I more stumble than walk through the open door of my parents’ dilapidated cabin to see Cran in his humanoid form putting some finishing touches on a small satchel he is packing for me. He looks over his shoulder and smiles before transforming himself back into a staff that hooks the satchel to one of his branches and floats over to my hand. I take the satchel and sling it over my shoulder, gratefully leaning a good portion of my weight on Cran as my body and soul still have yet to recover even a modicum of my humanly strength, and then begin to hobble out of my parents’ cabin. I nearly trip which makes me catch a glimpse of Ashe from the corner of my eye. Ashe’s eyes are red with tears as she sits clutching herself in my father’s chair. When she sees me, she rushes over to me and throws her arms around me.
“Are you alright? What’s going on? What happened to you? Why is your face back? Why are your scars open and filling with blood?” she asks in a flurry of questions and with each question her grip around me grows tighter.
After my conversation with Argentum and Esther, I’m not just physically and spiritually spent, but emotionally exhausted as well and don’t have the mental energy to entertain those types of questions anymore, so I say, “gather your things. We leave tonight.”
Ashe’s arms drop their embrace, and she forces herself in front of me to look me in the eyes, “you can’t be serious. After all you’ve been through, you are still going to be that man’s slave?”
“I am free, and in my freedom, I choose to fight for your, Esther’s, Lamia’s, Geracht’s child’s future. I guess I’m actually going to try to save the entire damned world for you,” I say chuckling to myself as I attempt to extend my arms outward in some large gesture to emphasize my words, but I find myself falling against Cran for support as my new body still feels a bit out of my control.
Ashe puts a hand on my chest and stares deeply into my eyes before asking, “please tell me this isn’t you just running away from your pain? That you aren’t choosing these things as a damaged way of coping with the guilt you heap upon yourself? You aren’t some damned savior, you are just Skath. Let the world handle its own problems.”
“I can’t,” I say as I gently push Ashe’s hand off of my chest and begin to walk past her, “I wish I could, but I can’t just sit here and die when I could do something that could protect you, and all of the people that I have left.”
Ashe once again tries to get in my way and forces herself between me and the door of the cabin. Her face blushes a deep red as she takes my face into her hands and leans forward to kiss me. There is no passion in the kiss, only a desperate feeling that is hard to place.
Ashe lets go of my face and her hands drift down my shoulders to my arms. Her eyes stare into mine to then divert away as she bites her lip. She buries her head on my shoulder hiding her face, “let’s just stay here. We can live in the village, and… and… and… uhm… and we could start a family. You and I could still be with those we love, and maybe… maybe… maybe… we could… find lov… comfort in each other.”
I stroke Ashe’s hair and chuckle exhaustedly again as I say, “were you gagging in between every word you just said. We both know that even the thought of being with a man makes you sick.”
Ashe pounds my chest with one of her fists and says, “I was being serious.”
“You don’t love me in that way, nor do I love you in that way. You’re like a sister to me, why even consider these things,” I say not sure why Ashe would even propose such a ludicrous engagement. She was so sure about leaving the village behind not too long ago, and now she’s giving up on her dreams.
“Because I’m afraid! We’ve both lost so much. I’ve lost my father to the loyal spears of Gehenna, I lost a sister to her own despair, and I’ve lost so many that were my family to the clawed armies! I don’t want to lose you too… I thought I did… I thought you were dying… I saw you collapse in spastic fits and then go still in that loud bloody room filled with strung up bodies… Then you just laid still barely breathing for what felt like an eternity… if I have to, I’ll abandon dreams that might as well be delusions of a sick mind to keep all I have left,” whispers Ashe into my ear between weeping stutters, “why can’t we just be normal, even if it is pretend, at least we’ll have what we have left.”
“So, that was all talk when you said you’d leave,” I say a mournful sigh escaping my lips as Ashe’s words spoken to me upon Esther’s roof not long ago must truly have been rehearsed lies, “when faced with the future you desired, you’re shrinking away. Neither of us are normal, even if we were to pretend. I’m not human, and your love isn’t respected by the goddess of this village. We may hold onto what is left, but never know anymore happiness outside of that. You’ll do nothing but limit yourself if you stay here, and you’ll never know true happiness.”
Ashe interrupts me pulling away from my shoulder, her blond hair she generally keeps in a braided bun is a wild mess and is somewhat obscuring her face that now has streams of tears pouring down it, “at least there’ll be some happiness for us then. Why pursue the uncertainty of dreams, when there is some reward in compromising with what is certain.”
“What is certain, is that we will lose everything if I stay,” I say walking past Ashe to not entertain her tears, as if I do, I fear that I’ll entertain her proposal, “in five to ten years the world of man will end, and that is certain. We may retain all we have left and maybe find some joy in each other, but what happiness we find will be cut short as we won’t have a future.”
“What are you talking about?” asks Ashe as I continue to limp out the doorway relying upon Cran to help me make each step only to stop after taking a few steps into the forest leaving the doorway as an open barrier between Ashe and me.
I let out a disappointed sigh as my expected companion maybe just another goodbye on a journey that I expect to be fraught with loneliness, “nothing that you’ll need to worry about. Farewell my dear friend and sister.”
“Skath wait!” Ashe begs as I walk away from the only home I ever knew. I have a few goodbyes to make before leaving all I have ever known. I owe Esther at least that much before disappearing again from her life.
I’m in no rush nor can I do so in my drained state as I walk haltingly amidst the trees of the forest that were my playground growing up. The summer’s leaves dance in the breeze, and the sounds of deer, boar, and birds grace my ears. These combinations of sensations breathe a melancholy nostalgia into my being, as this will be the last time I wander through this hidden valley surrounded by sheer obsidian crystal cliffs.
I dreamed of escaping this place as a young child. All I wanted to do was run away from the monstrous people of Unadeam that wanted me dead. I chuckle to myself as I reminisce, as I remember how my fear and desires completely changed, when my curiosity overcame my fears and I started to learn more about those that wanted nothing more than to burn me as a lich’s spawn. Instead of avoiding the witch hunters, I began to observe and study them, and as I learned about the people of Unadeam instead of fear, envy crawled into my soul. I watched as children my age would play and grow friendships that I’d never be able to have due to religious separation caused not by something I did, but through the heritage of an outsider warlock’s blood. I watched as extended families would gather together and knew that even though my mother had familial connections to those that I should call aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, cousin that for love and faith I’d never know the tender embrace of family outside of my father and mother.
It was out of envy and curiosity that I tried to force my way into the village, all for a chance to make friends and know more about the family that my parents warned me would harm me if given the chance. My parents were right, as Gehenna and the High Matriarch that should have been my grandmother, attempted to immolate me tied to a stake when one day I wandered to openly an close to the village. My father saved me and threatened the villagers to try to ensure some form of future safety for his son. I can almost hear the ferocious scolding I received after that incident. It was also after that incident that Geracht and his friends started to hunt me for sport, but they feared my father enough to never harm me to the point they received my father’s wrath. Funny, that the boy who would beat me black and blue with his posse would eventually become someone I consider one of my closest friends.
Fear should have consumed me after that day I nearly became a bonfire’s kindling, but instead I still wanted what the village had. It was due to that longing and childlike persistence; I was gifted a friend. Through curiosity I secretly probed the walls of the village until I found a secret entrance to the sacred alleys that no Unadeamy dared enter, with the exception of the matriarchs during their nightly exorcising rituals. In exploring those alleys, I learned about the people who were a part of me through the blood of my mother, and in those alleys, I found the girl who’d steal my heart. Hearing the weeping of Uzuri through the back walls of the homes that create the labyrinthian alleys of Unadeam, I took a chance, and in that chance found a new dream, and a vain desire to have a life inside the village. I knew that my mother and father promised the high matriarch that I’d willingly participate in the Amolacrimae, and in that promise as my friendship grew with Uzuri a new hope took hold of me.
Instead of escaping, my hopes became inspired to save Uzuri and in saving her become a respected and useful part of the community that scorned me. I was so ignorant back then, as in my quest to save Uzuri, I’d learn so much, and give up so much more. As my mind wanders, I find that my feet have taken me to the entrance of the village of Unadeam, and even though I’ve had many comings and goings in and out of this village since my transformation into Aeramen, my feet pause with uncertainty now that my face is that of Skath. The last time I stood at this entrance as Skath, was when I crushed the hands of Gehenna, and now I stand here in route to see my aunt for the last time.
I look forward into the main road of the village that connects to the several ringlike streets and the dark alleys that generate the double weaved maze construction of the village. My gaze wanders the main path until it reaches the central circle of the village where the marker of my grave grows with lush foliage. I hear a frightened whimper, and I look to my left and right and see that the two guards standing post are both staring at me with eyes wide and flesh drained of color.
“Haven’t seen a ghost before,” I goad to see both men jump backward away from me. Smiling to myself, I stumble into the village as if for the first time.
I hobble past playing children, women conversing and going about their business, and men seeing to their duties of the day. However, the commonality of this peaceful scene is disrupted as more and more people see me walking down the main road. The calm women begin to rush children into their homes, and guards rush from the garrison to give me the same reaction as the two that had greeted me at the main entrance. Eventually, I see the new chieftain of the village rush into the main road only for me to hear him say, “Martog’s balls, the lich’s boy is back from the maw.”
“Nice to see you too Stephanos,” I say with a tired smile, “how’s courting Esther coming along?”
Stephanos’s face turns a bright red as I walk up to him and place a hand on his shoulder as I adjust my weight and grip on Cran because I feel my body starting to give out after what feels like several days of emotional, spiritual, and physical stress that have surpassed even my super human limits, “I’d assume your courtship is going well as the noise you two make could wake the dead. I’d say get a room, but that hasn’t exactly worked to keep me from coming back to tell you to quiet down a bit.”
I watch as two Unadeamy women halt their frightened escape from the ghost that has come back for the sole purpose to apparently give them the juiciest of gossip. Then again, Stephanos kind of needs to know that his burgeoning relationship with Esther hasn’t exactly been a silent affair. There have been several nights where some of my few restful slumbers on Esther’s roof have been interrupted by romantic rendezvouses that a nephew never wants to hear. I don’t know what weird strikes of damned luck I had, but it seemed like every time I had a night void of nightmares, those two were primed to ruin it.
I take a deep breath to muddle the frustrations of grudges held by Aeramen’s lack of sleep and a nephew’s ears thoroughly bled and with a breathy chuckle say, “I’m just tugging your hair a bit. Good for you two. It’s hell being alone. After Geracht died, and your wife left you to be part of the Gehennan, it’s good that you two found each other.”
“You’re not a ghost, your hand is solid, but you look like a corpse walking,” asks Stephanos cautiously touching me to confirm his words, “Do you know that Uzuri just got engaged and is going to some far-off land.”
“I was there Stephanos, and I was even Mul’Rensi’s best man. You could say that I’ve been living someone else’s life for a time,” I say as it dawns on Stephanos that I’ve been closer than he thought for a while now, “I’m just passing through to actually say goodbye this time. No falling down a pit and faking my death, but this time I wish to say a real goodbye and thank you. Thank you for standing with us, when you could have stood with Gehenna. I wish you would have listened to me even though I was wearing someone else’s face, but you needed to protect your people and I can respect that. Hope can be just as devious as fear, I think I understand that now, and perhaps my pleading words as Aeramen were just idealistic whimpers.”
“So, you were there during the discussions that led to the Gehennan Massacre,” says Stephanos whose face hasn’t changed from an expression of surprise and embarrassment the entire time we’ve been speaking to each other, “you were the outsider that was butting into matters that didn’t concern you. You were Aeramen.”
I nod my head and pat his shoulder before continuing my hobbled walk toward Esther’s home, but before I open the door I stop and look at Stephanos from over my shoulder and say, “I wish I could have gotten to know you better as Skath and not Aeramen. Who knows, I might call you uncle someday. I’d have preferred you over Gehenna.”
I open the door to Esther’s home which opens into a room meant to act as a dining and living room that has several open doors leading to a kitchen, master bedroom, Geracht’s childhood room that now houses Lamia, and there is another door that is somewhat hidden but whose frame can be barely seen behind a display case filled with several shelves. That hidden door used to lead to Uzuri’s prison in this house, but now that room is abandoned and hidden as if to banish bad memories.
During my time as Aeramen Esther offered to let me use Geracht’s room, but Geracht’s death during the celebrations of the final Amolacrimae to ever be held in this village lead to that arrangement falling through. That ten-day festival of drinking and feasting meant to welcome the spring and the new couples that professed their devotion as husband and wife to one another will honestly be some of the only good memories I’ll have regarding this village. I wouldn’t have been able to participate in the festivities if it wasn’t for the fact that the final Amolacrimae was also used as a diplomatic sign of good faith for the new relationship with the teratolion, which led to Uzuri, Upendo, a few of the royal guard, and Aeramen to be invited to celebrate with the village.
Honestly, it was odd for me to feel so relaxed and happy during a festival that I lived in utter fear of for most of my life. Granted, Esther abolished the trials of Martog, so the Amolacrimae no longer has to be a festival of matrimonial joy and tears shed for rituals of culling atonement anymore. Then again, this last festival, though not having the trials of Martog in place still inevitably had many tears shed. On the last day of the festival the Gehennan separatists decided to implement their own version of the trials of Martog and selectively killed the man they thought was the carrier of the sin that cut the village in twain to try to exorcise Martog’s corruption in their own twisted way.
If I wasn’t protecting an inebriated Ashe from accidentally getting herself married off to a teratolion guard, maybe I could have saved Geracht by just being more aware of him or just near him. However, the Gehennan had sympathizers in the village, and they were able to sneakily lure Geracht away without me noticing and the Gehennan performed their assassination without raising the alarm of any of the celebrants and by the time I found Geracht’s corpse, he’d been dead for hours at that point. I may have powers, I might have medicinal and scientific knowledge that has been long lost, but even with all of that I can’t raise the dead. Lamia and Esther’s wails haunt me and often replace my own pleading within my nightmares as I had to stand emotionless as I watched my aunt and Geracht’s newly wedded wife morn my best friend, and I in that moment couldn’t comfort them or morn myself as my face wasn’t my own.
Shortly after Geracht’s death and funeral, Lamia started showing signs of being with child, and suddenly the room offered to me rightfully became offered to Lamia instead. Lamia and Maria’s emotionally abusive father went off with the Gehennan, and with Maria having committed suicide shortly after Geracht’s funeral, Esther became the only family Lamia has besides Ashe, the woman Lamia considers an adoptive sister. Even though I no longer had a room here in this house, I still wanted to protect Esther, Ashe, and Lamia, so I ended up secretly sleeping on the roof so I could be close in case the Gehennan decided to kill again.
I shake my head to try to cast away the bad memories that were resurfacing in my mind and walk over to the hidden door to Uzuri’s prison. I knock on the wood of the display case almost expecting a response from someone on the other side. There is no response. She’s gone. I guess I did it, I freed Uzuri, and now I need to stop a war when I couldn’t stop a very one-sided slaughter in this valley.
What am I doing? Am I really going to dedicate my life to three nearly impossible tasks. I’ve accepted the quest to stop a war, save the broken souls of the totalion, and thwart the accension of a mad goddess. All I ever wanted was to find a place I belonged: a home for myself and maybe even start a family. Now I fear those dreams after I saw Aurhea and her progeny. Though celandil blood can dilute when mixed with humanity, my children could be like me. It is in the word could that I find a new fear that simmers in my mind. Aurhea and her horde threaten humanity, could my children be something I should fear like I fear Aurhea and her brood? Will the world I save have a place for me in it? For the future to be claimed by the races of man, does this mean that the celandil must fully and completely end with me, Aurhea, and Argentum?
Stolen novel; please report.
I try to push these questions away, though I know that within them is the death of my old dreams. Then again maybe I need a new dream… I must be going mad! I can’t save the world… but then again if I don’t try… I’m dead and all those I care for will also die. My old dreams now tainted by the doubts Aurhea has poisoned my mind with must be replaced with one desire for me to latch my heart and mind to with purposeful devotion. I must protect those I cherish, and maybe the madness of this singular desire is more than purpose enough to live by. For so long I’ve sat at the mercy of a master who let me wallow in sorrow, but now that I am free… I’m still a slave.
I hear a door open, and I expect Esther to enter the room, but instead I see Lamia. I expect an expression of shock, surprise, maybe exasperation, but instead I see Lamia’s eyes glazed in a glare and a fist connect with my nose.
“Martog’s balls what was that for,” I say clutching my nose that was most definitely broken, and I expect my soul to send essence to heal my nose, but my nose remains broken, and my soul continues to excruciatingly rake into my essence flesh barrier, “I just got that nose back.”
Lamia flings her arms around me and asks, “where have you been, and what do you mean by got your nose back?”
“Argentum using soulcraft transformed me into Aeramen,” I say only for Lamia to shove me away from her.
A look of scornful betrayal crosses Lamia’s face as she shakes her head, “that means you were there when Geracht was killed. Why didn’t you save him!”
I lower my gaze as her words pierce my heart, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all you can say. You have magic, why couldn’t you have healed him, why didn’t you protect him?” asks Lamia turning her back to me.
“Every day I wish I could resurrect the dead,” I say grasping Cran more tightly in my hand, as I’m confronted by words spoken often in my head.
“You came back! Why not him. Why not him!” yells Lamia who begins to walk away from me.
“Sometimes I wish it was me. It should have been me. Geracht had dreams, he had you, and now he’ll never meet his kid. I’m sorry,” I say relinquishing the thoughts of my soul to Lamia.
Lamia takes a few more steps toward the door and then turns back to me raising a hand as if to hit me again, but stops and says, “You’re such a coward. You hid behind a disguise and just let us suffer when you could have done something. You didn’t even comfort your mourning aunt. You didn’t even comfort Maria! She blamed herself for your and your parents’ deaths and hanged herself out of that guilt! You could have talked to her and saved her from herself! You could have done something, but you did nothing!”
“I was a slave,” I say knowing that doesn’t justify anything, “my will was constrained by the orders of my master.”
“Even slaves have the will to decide for themselves. You chose to cower behind your new face,” Lamia says as she once again turns away from me to open the door to Esther’s home.
Before she could shut the door behind her, I yell after her, “I know that I have no right to ask anything of you, but could you check up on Ashe for me.”
The door slams and I’m left alone again. I’m not sure what I expected from Lamia, but a broken nose and hearing the words that I’ve rehearsed thousands of times in my head are kind of unexpectedly expected out of the fiery personality that Lamia has. I touch my nose and it still hasn’t healed, which reflects my mental state as the words Lamia expressed have reopened wounds that my own mind refuses to let scar. I could have done more; I should have done more. I was a slave, but there was still so much that was in my control. Now I’m free but has that really made too much of a difference. Will I cower to the new master I have even if it is one more existential than actual. Will I hide behind personas that hold me passively away from those I should have helped, comforted, wept with, embraced, or forgiven before it was too late. There is so much I could do; there is so much I should do.
“Don’t hold Lamia’s words too close to your heart. I know you had your reasons for hiding your identity, and those reasons are probably to do with Argentum,” says Esther who I hadn’t noticed enter her home and sit at the table that adorns the center of this room. Esther hesitantly walks over to me, her eyes filled with extreme concern for me, and hands me a piece of cloth which I use to clean the blood trickling out of my broken nose and help hamper the flow of fresh blood. She looks to Cran as if begging him to say something, and then back to me.
“Argentum told me that if I didn’t die that Uzuri would never claim her destiny as a queen, and that her becoming queen was necessary for saving thousands of lives. After the Gehennan massacre, I’m not entirely sure if what he promised was true,” I say seeing Esther gesture to me to sit next to her at the dining room table. I limp over to the table and take a seat and as soon as I sit down Cran transforms into his humanoid form and sits next to me.
Esther’s eyes stare at my arms and face with a worried and horrified expression and her lips purse to attempt to speak again, but Cran pipes up instead, “could I ask you to get some food and drink for Skath. He may not need to eat or drink as a trained celandil, but he’s been weakened by his experience in the soul reservoir and his recent metamorphosis back into his true body. His mind, spirit and body haven’t caught up to the stresses placed upon them yet, which explains why his appearance may be bloody and cadaverous. Skath often ignores caring for himself and I fear he has been pushing himself to the several brinks when he needs some respite.”
Esther smiles gratefully at Cran and gets up from her seat and breaks into a run toward the kitchen while saying, “So it just some warlock thing, he’s not dying. I was just about to make some dinner for us. I bet it has been some time since either of you have had a home cooked meal, and Skath definitely looks like he needs food in him. He didn’t look so bad at the waterfall, but he really does look like a walking corpse now like what Stephanos told me. I’ll whip us up something that’ll perk us all right up.”
“Cran that’s a bit rude to just ask for food like that,” I say, and my vision starts to blur, and my body screams in pain to plead for its dire need for rest. This isn’t right, generally my soul takes care of all my physical needs, but even after so much time has passed since my transformation and my escapade in the soul reservoir my body and soul still haven’t recovered. In fact, I am feeling something that I haven’t for a long time, I’m hungry, no I’m starving, and my soul continues to feel like it is crashing into the inside portion of my flesh in such a way it’s almost like it is about to rip through and escape my body. This isn’t normal, I should have recovered to at least human strength by now.
One of Cran’s fingers sharpens itself into a syringe and then he stabs his finger into my wrist to give me a transfusion of essence to help calm my rebellious soul while he says, “You’ve been through a lot, and when you were in the soul reservoir your soul almost disappeared. It was so strange, the connection we have through you sharing a portion of your soul with me nearly completely faded away while you were passed out. I could even feel the essence in your body and upon the inscribed spells that dwell in the scars of your skin begin to dissipate. I did what I could to give you transfusions of essence while you were comatose to combat you fading away entirely. When you woke up that is when I felt your soul begin to strengthen and produce essence again. I’m not sure what happened, but I can feel that your soul still hasn’t recovered from what occurred in the soul reservoir. It doesn’t help that you went and transformed yourself back into Skath when your soul is currently in a damaged state and not producing essence as efficiently as it should either. I’m still trying to figure out what could have caused you to be crippled like this.”
“My dream was cast out of my body,” I mutter lacking the energy to be shocked by the news that my soul nearly ceased to exist whilst simultaneously pondering on Argentum’s hurried explanation on that tertiary and mysterious spiritual component of souls.
I can’t help but watch Esther hurriedly cooking in the kitchen as my mind is so fatigued that any motion I see distracts it and hinders my mind’s ability to process a chain of thought. She must be terrified as I watch her opening and closing several cabinets as if she is forgetting the layout of her kitchen in her currently panicky state. I must really be in bad shape, if I’ve frightened her like that. I look at my arms and each of the scars on my body that I use to store my spells are open and slowly filling with essence filled blood to restore what Cran claims I lost. No wonder I’m not recovering, my soul is trying to replace all that I once had stockpiled in abundance. I touch my face to see if the spell-filled scar that my father left me is filling with blood and when I pull my hand away, I see red liquid upon my fingers that beads up upon my fingers and then floats back to the open scar on my face. Stephanos wasn’t joking, I really must look like a horrible draugr.
Cran tilts his head in deep thought, his bioluminescent eyes illuminating portions of the ceiling, “When essence and dream coalesce that is what makes a soul.”
“Which would mean that if somehow, I released the entirety of the dream contained in my body and soul. That would explain why my soul began to disappear,” I say resting my head upon my arms that make a pillow on Esther’s table, “though, it’s odd that I can cast my gaze beyond my body and have never had this happen until now.”
“Maybe you don’t use the entirety of this tertiary spiritual component of dream when you use those abilities,” says Cran shrugging his wooden shoulders, “Whenever you cast your gaze beyond your body, I know that you have some idea of your physical body and the spiritual gaze simultaneously. Whereas what you experienced in the soul reservoir was a complete dissociation in such a way you couldn’t sense your body. This either means that the spiritual pressure of the reservoir in combination with the sensitivity of your mixed heritage somehow split your soul into its two constructive pieces, or that it split it in a way where it mostly separated the two pieces leaving a small connection between your dream body, and physical body.”
“I only was able to expand my field of view with my spiritual eyes after training under Angtos and my father, so it might be like how the soul produces more essence when trained it may also make more dream, which extends my gaze,” I say as the spiritual and physical fatigue and pain, now that I have have the chance to rest, start to dominate my consciousness, “Dream might allow me to use soulcraft in a completely different way, but it sounds like the risk is greater.”
“What do you mean?” asks Cran who after reading my thoughts nods his head and says, “ahhh… I see now. If a celandil without an essence flesh barrier uses all the essence within their body their soul is expelled from their body, but the soul still exists. In the case of dream, if you use all of the dream within your body the soul ceases to exist in its entirety.”
“Exactly,” I say breathing more heavily as I begin to massage my arms to try to get my mind off of the multifront assault my body and soul are taking to dominate me, “I’m still not sure if there is an afterlife, but I’ve seen souls leave the body and go somewhere, so if I want a chance to see my parents or Geracht again I’ll have to use dream craft with immense caution.”
“Dream craft, wouldn’t that still be Soulcraft but instead of the classification of essence manipulation or creation techniques it would be a new subclass, say: dream manipulation?” Asks Cran placing his head upon his hands that make a hammock upon his arms.
I roll my eyes and say, “I guess if you want to be anal about the specifics, you’re right it would just be another branch of Soulcraft.”
Cran’s wooden face remolds itself into a smile as he says, “soul giver I am a plant, I do not possess an anus to be anal with?”
“Did you just attempt to make a joke?” I chuckle to grimace between each laugh I produce.
“Was it any good?” asks Cran who carves his bioluminescent face into an inquisitive expression.
I shrug and say, “you could have emphasized things a bit better, but the timing wasn’t too bad.”
“Noted,” says Cran in his whistly voice.
“I wish we could have talked more during all that has happened here,” I say as I close my eyes to hopefully take a small nap while waiting for Esther to finish preparing some food, “maybe my mind wouldn’t be as bad off as it is now if we had.”
I take another few labored breaths and my consciousness relinquishes itself to the agony and my mind is taken by darkness.
“Skath! Skath!” screams a female voice and my eyes groggily open to see Esther shaking me.
“Let him rest, he’s not dead,” says Cran, and the shaking stops as I once again drift off into the dark.
Warmth touches my face, and my eyes open to investigate. Through the windows next to the door of Esther’s home, the first rays of dawn are trickling through to greet a new day with me. With some effort I push myself up from the table I was sleeping on to see Cran in his staff form with a branch still connected to my wrist pumping me full of his essence, and next to him is Esther sitting at the table asleep in her chair. In front of both Esther and I are two bowls of pottage and a loaf of bread.
My stomach growls and I invite myself to the food. With the ferocity of a starving wolf, I scarf the food in front of me, and in my hunger, I eat not just my portion but Esther’s as well. I don’t know what I ate, or what it tasted like. My body pleaded for food, and I shoved it down my gullet.
With my stomach quelled I can think clearly again. My soul is now firmly in place within me, and my spell filled scars are closing up. I’m still tired, but the worst is behind me. I disconnect Cran’s branch from my wrist and get up from the chair I was sitting in to stretch my sore muscles, which is an oddly nostalgic sensation. The last time I felt this kind of muscle soreness was when I was training with my father.
“You’re awake!” says Esther waking up from her troubled slumber, “and apparently helped yourself.”
“I’m sorry, I should have been more considerate,” I say embarrassed by my utter lack of manners and regard toward my host and aunt, “it was… well I ate it so fast I didn’t have the chance to taste it, but I’m sure it was delicious.”
Esther laughs to herself as she props herself up to sit up straight and says, “My cooking is notorious for being awful. This is a first seeing someone able to joyfully eat a meal I’ve prepared.”
“Tender blessings of the goddess I guess,” I joke as I pace the cabin to test my body to see if I can walk normally now. Luckily, besides some stiffness from sleeping in a wooden chair in an uncomfortable position, I’ve recovered to a human level of strength again. Next, I try to puppet my body with essence by throwing some practice punches to see if I can push my body beyond human limits and find that I’m slowly getting back to my normal.
“Cran are you alright?” I ask staring at the stick that has been inert since I’ve woken up, “You’ve been connected to me all night, so I hope you didn’t go overboard trying to heal me.”
I see two branches on Cran look like two arms stretching themselves as if Cran is mimicking a human waking up from a pleasant night’s rest for him to say, “I’m fine, just enjoying some breakfast. That morning sun is delicious.”
“You can go outside and help yourself; I think I’m fine now,” I say flicking my hand to tell Cran to take a break and enjoy himself.
Cran floats off the ground and grows a branch to make an arm and hand that he uses to open the door of Esther’s home, “I’ve been meaning to talk to my child since we arrived here in the village, so you don’t have to tell me twice.”
“You have a kid?” I ask, wondering where, when, and who Cran would have had a relationship with.
Cran gestures with his hand to the tree that serves as my grave marker which was grown from a piece of himself, “Like I said, I’m a plant.”
“Well, have a nice chat,” I say rubbing my face as I didn’t know what I expected. He is a plant, so obviously my ideas of how kids come into the world aren’t the same expectations for someone like Cran. The life of a celandil isn’t one that anyone could call normal, that’s for sure. On second thought, I’m not sure this is normal even for celandil.
Esther and I watch Cran float out the door and then plant himself beside his child. The leaves and flowers that make the leathery wrapping around his shaft move up toward the top of his central shaft to position themselves upon newly growing branches until he transforms himself into his tree form. Now two fully grown trees sit in the middle of the central circle of the village, much to the shock of the superstitious villagers that are currently preparing for a new day.
“Should I have warned Cran to be a bit more discreet?” I ask Esther as we both watch the people who were gathering in the central circle of the village clearing out in a panic to hide in their homes.
Esther shrugs her shoulders and says, “honestly it may be good for them. We have a lot of adapting to do now that the teratolion are our allies, so they’ll have to get used to new things whether they like it or not.”
“The world has gotten so much larger than the goddess’ navel hasn’t it,” I chuckle as one of my scars opens to bleed out a floating hand that I use to close the door that Cran had left open.
Esther raises a hand to her face and she wretches at the sight of my soulcraft. I quickly evaporate the bloody hand, and then cover the open scar with my hand until my soul gathers enough essence to close it up once more to spare Esther’s eyes the disturbing sight of how I work around my body’s limitations to use the boons granted to me by my ancestors.
“Do you still plan on leaving?” asks Esther, averting her eyes from my wrist.
“I do,” I respond placing my hands under the table to make Esther more comfortable, “also, I’m sorry that my magic isn’t as elegant as my father’s. I wish it was, but I’m a little too human to be a full cel… warlock like he was.”
“You really did sacrifice so much for my daughter Uzuri,” says Esther pulling my hands from under the table and placing them onto the counter again. Esther forces herself to touch the various scars that form the letters that make out the instructions for my spells. When Esther is content with her examination of my arms, she asks, “does it hurt when you use magic.”
“You get used to it,” I say placing a hand over hers, “its unfortunately second nature to me now. It used to take some mental effort, but now whenever I get even the whisper of an idea for a spell in my head, or even if my mind or soul merely feels threatened new scars form to create the letters, words, and designs of scarified images to store my spells as a written record and diverse arsenal on my skin. I might be more scar than flesh by the time I die.”
“You looked like you were nearly torn apart by some clawed animal last night,” says Esther removing her hands from my arms, “You didn’t look like that at the waterfall.”
“My soul and body were catching up to all I put them through,” I say acknowledging the worriedness in Esther’s voice, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”
Esther goes quiet, contemplating her next words. I don’t have anything to say besides goodbye, so my lips remain still as I wait for Esther to speak. Esther once again places her hand upon my arm and begins to trace the letters the scars upon them form. The words that escape her mouth surprise me, “what are you becoming?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, frightened by the question and what it implies.
Esther lowers her head and grasps my hands within hers, “when you were Skath you had scars, but they were few and when you used magic you used trickles of blood instead of streams. When you became Aeramen, the scars multiplied upon your body and your magic became more and more terrible to witness as streams of blood escaped your body to perform your miracles, but I thought you were the child of a monstrous herald of heaven not my nephew, so I let my mind concede to the mysteries of an unknown people. Now that your face has returned, a part of that monstrousness still wriggles into my mind when I look upon your face and body.”
I tug my hands out of my aunt’s grasp hide them under the table and look away from her face to try to hide the scar on my face. Esther’s hand rests under my chin and pulls my face back to look directly at her. Esther then says, “you were fighting a monster to save a princess, and what are heroes but monsters to monsters. I’m just worried, that now that the world calls you that the boy that did everything in his power to try to make sure that a bloodless revolution could take place isn’t replaced by a jaded beast.”
“I’ve already disappointed then,” I admit knowing that the heart of the pacificist boy of yon season is locked in a cage composed of my new justifications.
“You have a home here,” says my aunt her eyes pleading with me to stay with her, pleading with the last connection she has with her sister to remain by her side.
I shake my head, “no I don’t. I never did. I wanted to have a home here, but I never did nor will belong here. I might not even belong anywhere in this world, as I’m a relic of a past that maybe should have ended with my forebearers.”
I take a deep breath before continuing as a cold acceptance of the questions that destroyed my dreams clutches my mind, “My destiny might be to do exactly that: the future may be calling me to finally put to rest the celandil so that the world can know the peace they deny it.”
A part of me wishes to explain everything to her. A part of me wants to tell her that if I don’t do anything that I won’t have a home here even if I try to make one. A part of me wants to scream and say that all will be lost in such a short amount of time, but it might be best for her to live in ignorance so that she can enjoy what time she has left. My lip curls as I want to say so much, but what passes from my lips is, “goodbye Esther, take care of Geracht’s kid for me. Tell them that their cousin is fighting for them.”
I get up from my seat, walk behind Esther and embrace her for the last time and whisper, “thank you for everything.”
I hear Esther sniffling and weeping as I exit her home. I don’t look back as I shut the door behind me. I raise my hand toward Cran, and he morphs back into a staff and floats into my hand. We walk down the central path of the village for the last time and my head attempts to turn back, but it stops before fully committing to the action. This was never my home. I may bear some of their blood, but I was never their family. I may have fought for them, but they weren’t truly my people. Their future is now theirs to make of it what they will, and it was always that way. Even when I tried to intervene, they chose the future we now call the present. Now, I leave Unadeam behind with scars upon my heart, and perhaps lessons that may need to be unlearned or reinterpreted. With a heavy heart, I continue forward.