With no wagon to pull, the stallion made short work of the road leading to Cade’s farm. Cor had taken one last long look at Sanctum once he’d gotten nearly a half mile away from the castle, and somehow, it looked more decrepit and decaying than it had just yesterday. He arrived at the scene of yesterday’s battle quite quickly, stopping briefly to survey the carnage. Rigor mortis had set in, and the corpses were unmoved; though some birds and other animals had disturbed them a bit. The day warmed readily under the sun and a stench hung over the area despite the constant breeze.
Cor weaved the horse through the bodies, which lay strewn about and continued. Cade’s farm was nearby, and as he approached he could see a large covered wagon with two horses hitched to it. He came alongside the wagon to find Cade loading large sacks, barrels and a number of cages holding chickens into the wagon. Cor could see the farmer’s daughter in the distance near pens containing hogs and cows; she opened the gates and left them open.
“We can’t stay here after what you two did,” Cade said without looking up at Cor.
“I understand, and I’m sorry,” Cor replied. Cade looked up then, apparently surprised.
“Where’s your father?” asked the farmer.
“They killed him,” Cor answered, not seeing the point in correcting the man about the nature of his relationship with Rael.
“I’m sorry,” Cade said, standing to face Cor. “The man never done me any wrong. Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” Cor looked over his right shoulder. “I think I’ll go east across country. I have plenty of water, but I need food that travels well. I don’t know anything about hunting.”
“I’d stay away from towns,” agreed Cade, scratching at the back of his head. “People tend to remember a face like yours.” The man rummaged around inside the wagon for a few moments and handed Cor a pack of salted meat and a huge burlap sack. “The sack’s got beans in it. Don’t taste for much, but boil ‘em in some water and soften ‘em up. They go a long way. The meat’s good for maybe five days. I got to work; we’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
Cor thanked the man, clasping his arm. He reached down and untied one of the large, heavy sacks laden with gold and silver and dropped it on the wood planking in the back of the wagon. The sack crashed more loudly than he expected, and when it struck, the mouth of the sack opened, allowing a small hail of coins to bounce out into the wagon and on the ground.
“This is for all the trouble we caused you Cade. You’re a good man, and I hope this will help you start over somewhere,” Cor said and turned his horse around, the farmer still staring after him incredulously.
Cor struck out across country due east, keeping the horse at a brisk walk. He actually had no idea what he was doing, where he was going or what he would do when he got there. What he knew was he needed to leave Sanctum and in fact put as much distance as possible between himself and the castle without using the main roads. There was little doubt in his mind that eventually someone would find out about the battle, and then a true hunt for him would begin. It also clarified one thing for him; the Shining West seemed to have their own thoughts and plans for him, just like the Loszians.
He thought about the Loszian Empire a good bit; Rael had rescued him from one of their agents. The man was an assassin; he’d killed Cor’s parents, but he had clearly meant to abduct Cor. Cor had shoved the flap of tattooed skin into one of the saddlebags with the scrolls and writing implements. He would need to find out whom the mark belonged to, but he honestly didn’t have the slightest idea how to do that. Gallivanting across the Loszian countryside did not seem to be an extraordinarily wise thing to do.
Cor rode for three days, stopping to rest at night of course. He didn’t bother tethering the horse because Rael had never done anything to contain the stallion, and he never seemed to stray. Every morning, Cor would wake with the dawn, the horse never far away. The countryside of Aquis was comprised of beautiful green and gold savannahs and plains. It was some of the most arable land known in the world, and many fruits and vegetables grew wildly. Cor would stop as he came across these and fill his sacks and saddlebags with them. It was on the fourth day that he came upon a small town on a low lying plain. It was larger than the village near his home as child, but nowhere near the size of Martherus. Close to sundown, Cor decided to sleep the night outside of the town, and he would decide what to do about it in the morning.
Cor did not make a fire to cook by, but instead ate a cold dinner. The meat was nearing the end of its life, and he’d found wild blackberries earlier in the day. Aquis was a naturally bountiful land and finding freshwater was never a problem. He settled down to sleep for the night, his sword near his hand. It was always hard for him to sleep at night; the ground was cold and hard, unlike the cotton mattress he slept on in Sanctum, and he also had taken to sleeping in his armor. This added heavily to his discomfort, but he refused to be caught unready for battle.
Cor eventually dozed off to sleep, finding himself in a dream. He was standing before a gray stone shelf, on which lay three pieces of gleaming black armor. They seemed familiar, as if he had seen them before, and he realized it had been in another dream years past. He picked up the oddly shaped black helm and turned it around to face away from him, intending to place it over his head. With a hand on each side, Cor lifted it to his head, and then came the bizarre sensation of being watched. He slowly placed the helm back on its resting place and looked down seeing his sword, Soulmourn, and his fetish in their places on his belt. For a moment, he wondered at the fetish, realizing it was different from the gold plated bone pestle he normally carried. This one had a short handle made of ebony, ending in a skull that was human shaped but no bigger than his fist. Two tiny black wings, like those of a bat, extended from the ebony handle just below the skull. He did not recognize it at all, but he knew it was his.
The feeling did not abate, and every hair on the back of Cor’s neck stood on end. In the blink of an eye, Cor pivoted to his left, drawing both his sword and the bizarre fetish simultaneously. Against the wall stood a chair, seemingly carved out of the indigenous rock, and a figure sat upright in the stone chair. The figure’s skin was gray as a corpse’s, and its lips were black. The head was hairless, and its skin appeared to be stretched thinly over the bones of its face and skull. The figure wore a robe, gray as the stone on which it sat, that appeared to be disintegrating. Its hands extended from the sleeves of the robe, resting palm down on the stone arms of the chair. At first, Cor believed the figure a corpse, except for the eyes that stared at him intently, and he stood very still, returning the stare.
“Why do you continue to come here?” the figure asked, speaking in the ancient language of the Chronicler, its black lips peeling back from pure white teeth.
“I’m drawn here in my dreams," answered Cor, though the explanation sounded hollow.
“This is a dream then,” the figure replied. “That is good. I do not have to kill those in my dreams.”
“Who are you? What is this place?” asked Cor.
“If this is a dream,” said the robed figure, opening his eyes, “then you are I. I know the answer to those questions. If you must ask, then this is not a dream, and you are not I. Be gone.”
He lifted one finger from its resting place, and Cor’s sight went black. The shock knocked him backwards; he lost his balance and began to fall. He hit solid ground with an oddly jarring but gentle impact. Cor sat up and looked around. He was still at his campsite, laying on his bedroll, and the horse was asleep a few yards away. His sword and fetish lay where he left them, and his fetish was not the bizarre skull and batwing thing from the dream. It was still dark; Cor lay back down to sleep, but sleep did not come easily.
Cor slept later into the morning than usual, and he was certain the sky was lightening before he finally fell asleep again. He really had no intention of sleeping late, but he simply couldn’t force himself to rise. This led
Cor to realize that it didn’t really matter anymore if he awoke at sunup; he had no one to answer to anymore. As he breakfasted, he decided to enter the town ahead. Though he didn’t really want to make his presence known, he needed additional provisions. Also, Cade’s comment about his face being one people would remember made him think. He should purchase a hooded cloak, hopefully something oversized that buried his face in shadow. He stroked his face feeling scraggly fuzz that he shaved off using his knife every few days. He should also stop shaving; a beard would help cover his face.
Before entering the town, Cor muscled the two large sacks of gold and silver into his saddlebags, keeping only a small amount in a pouch on his belt. It would not be wise to let either the merchants or local citizens know he had huge amounts of gold. Such a thing would draw even more attention than his pallor. Cor hadn’t seen civilization for some time, and though this town was no Martherus, it was wonderful in its own way. It had many of the same sounds and smells, both pleasant and horrid, and the town was laid out in a rational, pragmatic way; a north south road ran through the town, and the markets lined this road. There were merchants everywhere hawking goods to each other and passersby. Most of the merchants did not notice Cor’s odd appearance, or at least pretended not to notice, though some of the other citizens did watch him.
Cor had no trouble locating a suitable cloak; it was made of light brown wool and would cover his features well, though he decided not to don it until he was well away from the town. He purchased some other provisions, including another large sack of beans and some very reasonably priced potatoes. Cor wasted no time in the town and left as soon as his business was complete. He left out the south gate, aware that eyes watched him, even if they only belonged to town guards. He continued on the south road until he hadn’t seen another person for over a mile and then again cut east across the countryside.
Cor thought while riding, as there really wasn’t much else to do. His dream last night disconcerted him greatly for several reasons. Most of his dreams were fairly vague, details blurred into a background of melded grays, but he remembered every detail of this dream, no matter how minute, even down to the thickness of the dust on the floor. That was another thing; rarely did he recall dreams beyond the first few minutes of waking, and then they would fade quickly. This one stayed as clear in his mind as if it actually happened. On occasion, Cor would have a dream that repeated again weeks or even months later, but never he had a dream that continued another from years prior.
The fetish he carried in the dream was another matter altogether. He could see it clearly in his mind’s eye, and it was bizarre and alien to him. But in the dream, the talisman was familiar to him and warmed in his hand just like Soulmourn. Cor concentrated on that sensation, hoping to discern some other knowledge about the skull headed fetish as he had his pestle, but regardless of how hard he focused on the memory, no new thoughts came to him, making it clear he had not actually touched it.
Cor put the thought out of his mind for some time, but the image of the fetish came back to him later that evening as he sat quietly boiling beans over a fire. Somehow he knew he had to find it, and Cor considered the fact he felt a call from the east, perhaps from a great distance. The choice to go east had seemed random, yet he had done it twice without real thought. It occurred to him that perhaps the fetish was of Loszian creation, and that would explain his eastern direction.
Cor rested his hand on the hilt of Soulmourn, and instantly he knew that he was wrong. In his mind, he saw a man of regal bearing and in a sheath strapped to his back was Soulmourn. He was humanoid, but shorter than most men at just under five feet tall, which Cor judged easily against the length of the sword itself. The man had brown skin with a shaved head and wore heavy, bulky gold jewelry all over his body. He stood before an empty golden throne on a raised marble dais in a great hall of marble floors and granite columns. He was a king, certainly, his legs arrogantly bracing him in a wide stance.
To the right of the throne was a second golden throne, though this one was slightly smaller. A truly gorgeous woman with perfect ebony skin and white teeth that seemed to glow in contrast against her skin sat leisurely in the smaller throne. She was lithe of limb, but with toned and well defined muscles. She wore only a loincloth of purple silk and a circlet of gold on her also shaved head. In one hand she held a twisted scepter, and in the other a wicked looking item that Cor recognized immediately.
As he watched, time began to rush by, and the rulers aged and died, replaced by others who carried the sword, staff and fetish. The line of rulers ended with the last two remaining dead in their thrones, none to replace them. They decayed into skeletons, and the entire hall became shrouded in shadow and cobwebs.
The scene did not shift for what seemed like an eternity, though it certainly was no longer than a few seconds. A ray of light burst onto the scene from above, accompanied by a rain of dust, dirt and small debris. The light grew larger, illuminating the hall, and several ropes fell into view from above. Strangely dressed men and women slid down these ropes to the hall’s floor. Speaking a language Cor had never heard before, they began to explore the ruin and scribed notes on bound stacks of thin paper with oddly small implements. There were two men who were clearly in charge of the others, and they directed the others to load loose items from the hall into wood crates packed with hay or straw, including the sword and fetish. As the crate’s lid was pounded shut over Soulmourn, the scene went black.
Bright light returned with the creaking of wood and iron nails, and another man lifted Soulmourn out of its crate and placed it onto a cold metal table. Bright white light shone from circular objects on a gray ceiling. Many items were laid out on the table, all of them recovered from the hall turned tomb. The man who stood over the table was of short stature; also oddly dressed, he was cleanly shaven and bald, and he wore an odd glass apparatus over his eyes that seemed to rest on his nose and over his ears. He looked at every item with great interest and examined them with utmost care. He apparently took measurements, writing many things down.
The scene sped forward at a dizzying rate; people came and went faster than Cor could follow, and the objects disappeared from the table. Eventually a woman picked up Soulmourn and took the sword through a series of doors and hallways. She entered a large room with marbled floors and various statues; large alcoves were set into the walls all about this room. She walked to one of these and placed Soulmourn into a holder set into the wall. Many of the items and artifacts from the ancient hall were also in this alcove, including the fetish. The woman touched something out of view, and a perfectly clear glass pane slid down from above, separating the alcove from the room with a hiss of air.
The odd light came and went at a fast rate, which was the only way in which Cor could detect the passage of time. Finally, the light returned and with it came the sounds of people. At first small groups of people, all of them wearing bizarre clothing with curious affectations of jewelry and hair, filtered into view of the alcove. Time again sped forward, and Cor watched as hundreds, then thousands and even more came through the large room to stop, stare and point at the various alcoves. Cor was amazed at the huge number of people of various ages and apparent races that passed through the scene. Eventually, the masses decreased to smaller numbers and disappeared altogether. The light vanished, leaving the room and alcove in total darkness.
Cor had no sense of how much time had passed before a woman entered the scene, burning away the webs and dust of ages with a torch. She wore armor that Cor had seen before in a crypt only recently; the armor covered very little of her gray skin to be significantly protective. The jerkin had a small bronze breastplate fashioned as a mouth open skull, with leather and iron straps that wrapped her sides like a ribcage. Two other straps went over her shoulders to connect to the back. Cor could see the fullness of her breasts through the gaps in the armor, and her muscled abdomen was almost completely expos
ed. This was Rena, a beautiful and apparently dangerous woman that would one day become Lord Dahken of Sanctum, and just looking at her stirred Cor in ways with which he was familiar and embarrassed.
She sauntered arrogantly and directly toward the glass covered alcove and looked at the objects inside, her final gaze resting on the sword. Rena tapped on the glass with one gauntleted hand, a sound that passed through the alcove’s covering ever so slightly. She mouthed a vile oath, reared back and rammed her steeled fist through the glass in a shatter of shards and splinters. Her arm was cut deeply in several places, but she paid it no mind as the grasped the sword’s hilt and withdrew the weapon from its place. Rena examined Soulmourn at length, her face alight with satisfaction, before turning and swaggering out of the room. The scepter and fetish had fallen from their places into the bottom of the alcove amidst broken glass and dust.
The vision ended, Soulmourn’s hilt warm in Cor’s hand. Soulmourn and the bizarre fetish had apparently always been together, the weapons of choice for a line of ancient monarchs. They had been taken from the hall turned tomb and taken to a place that was indeed very bizarre. Cor had never heard of such a place ever in existence, even in the writings of the Chronicler, and he could not help but wonder who these strange people were. But regardless, Rena had found the place; she came for Soulmourn but not the fetish. Cor needed to return to Sanctum’s catacombs and search Rena’s personal effects. With any luck, she kept a journal like Rael had that would point him in the right direction of the fetish’s resting place.
Cor came to another realization – it was very possible that something else awaited him in the Loszian Empire.
17.