Maybe it was time to get sober. D’Argen smiled into his bottle as the thought crossed his mind. Why? What was the point? There was around another four thousand years left before he reached the time in the real world. Real world? What was real anyway? The pain in his heart felt pretty real when somebody ignored him or the whispers got too personal.
But, since the event that would not be named but had shaken all Never Born, the whispers had slowly changed course. There was too much drama happening in the castle of Evadia for D’Argen to be the focus of all rumours. Especially when mortals started visiting from far and wide, petitioning the queen for help as the demons had returned.
D’Argen wondered if he should offer his assistance as yet another petitioner walked out of the receiving hall. The line going into the hall was long. Acela would not be able to leave her seat until the sun set, if even then. Vain was going around already and culling the line, writing names and locations for demon sightings, and turning the mortals away.
There were so many.
Soon, Acela would cave and finally send someone to investigate. D’Argen wondered who she would send. In his other memories, she had sent Thar. He was both one of the strongest and his penchant for fighting had garnered him a large following among the mortals. And D’Argen suspected only now that he knew what would follow, Thar’s fighting prowess had helped establish the Kesenese Empire to their east, an Empire that stood in Acela’s way for quite a while at one point.
But with Thar gone, not having ever fallen in this realm, D’Argen was curious. Curious enough to wait until the line was over and ask, but not so curious to stand in it. He sat on one of the benches near the door as the line got shorter and shorter and the sun came lower and lower. His latest bottle finished long ago, and though his mouth and throat were dry, he saw the end of the line nearing.
Once there were only five mortals left waiting, D’Argen got up and stood in line behind the last one. He startled the old woman who nearly fell, but even without his mahee and with alcohol coursing through him as much as blood, he was fast enough to stop her from falling. She thanked him profusely and then started talking to him about her daughter, who went off to fight in the north and had not written to her in months. She went, following one of the gods.
“Foolish girl, that one,” the woman said to D’Argen quietly when there were two mortals in front of her, waiting in line.
D’Argen was only listening to her with one ear, trying to hear the quiet pleas of the man currently sitting in front of Acela to discuss his woes. When he realized it was something about his farmlands, D’Argen dismissed him. Just in time too, to hear the woman say a familiar name.
“What did you say?” he asked, louder than intended, interrupting the mortal talking with Acela. Acela was glaring at D’Argen, but she quickly turned back to the mortal to answer him.
“My apologies, what did you say?” D’Argen repeated the question, quieter.
“I said, she was always good at fighting, didn’t want to sit at the weave and picked up a bow instead. She used to fight bandits when they came to our village, but it’s one thing to fight against rogues and nomads and another to fight beside the God of Destruction.”
“A name, you said a name,” D’Argen tried to rush her. “God of Destruction…”
“Thar,” she said. D’Argen felt his blood freeze over. “At least—” she continued, her eyes wandering to the ceiling in thought, “—that’s what I think it was. A strange name, that one.”
“Thar,” D’Argen breathed out the name. “Did you see him?”
“Yes, yes. He passed through our village personally.”
“What did he look like?” D’Argen ignored Acela clearing her throat as he rounded the old woman to face him.
The woman startled, seeming to finally notice D’Argen’s urgency. “About as tall as you, long white hair, pure white eyes. He wore long—”
D’Argen walked past her and right up to Acela, ignoring the stammering mortals.
“Thar. You… you sent him north?” D’Argen asked, his voice trembling.
Acela glared at him and made a point of looking at the mortal man for a moment before back to him. D’Argen, however, would not be deterred by politeness. He had spent the last few centuries walking the halls of the castle drunk and sometimes even forwent clothes. The rumours about him were already enough to excuse his behaviour now.
“Where north?” he asked. “Why?”
Acela cleared her throat and motioned to the side. One of the mortal guards standing by her throne came forward. “We will talk about this later. You can wait a moment longer.”
D’Argen disagreed, but he did not want to actually make a scene. It was one thing to interrupt Acela and another altogether to undermine her in front of the mortals. He followed the guard to a small bench on the side where he sat and started tapping his foot rapidly.
Acela quickly wrapped up with the rest of the mortals, rushing the conversations though the mortals did not seem to notice and to D’Argen it still felt so slow.
Once the last of the petitioning mortals left the hall and the doors closed, she stood up and stretched languidly. D’Argen was on his feet and then in front of her in seconds.
“Can you run?” she asked, as if he did not have his own questions.
“What? Yes. Of course.”
She raised an eyebrow and made a show of looking him over. D’Argen did not feel the shame that would have made his cheeks hot a few centuries ago. He was wearing old trousers with rips at one knee and an even older loose shirt that was probably once white. The opening at the chest was barely held together by a small string. His hair was a knotted mess he had not bothered to wash in weeks and his boots, though still sturdy, here worn and old. He looked nothing like the Envoy of Evadia that Acela had named him during this time in his other set of memories. When she did not find what she was looking for, she asked, “And your drink?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“I’m good. What happened—”
“That last woman I spoke to,” Acela interrupted him, raising her voice so he would not try to speak over her. “Her daughter went to fight alongside Thar. If you are finally done with whatever came over you these last few centuries, you could run to them and send a message.” She made a motion with her hand to the side that confused D’Argen until the scribe joined them. They had a wooden tablet in front of them and a quill ready.
Acela took both and penned her own letter on a blank sheet. It was short and barely filled a third of the page. Once done, she blew on the paper to help dry the ink faster. D’Argen felt all the actions and steps were taking too long. He started bouncing on the balls of his feet. Acela carefully folded the parchment and then held it out to D’Argen.
“Her name is Lissanadira. Her mother calls her Riss. She is from the Hotori province. Her mother begs her to either come home, or at least write. You—”
D’Argen snatched the letter out of Acela’s hand and turned to leave the hall.
“Stop by the vaults before you go.” Acela’s words had him turning to face her. “They went to confirm those demon rumours. If they are true, I prefer you are armed.”
D’Argen nodded and left before she could say anything else.
It felt like such a long time since he held a bow. His metal one, the one that Upates made personally for him at the start of the demon wars, was no longer there. Instead, there was another metal one with a similar mechanism. It was not as smooth on the release, but it still allowed him to clip it to a quiver at his hip. He ignored the swords on display, not even seeing their shining blades, and instead went for two simple daggers which sheaths fit into his boots. Instead of returning to his rooms to get dressed properly, he took a cloak from the vaults. There were no special gloves with a metal strip to make the bow’s string sing, but there were regular archer gloves.
He felt so bare. His hair was a mess and it took him the entire walk out of the vaults and to the castle gates to straight it into some semblance of order in a high ponytail. Once at the gates, D’Argen froze.
It had been such a long time since he held a bow. It felt like even longer since he used his mahee. He reached for it, hesitant as he had been every time he reached for it those past few centuries. It responded, like every time before. It answered him, begged him to run, scratched and clawed at him to listen and use it. He toyed with it as he walked to the outskirts of the city.
Only once he was past the farmlands and the night was dark, did he reach for it with intention.
Using his mahee felt like flying. It was a euphoria that no amount of alcohol could ever replicate. There was nothing like it at all. Not even in his dreamless sleep. Not even the thought of that white space and the void calling to him was enough to get him to stop. He opened it wider and wider as he ran, letting every single urge over the last few centuries finally settle. The world faded away into the nothingness he was used to seeing when he ran, and that was the only reason he slowed down. It was too familiar.
Even with his joy diminished, it still felt like too soon when he reached his location. Closing off his mahee and sliding to a stop felt so natural. It did not cry and claw at him like before. It was content, knowing he would use it again. Why he ever stopped was a wonder. He would, however, never push it so much to enter that white world again.
When D’Argen looked around to see where he had stopped, he recognized the canyon where the top passages led to the northern peninsula of Elese and a few of the bottom ones led to the White Cliffs and that small village where they would build their ship to take them further north.
It was not the canyon itself, however, that had D’Argen stopping his run. Yes, some of the passages were small and the outcroppings dangerous and he could easily smash into or right through a wall, but he had run it enough to be able to turn on time. It was what lay not too far from him.
A body.
There was blood on the ground and it still reflected light so it must have been fresh. There was also a broken spear in the dirt and a torn shield. D’Argen drew his own bow and readied an arrow, even as he ran to the body.
He slid to his knees right beside the mortal and held his arrow between two fingers as he checked her pulse. Thready, faint, but there. He leaned over their mouth and felt an even fainter breath on his cheek.
Then he felt something strange. It was not until he lifted his head, avoiding the arrow that sank into the mortal’s chest, that he realized his mahee had been consuming the sound from it. Then came another arrow, the whistle so low his ears barely heard it. His mahee, however, ate up the sound like a starving animal. He followed that instead of his eyes and jumped out of the way. Three arrows landed in the ground where he had just knelt, two of them piercing the mortal.
They stopped breathing.
The arrows were in the ground from different angles. D’Argen pulled back his string and watched the canyon walls around him, even as his feet moved to keep him out of the way.
More arrows rained down on him, in twos or threes. He was able to avoid them all both with his mahee eating the sounds to give him direction and the winds under his feet helping him move out of the way. It was when a broken arrow fell near him that D’Argen glanced up.
Right above him, on a ridge hanging over the wall, was a creature that had D’Argen’s mouth dropping open. It looked humanoid, it had the same four limbs as him, but they were grotesquely out of proportions. Upon closer look, what D’Argen had assumed was a small bow in the demon’s hand turned out to be the demon’s hand instead, its stark bones spread at awkward angles that allowed it to notch another arrow. As D’Argen watched, it fumbled and dropped that arrow too.
The sound of arrows flying had D’Argen moving. The other attackers did not have such qualms as the demon above him. Their arrows struck the canyon walls and some were fast enough to dig into the stone instead of bouncing off it. D’Argen searched the walls to see where the attacks were coming from.
What he saw, had him loosening his arrow. It struck the first demon that was crawling down the canyon wall toward him. It fell with a heavy thump. Two others like it, their six limbs allowing them to crawl the vertical walls with ease, landed safely beside their dead companion. When they turned to hiss at him, they had mortal faces. Their eyes were too wide and their mouths too small, but if not for their limbs they could have been mistaken for mortal children.
D'Argen loosened another arrow into one of them as he backed away.
His mahee consumed the sound from a thump as another demon landed out of his sight. It was the one with a bow for a hand. Then three other thumps and D’Argen loosened another two arrows, missing one demon and only striking the arm of another. He kept circling on the spot when the demons stopped.
They did not advance.
One of them, the nude curves of a woman with the tail of a lion walked to the dead mortal D’Argen had seen earlier. She stepped on the mortal’s neck and pushed all her weight down.
A trap.
The demons had… the demons had set a trap.
The three others he noticed were all almost human in their appearance. If not for the pure black eyes of one, the rows upon rows of tiny sharp teeth in another’s smile, and the horns coming out of one’s head, he could have easily mistaken them each.
But, more worrying than being surrounded was the fact that they did not attack.
The demon with the lion’s tail approached him more than the others. She opened her mouth and D’Argen almost let his arrow loose out of surprise.
Her voice was husky and there was a lisp, but she spoke the mortal tongue as she asked, “Are you one of them?”
D’Argen never knew the demons spoke. He knew they got smarter before the second wars. He knew they coordinated and communicated amongst each other. He never knew… they could do something like this.
“Loose!”
D’Argen heard the call echo down the canyon and then he heard the arrows flying through the air. Most of them hit a target. None of them hit him. The demons that were hit, however, did not charge. They all dashed into the shadows and crevasse, trying to disappear into the canyon walls or crawling up them.
“Charge!”
That voice, D’Argen knew. He watched as over a dozen figures scaled down the canyon walls on ropes, blades ready and cutting down any demon in their path. Above them all was a figure dressed completely in white, his long white hair flying behind him as he formed ice under his feet to slide him right into the canyon wall. His large sword, one made of ice and gods’ blood, cleaved one of the humanoid demons in two and took a large enough chunk from the canyon wall to take down another demon below.
Thar.