Castle Rarington was restless with a terrible, restless feeling that couldn’t be quantified or explained. Halson, the Steward of Rarington, had felt it–had not slept a wink because of it. Elric Drakonstone’s dreams haunted him, and not because of anything that outlandish, but because his dreams were merely memories of the past. Memories that he’d prefer to stay hidden–tucked away in the recesses of his mind. But they wouldn’t stay there, and he had to live them out in their fullness when sleep finally found him.
In his dream, Elric was in Castle Rarington eleven years ago–everything was just as he remembered it. He had had an encounter with the sorceress named Saphira, who had made a visit to Stormhold which had left many excited about the prospect of a visit from one of the realm’s oldest, most powerful sorceresses. Saphira hadn’t been seen in nearly a thousand years. Not since the Old Days.
As he dreamed and the memory returned, Elric groaned in his sleep. Twisting and turning in his bed, the sheets soaked through with dampness and sweat. It was all toon real.
In those days, King Tarren had enjoyed a prosperous reign, ushering in years of peace and ensuring the people remained fed well. His lords were content, and as a result, their vassals and their serfs were content.
Discussions around the time of Saphira’s visit to Castle Rarington often centered around the new quest that had been announced. Gareth Blackthorn would lead his men to Northrock to hunt the Orc-eel. Many believed the quest had come about from a pact between Gareth Blackthorn and King Tarren–and that was partly true. But most people never knew about Saphira’s metalling in that affair. Saphira had planted the seed in King Tarren’s mind, and Elric became privy to those plans during the sorceress’ visit–having been seduced in the shadows by Saphira and given a promise that had been too good to turn down.
Saphira had found Elric standing in a secluded private sect, having separated himself from the commotion of the great feast, as loud instruments played in the Great Hall. The King had welcomed Saphira in dramatic fashion, as she was seen as an other-worldly power in the realm, and someone whose appearance ought to be celebrated more grandly than even the visitation of a King or Queen. Elric had heard the stories before. She had power–ancient, unfathomable, otherworldly power.
“You seek power,” whispered Saphira, walking circles around Elric slowly.
“You don’t know me,” said Elric, startled. “Why did you seek me? I sought only to escape the noise and find some quiet.”
“You are seeking more than quiet, Elric Drakonstone,” said Saphira. Her words poured from her mouth like the gushing sound of a waterfall.
“What do you want?” asked Elric. Her presence was intoxicating, her appeal undeniable. Elric batted away at those feelings, uncomfortable with her seductive presence.
“I need your help,” said Saphira. “And for a little help, I can offer a large reward.” Her voice cascaded across the room like the whispers of a serpent.
“What is it?” asked Elric, desperate to be rid of this moment.
“I am gifting a sword to Lord Blackthorn,” began Saphira. “It is a sword that will secure the freedom of my one true love, Basidin.”
“Basidin?” asked Elric incredulously. “Why do you utter the name of an ancient evil best left alone?”
“He has been bound for too long in the shadows of Northrock,” said Saphira. “It is time he comes back. And you’re going to help me.”
“Help you?” began Elric. “What does the sword have to do with any of this? You know the way to Northrock–why don’t you just go yourself?”
Saphira moved closer until her red lips were up to Elric’s ear, the hairs of his neck stood on edge. “Because a Blackthorn is the only one who can free my true love, Basidin, from Northrock. And you will make sure it happens.”
“What? How?”
“Go with Blackthorn and his men to Northrock to hunt the Orc-eel,” said Saphira. “Inside the shell of that foul beast is Basidin’s spirit, trapped and suffering. If Blackthorn slays the beast with that sword, his spirit will be free and live on inside the sword.”
“Blackthorn won’t go to Northrock on my command,” stammered Elric. “The King won’t allow it.”
“Allow me to take care of that,” snapped Saphira. “The only thing you need to worry about is ensuring that Blackthorn’s sword slays the Orc-eel. Blackthorn doesn’t make it back to Windem, but the sword does. Do you understand?”
“What’s in this for me?” asked Elric. “I recall at the beginning of this conversation you told me there was a reward.”
“What do you want, Elric Drakonstone?” Hearing his name on Saphira’s lips sent Elric’s skin crawling. “Is it power? Leadership?” asked Saphira. She came closer again, her face so close to his that Elric could smell her breath. “You seek to be named Lord Commander, don’t you?”
Elric only stared, his body trembling with fear. And then he awoke with a jolt, a wild shout steeping his private chambers in an odd vexation of fear-induced rage and calamity. A guard who had been meandering the halls knocked on his door.
“Everything okay, Lord Commander?”
Elric didn’t hear the guard, too unsettled by his dream. He was panting as he sat up in his bed–his chest heaving with deep breaths.
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The door opened, the guard poking his head around the door.
“Lord?”
“I’m fine,” said Elric, not paying the guard even a glance. “Be gone.”
The guard closed the door, careful not to displease his Lord Commander. He’d seen how that had ended for other guards who hadn’t given Elric Drakonstone his space. His mind was like a polluted well, as of late, and he knew it’d best not to stir the waters of that well.
Mildred had wandered off to get fresh air, sensing that Elric was having one of his dreams. She re-entered the room now, ignoring the clearly disturbed Elric, who was sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest.
Mildred walked to their balcony which overlooked the west side of Rarington where pine trees littered the ground hundreds of feet below. The pine trees had held up well, despite the sickness that was rotting the land. She stared at the pines trees, then said, “What keeps you up, my lord?”
Elric sat in silence for a while, then said, “the sword.” It was a quiet whisper, but loud enough that Mildred could just hear.
“What?” said Mildred, turning toward Elric. “You dreamt of a sword?”
“Saphira’s sword,” began Elric. “The one she gave to Gareth…it is here, in Rarington.”
“Where in Rarington? I’ve asked you about that sword before. I didn’t know you brought it back from Northrock,” said Mildred, her tone distraught. “Why do you tremble as though that sword meant anything to you?”
“It’s not that,” stammered Elric, remembering a foul memory. His mind took him back to the day they’d returned from Northrock. They had walked past the rows of anticipating families, watching their faces drop as they slowly realized they were a much smaller host than the one who had left Rarington with so much optimism, and vigor. Many had not returned.
Hours later, Elric began to put away many of the items that had come back with them from Northrock. He entered a private chamber that protruded from the long corridor beyond the King’s Great Hall, two round tables with a large host of wooden, stiff-backed chairs filled the room. Swords and tapestries lined the walls. It was one of the rooms King Tarren used for his small council meetings.
Three of King Tarren’s yeoman filed in behind Elric, eager to help after witnessing the abysmal mood that had accompanied their return.
“King Tarren thought you might want us to relieve you,” said one yeoman. “We know it’s been a…long trip.” He trailed off, fearful of what Elric might do if he said the wrong thing.
Elric turned, shoving the bundle of items into the yeoman’s arms and taking his leave of the men without paying them so much as a glance. The yeoman shrugged, then set about undoing the tightly bound pack to see what contents had made it back from their expedition.
“You think they found the Orc-eel?” said one of the yeoman.
The second yeoman grunted. “Better yet–I think it found them. Looks like it might’ve killed most of them.”
“Or,” butted the third yeoman, “the cold got them. Northrock is uninhabitable for a reason.”
The yeoman finished unwrapping the bundle, which ended up only having one item inside.
“A sword,” he gasped, holding up the magnificent blade.
“You idiot,” said the second yeoman. “That’s not merely a sword, that’s Gareth Blackthorn’s sword.”
“How do you know?” said the third yeoman.
The first yeoman turned to him, glaring at him sarcastically. “Who else do you know with a sword so magnificent as this? This looks like the one that the sorceress gave him during that ceremony a while back.”
The three yeoman marvelled at the sword, unaware that they were being led to their death by Basidin, whose spirit had waited patiently within the sword until the moment was ripe.
Elric returned to the room a day later, deciding it might be prudent to have Gareth’s sword returned to his family for the funeral. He opened the door to the small council room, only to find a swirling black vapor that reeked of a foul odor. Elric nearly collapsed, stuffing his cloak over his mouth and nose and stumbling across the room. The three yeomen had collapsed in a heap on the ground, blood draining from their eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Elric staggered wildly, throwing his fur robe over the sword to squelch its black mists. The black mist within the room squealed, as if in terrible agony, and zipped back into the sword underneath Elric’s robe like a genie trying to return to its bottle.
Elric took the sword, still wrapped in his cloak, and hurried past everyone who had congregated in the King’s hall. They stared at Elric with puzzled looks, trying to see what he was carrying so awkwardly and despairingly. Elric grunted under the burden of the sword–a terrible sharp pain was emanating from the sword and causing him an excruciating headache. A drop of blood began to seep from his right ear, staining his garments a crimson red.
Taking the sword to the only place he thought safe, Elric scurried down the steep and twisting stairwell of the dungeons and down the long row of prison cells on either side. Men came to the edge of their cells and watched curiously as Elric made for the last cell on the left and descended through a trapdoor that sat underneath a stack of hay in the back left corner. A foul smell followed him, causing multiple prisoners to pass out and cry out in acute pain.
The sword clattered to the ground of the central clearing of the tunnels beneath Rarington. The corners and perimeter of the tunnel’s clearing was shrouded in shadow, and the mists of the sword clung to it, purring distantly and causing the ground beneath Elric to vibrate and hum in a contented rhythm.
“Ah!” Elric shouted, jumping aside as something scuttled underneath his feet. It was a rat–chirping noisily and scurrying hurriedly toward the sword. The cloak that had covered the sword was bitten by the rat, and then dragged away so that the sword was no longer concealed. Another rat scuttled by. And then two more. A snake slithered over Elric’s foot, adjoining the sword, the rats, and the terrible black mist which had become a liquid, ethereal substance. It coated the floor, and then the cloak and began to shift toward the back wall of the clearing where it began to morph into a horrifying shape.
Elric gasped, as a hoard of snakes, rats, and spiders began travelling by the masses from all different directions of the tunnels. Along the walls where damp earth was lit by torchlight, worms as big as snakes plopped to the floor and squirmed their way toward the new organism that was forming, helping to join into one pulsating monster.
“I…am…Basidin.” The voice was deeper than the lowest octave of man, and somehow simultaneously sounded like the hiss of a talking snake. “Free…at last. Freed from the binds of Northrock, freed from the curse of the legend of the Old Days, and at last–fast approaching is the day that I am united with my bride, Saphira.”
Elric had never run so fast in his life. He sprinted down the tunnels, turning sharply at each turn, scampering up the jagged stairs, and flinging himself up through the trapdoor and gasping for air in the cell. Quickly throwing the bale of hay back over the trap door, he closed the cell door and locked in, running with haste down the long hall of cell doors and emerging through the door to the dungeons and closing it with a loud slam.
He stood for a while with his back to the door, gasping for air and wishing he had never seen what just transpired.