“So, what would you like to know?”
What do I ask? Where do I begin? Will he stay truthful throughout this all? “Everything?”
He laughed briefly at that. “Everything? That could take a while, and I’m sure you won’t like it all. How about we start somewhere in particular first, and then go from that?”
That seems fair and reasonable of him. “Are you going to have someone else in your bed now? I heard from Helen it wouldn’t be uncommon, and since we haven’t…” Why am I starting with that? How stupid can I get? Where in the World is that the first question that someone starts knowing another person with?
“No. Although it, as you said yourself, wouldn’t be uncommon, I won’t. I’ve read about you Humans and your society and behavior regarding such things, and I think it isn’t unreasonable to try. So, no, I won’t, unless you want me to. I also won’t pressure you into such things.”
“So you wouldn’t want to sleep with me?” Does he not like me in the end? Is this all for nothing?
“Not right now if you don’t want to. At some point, yes, if you’d like to. But I won’t make you do it just because we’re married. I know enough about arranged marriages, and I’d like to say I know enough about people. If you don’t like me, we’ll figure something out. There’s no point in being unreasonable.”
If I’d like to do it someday? Is that ever going to happen? Could I ever like him that way? I have considered it, briefly, but was that really it? How will I know?
“Anything else? This seems not nearly all-encompassing as ‘everything’ would suggest.” He flashes a brief smile from across the bed, the two of us lying on the opposite sides.
“Kozzok mentioned you had a family before… all this. What happened to them?”
“Ah, that.” He pauses for more than what could be considered brief, the darkness of his eyes accentuated by the tiniest tears around them. “I had a family once, a very long time ago. Wife and two sons, Axelor and Sorror, I thought they were the greatest thing that ever happened to me once. Maybe they still are. Unfortunately, not everything seems to go according to what you plan, or want, or dream. Over the years, I’ve found that life, or the Gods, depending on how you view it, take more than they give to you sometimes.”
He briefly pauses to look at me, then continues on with his tale.
“My sons were killed in the War. They went to the battlefield, and never came back. It was unimaginable at that time, to see someone before you then lose them as if in a moment. To know that you will never get to see them again. To think that you should’ve been there, to try and protect them, to curse everything for not being by their side, as if that could somehow bring them back. And I looked. I looked for a while how to bring them back, but nothing of the sort ever came up. Nobody could help.
And then the anger. I was angry at the Humans that did all of that. I was enraged at everyone who helped take them away from me. I went there, to the battlefield, and took out my anger. It was fulfilling, glorious, to see those who have wronged you die in throngs, to rip entire walls and forts apart, to help avenge them even by the tiniest bit.
My older brother liked that side of me at that time. The great Hieron the Second, Maorok of Dralarag, found his little brother very helpful at defending the country against the ‘magicless vermin of the grounds’ as he called them. And I reveled at being acknowledged, at being useful. I was enthused by being someone who killed, who slaughtered those who would oppose me.
My wife however, did not. She thought I was ‘a mistake, a horror’ and someone who she ‘thought was better’. She didn’t want to see me. She wanted ‘someone that could die peacefully by her side’. And I could never give that. She knew I couldn’t. So she left, I don’t know where and how, but she did. Told me to never look for her, to never look at her again, said she is will try her best to forget me, and that I should do too.
I am not sure what exactly was going on then. At some point I stopped caring for everything. I didn’t return to the killing, because there was no point. I’ve done my share. I was no longer angry at Humans, I was angry at myself. I was angry for being born like this, for my children to be different than I am, I was angry that I lost almost everyone I ever cared about.
Then my brother died of old age, my younger died in an unsuccessful effort of fort defense, and the country was left almost shattered. So here I was, advising my nephew, in time of war, in a country that was ready to fall before an enemy, salvaging what little I could where I could to keep us afloat. There was no time for me to be angry at myself, or anyone.
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So I stopped.
I stopped being angry, and I stopped loving people. At least for a while, I stopped being me altogether.”
At this point he stopped, as I vehemently tried to take everything in. How could he possibly ever forgive something like that? Would I have been able to do something like he did? How much time did it have to pass for him to do so much?
“How old are you Cerolus? Really?”
He looked at me and sighed audibly, the entire room seemed in accord with his demeanor.
“One hundred and ninety four. Soon to be one ninety five.”
He’s… almost two centuries old. It’s… incomprehensible, incredible. Unbelievable. “You’re…”
“Really old, yes.” He laughed, and at this point I followed.
He’s almost two hundred years old, and I thought I knew the tiniest bit about him. He must know so much, must have lived through so many things, what am I to him? What could I ever be to him?
“Are you going to die soon?” At this point it is incredibly obvious that I only know how to ask stupid questions, and that whoever decided women aren’t appropriate rulers has done well to the World.
“Most likely not. There have been records of Lilin living well into their two, or even three hundreds. Why are you asking? You think I’m going to marry you, only to die so soon?”
“So you’ll be here?” I look him in his watered eyes, a single shred of red passing through the dark.
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“If you want me, yes.”
“And you don’t plan on having someone else.” Why is that even important so much to me now?
“Unless you want me to, I have no such plans.”
Can I truly like someone like him? Now that I know some of his past, is it going to be easier in the future? How many more things will I get to learn from him?
Wait, he’s almost two hundred. Two hundred years of living. And he would like to stay with me. That must mean something, right?
“So, what now?”
“Now we sleep. Tomorrow we do the Ritual and go to our castle. I think we don’t have much to do here anyway. Sorry you didn’t get to see much of the Capital.”
“We’re going to go home?” I blurt this out excitedly, to which he only looks at me in a smile.
“Yes, we’re going to go home.”
Aren’t I forgetting something?
“So, what happened with Sarron?”
By now, Cerolus has taken off his shirt and lied down next to me, his arm going over me into a wide hug. “That is being taken care of.”
----------------------------------------
I move through the dark halls of the Palace once more. I didn’t think I’d be going back here so soon after Master left, but his plans seem overreaching as always. And to think he would be going easy on the boy after that.
Truly, he seems different with the girl by his side.
The guise of darkness hasn’t been welcoming these days. The voices, the screams, the calling, the mysterious allure of darkness has been getting stronger. Is this it? The Call of Shadows, the last thing a Shadowling hears before his death, before our return to where we came from.
Quickly, and rather uneventfully, I am standing before the Maorok. How long has it been since I’ve delivered a message? A simple message, yet so… exalting to see.
I see I’ve been getting old, and have lost a bit of me over the years. I should’ve noticed the subtle shift in the Darkness around me. I dodge the dagger pointed at my face, but the second one manages to get a hold of my neck, the situation peculiarly similar to the one that happened just this afternoon.
“Raffar of Herod Kreshorok.” Ah, remembering the simple Conduct of the Shadowlings. “And Tekket of Herod Kreshorok as well. I see he kept two of you by his side. What is the Maorok afraid of these days?”
“Kozzok of Cerolus Kreshorok, it is nice to meet you again, old man.” The hand holding the dagger to my neck trembles as the red skinned Shadowling talks. Such an unfortunate colour of skin for someone who handles all things in shadow. “What brings you to our Master today? Haven’t you done enough still?”
“I bring a simple message.” Well, simple is an understatement. I know little of the actual matters, but I know enough that dealing with the Circle is never simple.
“Speak, Satyr.” The Maorok himself stands before me now. It is good to finally hear Shadowspeak again.
“I am impressed, not many learn Shadowspeak, even with more of us in their service.”
“Just say what you want and leave, Satyr. I’ve had enough of both you and your Master today. I also have to figure out a way to discipline that silly child now. And he thought he was ready to rule over anything, the idiot would lose a mansion to simple Imps.” That would be a really hard thing to achieve, if I may interject, but I don’t. I have already gone too far from the subject.
“Master has decided for the course of action regarding one Sarron Kreshorok, Crown Prince of Dralarag.
Crown Prince Sarron Kreshorok of Dralarag is hereby invited to the next Elder Circle Council. The invited will serve as an advisor and a listener to the Demon Elder of the Circle. Other parties of the Elder Circle will be informed in due time. You may withhold accepting or denying this invitation up until the Council convenes in five months’ time. Denial of an invitation to the Elder Circle Council may cause repercussions from the members.”
“He wants to do WHAT?” A fireball sears a chair in the room, as Maorok starts walking in circles across the room, paying no mind to the three of us along the wall, the dagger still pressing on the skin of my neck.
“What in the Underworld is he planning?”
“Master has not informed me. Message has been completed in full.”
“I’ve been there once. It was… terrifying. The mere presence of those beings is… suffocating… what in the World does he intend to do with my boy?” He raises his head in my direction. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Leave.” The touch of metal stops and my shallow breathing is finally returned to normal, as I slowly mend into the darkness again. “And please, don’t come again. I don’t think I could take much more of this.”
The touch of darkness across my skin, the warmth of nothing pleasantly drifting across my torso, alluring me to the depths, follows me as I make my way back into the Mansion.
I'm going to miss doing this.