CHAPTER 20 – CHANGE OF MIND
Too much mist, sludge, and marsh floors. Can’t really move, have to, can’t stop. Slow climbing seems smarter as I watch all my men rush past me. I watch in horror from the front, and chills run, in bad anticipation, down my back. They are devoured. No less frightening than the scariest of nightmares. They are crushed and tossed around as though they weren’t men at all. Their bodies soak into the ground before I can get close enough, one with nature once again. Now it is just me. I trek, I voyage, I journey, I seek. Why do I search? What is this creature behind me in the mist? Is there anything to search for? It is all gone. Just then the mist fades into darkness.
I can feel them all around me, yet I do not see them. Threats of night. I reach for my sword. Nothing is there. There is no hope, only darkness. I will surely lose again. I clench my hands into fists, bracing myself for a first attack. Knocked upside the head, darkness replaced by a black sight; I come to…
Atop a misty peak with a grand temple behind me, I peer down to see the sunken marshes where my comrades had fallen. Who would bring me up here? The lights begin to fade out again. Here comes the same evil, the same evil that has endured so many times before, too many times. From what beyond I do not know I can see the light of a hero. A crimson crown among the utter oblivion shines as a beacon of hope. The light radiates from the sword in the king’s hand.
I reach for my sword. Its cold-burning handle brings life to my cutting arm. I pull it out of the sheath. As the blade comes out the crimson shine catches the sun’s radiance out of the gloomy clouds, and the blade becomes so bright it catches fire.
A white flame burns from the helm, bringing out the faces of the enemies into my sight. Ugly demons, old myths of legend attack me. Crawling faster than natural, it pains to look at. They claw and bite at you only to turn you. Take your pure blood and burn it into terror. Once the terror hits your heart it poisons you. The terror turns to darkness. The darkness breeds hate. In hate lives evil. Evil turns you rotten. And rotted you become them. I swing to keep them at a distance. They come at me for the light, even though they reject anything but darkness.
The light burns as I sweep across the chests of the creatures. Black ooze erupts out of the flame slicing open the shadowed body. I retake my stance as they collide like meteors to the ground, obliterating the darkness. All the crumbs of what used to be demons were gone, blended back into the earth. I hold the sword in my hand; I can feel its power. With this power I have the strength to conquer any obstacle. I can feel its glare on my face. It doesn’t burn me, but warms me, it feels familiar. It is the sun on my face.
• • •
Mitakahn tried to let go of something in his hand that wasn’t there. A deep tremble coursed up his arm and down his spine to his heart, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
“My gods”
“Mitakahn are you okay?”
“What happened?”
“Your face exploded in blue fire knocking you unconscious. Then you woke up and walked out here.”
“I was…it was…so beautiful and so real…”
“Your dream?”
“It didn’t feel like a dream.”
“Mitakahn look at me,” Echo turned the prince’s gaze from the dawn, “the cor has revealed itself to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It has been a long night. I suggest you go back and get some rest. Maybe unconsciousness on your terms will hone your new ability.”
Mitakahn felt unsure of himself and in his fugue state took Echo’s advice without question. He walked back to his tent with nothing but the morning dew filling his nostrils, painting a strong sense over this moment for his memories. He got back to his bed before anyone was awake. In no time he fell asleep even with the morning stealing back the sky.
• • •
I wake up in a dark room with luscious shades of shadow lining the walls, an impression of imprisonment. The vindictive room is mocking my suffering. I peel at the walls. My nails shift upon my fingers as their edges grind into strange matter. A shiver folds down my spine. My depth perception is off in the cold dark black, but I feel as if the walls are closing in on me. There by a window, the only window in the room, the stars light the ground.
A figure sleeps in the bed, with another dark figure standing over it, holding a glaring dagger.
The dagger plunges into the victim on the bed, and the screams ring out and float over to my ear. I know that voice. It cannot be. I throw myself at the window to try and break it so I can save him. Save my kin, save my family. I can’t get out. The dagger re-surfaces and then goes in for another strike. The screams shatter my composure. I cannot stand this. My father is dying out there! And there is nothing I can do about it. I scream to match his anguish and in my release I look up, and see an unfinished house, a roof of night sky and stars. I dig my hands back into the wall. It moves like thick mud. I lift my weight up. I can get out of the room if I move quickly. I get over the wall and fall to the floor.
When I stand back up the room has vanished. The murder atop the hill is gone as well. I am surrounded by trees. Through the night sky I can see little besides the trees, and I am worried that I will not get back to the previous scene, whatever that was. And save…who was it again? My memory is fleeting. I must press on. Walking through the forest I get a feeling of familiarity, I try to hold onto it, in hopes of retrieving my fallen memories.
There in the distance! I run to catch up to it. But it narrowly stays out of reach. It looks like a diamond. The most beautiful diamond I’ve ever seen. I MUST GET IT! I leap to grab it, but it flies across the valley. It now looks as small as a raindrop. But wait…a figure surrounds it, forming out of thin air, an animal.
The diamond is now a twinkle in its eye. Bluish-yellow piercing eyes. I am no longer standing, but floating, floating in space beside the sun. I cannot breathe. I have no need to breathe. I marvel at the universe with my companion. But all is not right. The moon clicks and clocks as it orbits directly in front of the sun. The devious rock moves to sour the credit of the mightiest stars. And there in the distance slowly swings the world, unaware, unable to do anything to stop this awful event.
The moon makes its final move and blots out the sun. Light is completely eclipsed from the earth. It looks dark, depressing. All the colors and shades have changed for the worst. I cannot just sit idly by and do nothing. I convince the sun to put me in motion. With a solar flare, a beautiful bright red ribbon whips me towards the moon. The moon is dark controlled as if by some unnatural force. I immediately regret my decision to attack. The shadow leaps out of the moon and reaches for me. I look back for the Sun’s help, but nothing. It’s no use, invading my sight to black.
Do you dream when all you see is black? I walk, in the black, not knowing where I am going, or where I was. Am I even walking? No. Red clouds on a missing horizon. They approach with the haste of a storm. The first drops rain down. They spiral down towards me, as they paint the map into life and vision. The red clouds are of bad blood, and the black rain is nothing more than dirty tears.
Sometimes the only way to let go of something is to let go of everything. Who then will be there to pull me back? The only person to vow that creed passed beyond these shores not long ago. His presence brought with it unbeknownst grace and comfort. His queen no longer smiles the way she used to. His Kingdom no longer lives in peace and harmony. His sons no longer rely on his guidance and strength. Misery surrounds all of us. His time was taken unfairly from him. Now I watch the consequences reap my life for everything it's worth.
When I wake up I am back on the hill beside the victim. I have no control over my actions. When I finally pull the knife black tears run the blood down the blade. I catch a glimmer from the moonshine of the metal dagger’s reflection and see the victim’s face…no…it can’t be.
Darkness is inside everybody. But it is a matter of battle and victory in whether or not you want to be called decent and true. When those who lose the will to fight let the darkness invade them, they turn into defeated shadows of themselves. All honor, pride, homage, and respect, all that gives meaning to life, is taken away. The only thing that can retrieve one from the depths of depression is what was taken from him in the first place… love.
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I rain down upon a familiar city with the black tears. Inside the thunderous storm, I find an armada of dark ships crashing upon a seaport, destroying everything in sight. The dark force moves as though it is one monster. It eats the port city alive. I get my feet on the ground. The streets of Port Caliber are filled with dead bodies, a veritable wasteland. Below the darkness burns a single fire on the rotten sea. From the fiery tomb rises a man wearing a dead crown of solstice. Shadow runs over everything and the darkness comes chasing after me. Mitakahn!
• • •
“NO!” the prince jumped out of his bed.
After hearing the cry Axion ran in, “Mitakahn?”
There he stood wide awake staring off into the distance, skylight in the grain of his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
And then it was as if Mitakahn woke up again, his head now as clear as his eyes, “I saw a sign of the Solstice,” he said with pure certainty, “the kingdom is in peril, we are all doomed, Axion! We have to go back!”
“Calm down, calm down. It was merely a nightmare.”
“No, Axion, this is the nightmare, what will happen is the nightmare. The dream was a sign, a warning from someone, somewhere. You have to trust me. I don’t know yet, but it was real. A gift from the cor.”
“The cor? You sound crazy, Mitakahn. Your mind is spinning loose,” reasoned Axion. “We have been watching you get worse and worse. Watching and not saying anything, but now it’s unavoidable. You’re sick.”
“No, for the first time in a while I am thinking clearly, you must believe me, brother. We cannot afford to be ignorant if what I dreamt comes true…. we must save our kingdom, our father’s kingdom, we must go home.”
“…Okay.” Axion appeased him, “We will leave at noon.”
That was far too easy. Mitakahn never knew Axion to be unrequitedly cooperative.
But it did not matter. Mitakahn had the camp packed up and their mother in her carriage before Axion had returned from lunch with Euphrati. So, he decided to use the spare time to pay Echo one last visit. He wanted to tell him what the Ignaleos Cor revealed to him.
Mitakahn knocked once, maybe twice before the front door opened and he was whisked down to the library. Echo scanned his physical conditions and said pointedly, “You look better.”
“I feel better. I feel clearer, like a weight has been lifted.”
“So, tell me, what have you learned?”
“The Ignaleos Cor has given me sight. Last night I had a vision,” Mitakahn’s eyes darted in insecurity, “but I am having trouble deciphering it through my dreams.”
“Come, tell me what you saw, perhaps I can give some perspective.”
They sat down around the same dark oak table they brewed the exposure elixir on. Mitakahn told Echo what he could remember from his dreams, but that’s when he realized as soon as he was startled awake he began the forgetting process.
“There was a diamond… and an army of darkness, Port Caliber under siege,” he could feel himself getting worked up again. He paused to gather more detail as Echo tried to find a hint, they both sat in silence. Mitakahn got up anxiously. “I can’t waste any more time. I have to be going, Axion will be back any-”
“Mitakahn I think I know how to help.”
Echo went to the wall of books and slid out Mandrake’s Mandates.
“It’s a Runecast base chronicle. It has articles on all known MagnaThoran artifacts. If there are any answers to your dreams, start looking here.” Echo emphatically shook the book.
Mitakahn could not take such a generous gift but when he tried to refuse he thought out loud, “I guess there’s no sense refusing a gift from someone who came into possession of it by precarious means.”
“Your integrity goes unblemished to the end. I will tell people never to think of pulling one over on Mitakahn Arkenoir of Zepathorum.”
“Who are you?”
“All in good time, prince.”
Echo smirked and shook Mitakahn’s hand. He handed him the hardbound book wrapped in a pressed brown-leather jacket. The jacket matched the entire chronicled collection of mandates. They went back upstairs and bid farewell. Echo felt bad not being able to give Mitakahn more help after all they had been through. He racked his mind searching for one last way to help. He couldn’t think of anything. He could give him his horse! No, that would be weird, considering the caravan they came in on, even though the horse was special. But he wasn’t completely at a loss. Before Mitakahn was out of earshot Echo called out to him. He ran closer to be sure Mitakahn heard him.
“If you run out of options, seek out my old acquaintance in Epitaph City, he goes by Demascus. He’s the only person I know who could tell the legend of the warlocks better than me. Well maybe not better, but perhaps more…factually.”
“Thank you for everything, my friend.”
“Your kingdom will be okay, son.”
That word again.
“Whether danger is imminent or not, the Pride will survive because you still hold vigil.”
Mitakahn made sure to repeat the contact name to memory as he clenched the book. Echo provided him with the tools to solve his mysteries. Now the rest was up to the prince.
Mitakahn successfully returned right before Axion, who was taking his time walking back to the caravan with Euphrati. At first, Axion was quite annoyed that his time was cut short by his brother. But after a quiet realization made just before, he turned to Euphrati. An earnest look came over Axion’s face. Only his mother knew what was coming next, Mitakahn on the other hand would be completely blindsided.
Axion turned back to his family as they got in the carriage and said softly yet sternly, “I’m staying.”
“What?” Mitakahn was flabbergasted.
“I am not going to abandon the only good thing to happen since my father died because you had a bad dream…”
“If that’s what you wish…” Queen Adyána kissed her eldest son on the cheek goodbye.
“Your father?” Mitakahn yelled at Axion, “What about your kingdom and your throne?”
“Don’t lecture me little brother, this is my choice, the Pride will get along fine without me.”
“Take good care of him,” Adyána said to Euphrati.
Euphrati smiled and bowed to Adyána who pulled her in for a hug.
The sight of it made Axion feel good, like this was the right decision.
“Farewell, Mitakahn.”
Mitakahn did not say goodbye to his brother, instead he sat down in the carriage and got ready to live life without him. Adyána got in with Mitakahn trying to keep from making their rocky departure any worse. The carriage door closed and the driver whipped the horses.
“How could you let him do that?” Mitakahn hissed at his mother.
“I will not stand in the way of my son’s happiness. I only hope you can find what Axion has.”
“Awfully convenient coming from a hypocrite.”
“Mitakahn! I am your mother. Do not talk to me that way.”
“This is madness, and you’re provoking it. I shall say what I must.”
“Then please do not talk to me for the rest of the trip.”
The journey back home usually seemed shorter. But this time the unsure future and family discord slowed the pace down to a near halt. Mitakahn prayed to the gods that all was not lost before they returned. He used this long span of quiet daylight as an opportunity to open the runecast chronicle. There were more than three hundred pages to get through, each with in-depth descriptions of various artifacts. This was definitely going to take a while. It would be a good distraction from the quiet panic sounding off in the back of his head until they reached that final ridge crest so he can see with his own eyes that Port Caliber is okay.
END OF PART ONE