Aelfsigior sat at his post for the following day, with a dreamy gaze focused on the forest wrapped in the slithering mist bathed in the colors of Septurrion’s autumnal season. Azure closest to the hidden filament, a foreboding violet at the center and amber golden closest to the earth. A hidden message hiding within the translucent whiteness, yet his mind could not wonder but on the beauty of bonny djinn whose owlesque countenance held secrets and beauty in the collection of refined contours.
Though in the days and week after, his clouded mind cleansed with unease as the Mist descended not just around them and the quaint village on the hillside, but also betwixt them as if it protected the languid residents from invaders of a distant land. Nevertheless, the Council of Tribunes leading their cohort decided upon sending a contuberinium simply to learn whether the residents have seen or heard dead things beyond their colorful, dreary abodes.
Two or three days passed in their absence from the sprawling camp, each day Dionysi commented ominously whilst staring into the colorful thickness blocking view of the village and the world beyond. And none of them could retort that she was simply seeing things. Aelfsigior himself on a few occasions noticed prowling thick figures with folds under their necks and jawlines far ahead, emanating a wicked scent he later recognized as rot. “The enemy is all around us. This must be a trap.” These words rang in his head each day as he stood, feeling alone with a mind slowly sapped
Then their suspicions faded when tall, slim figure in elegant robes that have seen better days appeared from the thickness. A fellow aevhe who was clearly of a high stature as his companions were a tall, copper orkh bereft of the Marks of Atonement – at which the nearby guards reached for their weapons at first – and an elderly man of northern blood, much shorter than the other two and trembling from the weight of his own bones. Behind them the eight appeared, carrying heavy baskets filled with spices and the goods of this hidden land which they all now knew to be Lianassian’s Rest.
Aelfsigior pondered as the name sounded familiar even when the strange, inviting lips of Tanitha uttered them. From what little he could recollect by searching through his tired mind, he remembered only he was a Chosen of Septurrion who migrated from the old dying world colonized by the niuvhei and settled in the north, where he disappeared in the early centuries of the First Age. It seemed to him Septurrion may have given him a great task which ended with his demise, here in this hidden land.
The aevhe leading the two introduced himself as Raleiquuth in a soft, whispery manner as if he lacked the strength to speak in a normal cadence. Like all their kin, he too had light skin unblemished, fair and with a hint of drowsy blue. His dark hair flown naturally down his body, giving off the air of a druid who lets their hair remain untrimmed, free of control as it grown wildly, his broad eyes half open, half closed, on the precipice of dreams, yet strangely Aelfsigior was sure they remained idly in place as if held by a spell or unseen hands. The orbs in them though filled him with unease, both dark as the starless night filament ready to swallow all those beneath it.
For a few days, the three remained, getting familiar with the high chain of their cohort. Seldom they had seen their leader, Dionysi who after each meeting appeared more languid, thirsting for rest and a few times even declining a bowl of soup or stew. Unease shadowed each of them, including Aelfsigior who often patrolled near the grand tent of the Tribunes where these meeting went down. A few times he could not triumph over his urge to listen in on their discourses, but when it came to recounting it to Sceparzara and Lykidas whose bandaged head gave off the same odor of rot, the words he heard whispered beneath the tent faded, ceased by a queer apathy of his mind. An experience first of its kind, a dreadful kind to Aelfsigior.
After the three left, Dionysi’s contuberinium whispered behind her back as she seemed slightly different, but they were unsure. For the most part, she remained thrilled about the prospect of battle they were marching towards, yet it mingled with a sense of waning, withering as the words seemed to flow from one desiring nothing more than to warm their bellies under the rays of the Illius.
From Belos and Sceparzara, Aelfsigior learnt the other Tribunes behaved the same in their own manner. Yet like the others, none were sure whether it was some spell cast over them by the three visitors, or were it simply the Mist and its hidden prowlers who appeared nearer with each night. All knew, the enemy wished to impede the formation of a grand force, utilizing surreptitious methods, maladies to halt their way evident from the attack the preceding days, weeks before their settling near the quaint village on the hill.
“For now, let us pray that the Dawn Fathers bathes us in his radiant light whilst Septurrion ensures our safe passage.” That was all Aelfsigior said on the seventeenth day of their stay, as they finished their dinner before their journey towards the realm of their patron, The Lands of Oneiron.
***
But it seemed like, Aelfsigior himself found no respite behind shut lids. Suddenly he found himself awake, yet impotent all across his body, except his eyes which frantically searched around in the dark confines of their tent. Then he trembled as silence broke. Under weak steps, the wooden floor of the tent whimpered softly. Feet most horrid as they grew sallow and black at the borders, baleful flesh and yellowed bone exposed whilst small critters crawled beneath the parched skin.
“Resist not my dear legionaries. In the Gap, you have to not fear the woes of the world.” A familiar, husky voice entered his ears twinging in fear. Yet no matter how hard he tried the evocation of the owner of the voice withered in an instant, pulled into the abyss by an invisible weight placed upon his mind.
Mist stole inside the arched opening of their tent, tenderly wrapping around the awfully thin figure, whose form was adorned in tattered robes. Robes worn not by the silently raging forces of the world, or by seeing a multitude of battles, but simply gnawed by queer lack of care. Within its dry, dusty textile care an equally desiccated form stretched, partly hidden by the Mist, thought to a small extent Aelfsigior could make out a little.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Eyes bulged, as he took in the figure’s continuous deformities, the grayish pallid skin, abdomen fallen in as if he had no more need for the stomach, above it the circumference of the ribcages visible broken, crumbled with the sharp edges decidedly wishing to break forth the yoke of the skin. The silhouette of the head lacked jaw, a long pinkish slab of meat that must have been the tongue cascaded down lazily, whilst strands of oily hair – a meager amount as far as he could see – straggled down the oval head, whilst where the eyes should have been, only two yellowish sparks remained surrounded by utter blackness, the sockets hollowed by lack of invigorations.
From the thin figure, a drowsy odor of living decay permeated the air, stirred his stomach with its piercing tendrils. Bile began its journey across his throat, but stopped as the toes and their swirling yellowish claws, bloody cracks along its coarse surface now faced him. Strangely he felt spread all across his body, numbing his limbs into complete impotence, his heart beaten within his chest with an apathetic pace as if the figure and the mist were nothing more than a common nightmare. Aelfsigior shut his eyes, beckoning himself to stir from the nightmare, but his mind remained stoically still in this horrid reality, reinforced in the next moment. Four, tiny cold impacts broke the tensity of his face, and a vile breath beckoned his lids to open. “Might have been a fancy.” The thin figure said in his gravelly, dry voice as if he was coughing up dust.
Aelfsigior eased as the warm, vile breath ceased and heard the tired lullabies of the robe distance slowly. Just a bit, he opened his eyes and watched the Mist retreat, taking the gliding, thin figure with itself. “With the Night on our side, our flock shall grow and his world of dreams shall be reality before long my friends.” Then when only the diffused blackness and silver-white remained, a weight dragged him back into the much more pleasant land of Oneiron. There the young djinn girl, Tanitha grasped his hand, banishing the memory of the nightmare away. “Be brave, Aelfsigior. It shall be paramount to cleanse the garden.”
***
By the next morning, the mist betwixt the camp and village lessened a bit. Now there was a clear view which eased Aelfsigior’s mind a bit. Sitting on the rock protruding from the earth behind the tent, he watched the forest, waiting giddily like a child veiled by the hammered in discipline painting a stoic, vigilant look on his face. His excitement grew more as he noticed a group of villagers with large baskets fastened around their shoulders converging towards the forest, amongst them the young Tanitha whose dreams beckoned her beyond the mist.
It seemed the distance between the two meant nothing as their gazes met. Even time halted in its otherwise known relentless march to allow the two to converse without words. Aelfsigior heard no disembodied voice of hers, only a faint hum he heard the first time they met accidentally in the forest. From it though, the weight upon his mind seemed to lessen, and when he exhaled with relief, clarity flooded his mind. Then she turned her gaze away and disappeared amongst the trees and bushes.
Before that though a long patrol through the east section of the camp awaited Aelfsigior. Absent mindedly he walked between the rows of tents, from the corners of his gaze he noticed the tired expressions of his brothers and sisters. He needed not to question, as the nightmare still lingered in the deep recesses of his mind. This was the first day in his nearly two centuries where he cursed the acute memory of his kindred. Through the tantalizing scent of boiling broth and stew, meat roasting on scarce seasoning, he still smelled the malodorous scent of the decay awaiting those excessive sloths he heard a few tales about around the fire of a camp.
People afflicted often by some curse cast upon them, or inherited from their parents, their parents and so on who wronged a powerful spellcaster. Cursed with a strange misery that surreptitiously lurked in the hearts, draining will and desire for practically anything as far as the tales often went. An adventurous patricios who dreamt of even more riches yet his efforts never amounted more to words whilst he slowly merged into one with his bed until the servants found a grotesque doll of dry, rotted flesh repeating the same words. “Glory awaits boundless. My name shall be stricken onto the tablets of history.”
Or the tale told by Dionysi about the withered legion. A grand battle fought not by swords, spears, axes and spells clashing, but by struggling, distressed minds wishing to leap away from the gap of utter inaction and frugal motion. A battle devoid of the cries, the shrieks of the wounded and the dying, instead the odes of toiling, moaning who wrestled against the numbing spark of apathy towards everything – to think, to desire, to lift one’s limbs to move, to resist the crippling urge to just become part of the scenery until the body breaks down into dust whilst the soul passes under the Black Veil of the Solemn Shepherd.
All in all, the faces in the corners of his vision all reminded him dreadfully of these tales. Yet he ruminated not much on the matter, as it mattered little to him. Instead, he focused on another contuberinium converging what he considered the square of their little woven settlement. Not one of them stood with the pride and discipline of the 7th Legion, instead like the withering elderly, they relied on their spears, shields to stand. Beneath their helmets, Aelfsigior noticed the dark circles of the sleepless, of those without desire to be at all. Of those who simply wished to fade away, to be carried by an external force. Be it the wind or the unseen hands of some primordial spirit.
“What a queer sight it is to see our brave brothers and sisters.” He turned suddenly, not expecting the deep voice of the far-southern merkin wearing the same opulent armor adorning Dionysi’s form. As the diffused light shone upon his fishy visage, the golden scales revealed a hint of crimson, and unlike the others around them, the merkin lacked the telltale signs of the sleepless ailed by apathy.
“It is.” He replied in a weak whisper, feeling a bit ashamed at his own weakness. “We should depart, but I feel that is no longer a possibility.” The merkin tribuniar said with a portentous gaze focused on the legionaries departing towards Lianassian’s Rest.
“What do you mean? Pardon my manner.” He said noticing the faint cadence of irritation in his own voice. “I mean we already in the trap. But fear not son, it shall be over soon, I know it.” The merkin seemingly ignored the tone, even offered a sympathetic gaze whilst patting his shoulders forcefully. Though that promises was left unfulfilled after the merkin departed with his group – and like the group they watched depart together two days before – never returned from Lianassian’s Rest.