Konrad

Konrad stood in the same place he had a moment ago, but instead of a flourishing jungle, a red sky cast its eery glow on a landscape that was blasted and ruined. As if the landscape were not unsettling enough, the air itself seemed to resonate with a low buzzing sound, and as much as he tried to block it out, it wanted to burrow into his brain, loosening the threads of his thoughts.

"Where are we?" Konrad asked.

The waif ignored him, as it always did, and stepped forward, vanishing.

"Hey, where are you going? You can’t just leave me here!" Konrad shouted.

He kicked one of the red stones, shouting into the red sky. "I don’t know why I bother with you!"

"Who are you talking to, human?"

As soon as he heard the voice behind him, Konrad spun around and summoned the etherial armor and sword, willing the cold bite to his hands, but nothing happened; he was powerless here.

A tall figure stood a dozen paces away. He wore regal, if slightly worn, clothing, and his face was unlike any creature Konrad had ever seen before. His ears were elongated and pointed, but more oversized than any elf's, and his eyes were large with high cheekbones. He had a slightly undernourished look, with the bags under his eyes betraying his exhaustion.

Spirit backed up slightly, emitting a high-pitched whine from her throat.

"Who are you?" Konrad demanded, stepping out to protect Spirit. All he had was a small knife, and he held it out in front of him, drawing confidence from the weight of the metal in his hand.

"Steel will do you as much good as magic, human. In the Echo, we are master and prisoner both."

Konrad’s knife turned to sand and slipped through his fingers, and the stranger had still not moved.

"This is the Echo? You’re a Faelen."

"I am Yroh, Prince of the Faelen under the Lady. Who are you?"

"The Echo is real; I’m in the Faelen Echo," Konrad said dully.

The Faelen prince drew a sword that was gracefully curved and razor-sharp on one edge.

"I will ask you again, who are you, and how did you come to be here?"

"My name is Konrad; I’m a champion of the gods. I was brought here by… well, I don’t know what he is really; I thought he was a god, but honestly, he looks like a really old baby."

Yroh stood very still for several moments, his large orb-like eyes boring into Konrad’s. "You are the boy who is hidden from the fates."

That was how Malan had described Konrad. The young elven seer had said that there was a small thread of fate with a Konrad-shaped hole in it.

"How can I be hidden? I didn’t do anything!"

"You must speak with the Lady at once; she will know your destiny."

Despite the sword, the tall Faelen Prince didn't appear threatening; in fact Konrad sensed a desperation in his voice. Perhaps he thought that Konrad could fix whatever was wrong with this place, but was he ready to join another crusade? What if he helped this Yroh and then found out he was no better than the small gods or that he was the one who had killed this world?

"No. No more quests. I’m done; I’m just trying to find my friend."

"Konrad, you are a critical part of plans laid long ago. You must speak to the Lady; the existence of our people could rest in your hands."

Konrad felt questions about the waif and his destiny bubbling up inside him, and he quashed them, strengthening his resolve. He didn’t need a new mission; he already had one of his own. He would forge his own destiny, trying to undo the damage the gods had wrought on Parthanea, and he would start by finding Athir.

"Find someone else," Konrad said, turning on his heel and marching away. When he glanced back, the tall Faelen was gone.

Konrad walked all day under the red sky, watching the blasted land of the Echo and wondering how it had come to be. Yroh had called it a prison, but who created it, and how were the Faelen locked away if they were so powerful?

Spirit's furious barking pulled Konrad out of his daydream. The air reverberated with the infernal buzzing sound, and a disheveled spectre of a woman approached in a stumbling, zig-zag pattern. With a final moan, she flopped down into the dust and before Konrad could act, Spirit leapt to her side, nudging her gently with her snout.

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"Hello, are you okay?" Konrad asked.

The woman had long, graceful limbs and skin that glowed with the light of the moon, but her elegance was marred by her tangled and dirty hair, her tattered silver gown, and her cut and bruised feet. She muttered to herself in between heaving sobs, and Konrad saw a tragic beauty in her madness.

"How did he do it? He’s just a human. It wasn’t me. I didn’t have the skill. How can he have the skill? Unless it wasn’t him. Nononono, if it was another, then all is lost. Athir, my Athir lost."

At the mention of Athir, Konrad dropped to his knees in front of the woman. "What do you know about Athir? Is she in trouble?"

The woman’s eyes darted from side to side, unfocused, then they locked onto Konrad's, and he felt as though she were looking at a point two inches inside his head. The buzzing sound increased, and his thoughts scrambled.

"Did I hide you from the fates? Please say it was me; tell me it was a part of my plan," she begged.

"I don’t know who did it; my friend Malan told me that I was on a small thread. More like a space where I should be."

The woman reared her head back and screamed, the shrill sound adding a sharp edge to the buzzing.

"It’s okay; I’m here. My name is Konrad, and this is Spirit. We can help you. What’s your name?"

The woman wilted, her spirit seeming to collapse.

"I don’t know," she said, her voice wavering as her tears leaked onto the dry, red dirt.

"You mentioned my friend, Athir; do you know where she is?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and the buzzing sound retreated slightly.

"There are more moments lost than unlost now; are we reaching the end?" she whispered.

Spirit placed her head in the woman’s lap, and it seemed to lend some measure of calm. When she spoke, her voice was monotone and devoid of emotion.

"If you are here, then the plans, the madness, the pain, and the torment were all for nothing."

"I didn’t do anything!" Konrad protested.

"I did. I looked as far and as deeply as I could into the fates, and I charted a course to free us. Then I let madness consume my mind to hide everything from the eyes of our enemies. The success danced on the edge of a knife, but if you are here, then there was no knife. Someone planted a seed in the fates long before me, so my plans were simply a part of a larger scheme. Now I can’t see anything; my mind is unbound."

Her bottom lip trembled, and fresh tears ran down her cheeks and dropped into her lap.

"It’s okay, you’ve got the wrong person; I’m not a part of anything; I’m just a champion of small gods."

She shook her head. "You are the greatest weapon of those who sealed us here. We forbade the practice of forcefully bonding living creatures long ago, but when they locked us away, they stole our secrets and made their own champions. When the gods gained such loyal pawns and a lack of remorse for their sacrifice, they became unstoppable. We tried to fight; we made our own champions and sent them to their doom time and time again, but we could not match them. The gods feel nothing when a champion dies, but for us, it is an open wound in our souls. My poor Ostred, I still feel him."

She touched a pale hand to her breast, and the glow of her skin dimmed slightly, causing Konrad a pain he couldn’t put into words.

Konrad stood and picked up his pack. "I’m not with the gods any more; I’m going to do everything I can to defeat them, to defeat the Father."

It was the first time Konrad had said the words out loud, but the intention fell into place as though it had always been a part of him. Perhaps this was what destiny felt like. "Let me help you. How can I get to Athir?"

But the woman didn’t seem to have heard him. She was staring at his leg, her eyes wide. "I remember this. But how could it be you?"

Leaping up with remarkable speed, she grasped Konrad by the shoulders, glaring at him. The buzzing sound increased again and the air began to shimmer.

"You carry the remains of a curse on your leg."

"How do you know my leg was cursed?" Konrad stammered.

"Your brother begged me to hide you from the Father’s gaze, and the gods do not see those who are too weak to serve them."

A numbness invaded Konrad’s consciousness. His bad leg had made his life a litany of misery—the shameful glances from his own father, his mother's pity, and Alice, never seeing him as anything more than a companion despite the constant yearning in his heart. Had Otto really done this to him?

Anger surged in him like a hot tide, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. He had been beaten, ignored, ridiculed, and pitied, all because others sought to control his fate.

"Please. I need to know about my brother; tell me about Otto."

"They wanted to choose you, and so he came here to hide you, swearing to give his life to us."

A cold sorrow ran through Konrad’s body, extinguishing the anger. Otto had traveled to his desolate place just to try to save him.

The buzzing intensified, and the woman started to loose focus, her eyes darting from side to side.

"Where is he now? What did you tell him to do?" Konrad asked.

"No, you must listen to me. Whoever hid you from the fates has a destiny for you that could doom the Faelen. But you can choose to stay here, hidden in the madness, with us. Let my plan come to fruition; your sacrifice will free us."

Konrad's mind rebelled at the idea of staying in this lifeless prison and slowly succumbing to the mad buzzing.

"I can’t stay, but I’ll help. Take me to Athir and my brother, and I will defeat the Father," Konrad interrupted.

"Don’t you understand? If your destiny is to defeat the Father, then their destiny is to fail. Two fates cannot both become reality, and the skill of whoever hid you is far more powerful than my own. Athir and Otto will have to fail to make way for your destiny, and the Father will kill them. Stay here; let them win."

"Send me to them right now," Konrad commanded.

The buzzing in the atmosphere of the Echo warped the landscape, and the woman frantically pulled at her hair and moaned.

"Listen, Lady, send me to Athir and Otto right now!" Konrad yelled.

With a final maddened scream, the deranged woman vanished. Spirit barked a warning and bounded across the dry land towards a widow that had appeared in the air and Konrad sprinted for the shimmering portal, diving though it without even registering the shapes that moved on the other side. He felt the cold, dry air and caught the sharp smell of sand and blood in his nostrils, before he smashed into a red robed figure, and they both tumbled to the floor.

"I’m so sorry," Konrad said, as an old man with a bald head and a murderous expression got to his feet.