into his throat, and continued to beat harder, like his throat was the drum.
Upon their chests, the men wore the sigil of House Aeneir, the House of the Serpent. In a dull silver, the serpent curled about their breasts, emblazoned across the tunic. At their waists, tied to corded leather, greatswords dangled like a limb, the seastone hilt topped with a serpentine pommel. How? No! This cannot be! They could not have found me! How did they find me! Eller rose from his chair, ripped Betrayer out from his scabbard with his left and lunged at the O'eaneese. The one he charged at knocked away the dirk with his strong forehand and Eller heard it clatter to the floor. The man punched him in the ribs and Eller crumbled to the ground, falling onto his left side with a burst of pain.
“Shaalad!” Eller shouted. “Kill them!”
Shaalad Shoh did not move. Instead, he looked down at Eller. He grinned as he spoke. “Do these men look familiar to you?”
“I trusted you,” Eller said, full of rage and hate. The words seemed a curse.
“You trusted Illyr too,” Shaalad replied. “And look where that’s led him. I will not follow him to the grave.”
“I didn’t need Illyr,” pleaded Eller.
“And I don’t need you anymore,” Shaalad said. The words were poison to Eller’s ears. “Your promised price is lower than theirs.”
“Aye,” hissed one of the men. “Under orders from Oppilus Mattip, Lord of O'ea, charged with bringing you back to him.”
Eller could not believe what he was hearing. And still the music played, and still the pirates beat on the table. He looked at Shaalad amidst the singing, desperate. “What about the Code?”
Shaalad chuckled with that vile grin of his. “There isn’t a pirate in all of Gallows End who follows the Code.”