Air brushed against the banished novice’s hair, mustache and his slight chin stubble. A flowing wind rushed through his yellow monk habit as it flapped away in the breeze. It had been a while, but, for just a moment, the former monk felt happy.
It was not to last, however, for he opened his eyes and remembered where he was. High in the clouds, he looked down to the ever-approaching ground and realized —“Oh, right.”—he was falling from the sky.
Behind him, the great Palace of the Gods, the origin of his banishment, quickly disappeared beyond the climbing clouds. The vast continent of Vaelia stretched open beneath him. Forests, farmlands, rivers, hills, and mountains dotted the looming terrain.
The falling ex-monk focused his mind into himself and tried to ignore the fact that he was about to be squashed. He brought his hands together and cleared his mind of any ill will or anger that he felt towards the gods who had done this to him. As he did this, the passing wind current became slower, and as he looked down, he saw his descent slowly halt.
However, this was not enough, and he continued to plummet down into Vaelia. He looked at his hands, where two great orbs of air tried to pull him up and slow him down.
“Parhon! Parhon! Parhon!” he shouted to the orbs, hoping his magic words would save him. Instead, as he panicked, the orbs slowly diminished until they disappeared into the air from whence the monk had summoned them.
He looked down, and before he had even realized it, the ground arrived. With a deafening thump, the monk landed, and as his body met the dirt, he passed out.
A buried memory resurfaced. A regret of ages past. In the great dark of the void, a voice spoke.
“Do the gods fall?” a young child asked an elderly man. The blurry manifestation of the past faded and reassembled itself in the floating emptiness of the void.
In the memory, the faint sunlight illuminated the dusty, crumbling schoolroom. Its cracked amphitheater-like brick seats were filled with rows of children and teens, all donning a similar light blue monk habit.
“Do the gods fall?” The elderly man, wearing his time-scarred gray-blue habit parroted, as he moved closer to the inquisitive child.
“Heresy!” the elderly man said as he hit the child in the head with his hollow teacher's stick. “The gods care for us. They created us! They are our benevolent guardians; the defenders of all the kin races,” he proudly recited as the child reared from being hit. “Gods do not fall, child. Perish such heretical thoughts. The gods are eternal. They came from the heavens, from the earth, the waves, the wind, and even the darkness itself. And just like the elements they sprouted from, they are eternal.” He finished, but despite the pain, the child raised his hand and riposted:
“But even the stars fall.” The old man scowled.
The memory faded. The darkness became overwhelming, and the void began to close in as all grew cold. But he could hear something. Voices called from beyond the haze.
He followed them through the nothingness with whatever strength he had left, and the words became clear: a prayer. From it, a speck of light emerged and he grasped it within his hands.
He slowly opened his eyes as he heard the voices that called to him.
In a humble clay and thatched roof peasant house, barely holding itself together at the seams, a couple was deep in prayer to a small clay altar, depicting a selection of various godly symbols and sigils.
The fallen monk grasped around him to make sure he hadn't died. As he smelled the stench of dirt and fertilizer and felt the pain from his broken ribs, he knew that at least he had not been sent to the Dreggers. The stench there would be much, much worse.
He noticed his bandaged chest and waited patiently as the couple finished their daily prayer:
“The One, lord of light, protect us from the encroaching darkness of the Null, lord of the Void.
Elementals; Aqua who rose from the waves, Ignem bathed in fire, Lutum in his serene farm, Ventus who rides free, and Flora, keeper of the gardens, protect us from the chaos and capricious whims of Fortuna.
Mort, pilgrim of death, may you keep your obscured children in line.”
The couple looked with a special zeal to the symbol of an open book and recited, “Sigurd, Lord of Knowledge and wisdom. Protect us, your tribal kinsmen for now and always.” This last exaltation to the god of wisdom hit the monk with an unexpected feeling of regret as he heard the words of the much-too-familiar prayer.
The monk let out a small cough as if to signal that he had awoken. He tried to move around in the bed, but as he did this, he felt his rib dig into his muscle. He quickly stopped; the pain was too much to bear.
The monk let out a small groan of pain and the couple approached. One was a human male, dressed in simple and humble tattered peasant clothing, while his counterpart was of a race the monk had not seen in a long time.
“A minar . . .” the monk said under his breath as he saw the approaching female minar, her natural deer like dark orange coat fur contrasting against her dark green tunic and dress, from where at the bottom the monk could see her two cloven hoofs.
“Look who woke up,” the human peasant said as he brought a chair from a nearby table and sat by the monk’s bedside. He helped him adjust the old black woolen blanket.
“It’s not every day that monks fall from the sky,” the female minar said with a slight mocking tone as she poured water into a small wooden cup with her large three finger laden hand hoof and passed it to the monk.
The monk eagerly accepted the cup and began drinking it with a bit of difficulty from the pain.
“Name’s Val, by the way. And this is my wife, Maud,” Val said as the monk finished his drink.
“What about you? What’s your name, Father?” Maud asked as the monk reeled from the pain, not from his ribs but his soul.
“Please, don’t ever call me that again,” the monk pleaded with the couple.
“A monk who has lost his faith? How curious,” the minar pondered with a bit of fascination for the guest in their bed.
“My name’s Thalon. I am—was — one of the servants in the Gods’ Palace,” Thalon said as he tried to stand up.
“Woah, what are you doing?” the worried Val asked as he saw the servant trying to get up.
“I need to go.”
“You, sir, aren’t going anywhere,” Maud assertively proclaimed as she brushed her muzzle against the monk's face and pushed him back onto the bed. “You fell from the sky and broke several ribs. What you need now is rest. Unless you really do wish to go to the Outerplanes.”
“Trust her, my wife used to be our old town’s herbalist. We will fix you right up,” Val said proudly. “Your monk habit also got tattered a bit. But don’t worry, I can fix it for you,” Val said as Thalon took notice of his yellow robe in a chair nearby.
Thalon finally noticed he was in undergarments, and not just covered with bandages on his chest, but also his arms and legs. He began to squirm impatiently and said to the couple, “You don’t understand. I really need to g—” He tried to get up, only to fall back onto the bed. “Ah! By Sigurd!” he exclaimed in pain.
“A Sigurdian cleric. Well, isn’t that something,” Val said as he tried to give Thalon more water to drink.
“Well, you will have a lot of time to explain, Father Thalon. Just rest for now,” Maud said with a taunting smirk to the young man dying in her bed.
“You were right Val; he is an intriguing one,” Maud said as she looked at her husband. “Get some rest, Sir Thalon. If you need me, I will be out in the field.”
“I will keep an eye on our guest.”
As the couple exchanged pleasantries before they separated again, Thalon felt exhausted. Partly from the pain, but also from the comfort of the bed and the straw pillow. The monk eventually fell deep into the realm of Luna, the goddess of dreams, moon, and sleep. His body froze as he descended into the dark void of nothingness, his limbs motionless as his mind tried to restore order and fruitlessly move them, in the vain hope it would stop his unavoidable fall.
But in that great darkness, a light of hope appeared. From his own chest, a great golden orb erupted and enveloped him as the outcast hit the clear white sand of the desert below him. As the orb retreated back into his own body, the monk's control returned. He looked around him as he rose from the quickly dissipating crater that was created from his impact and quickly filled by the flowing sands.
Stretching to infinity was a great wasteland desert of pure white that contrasted with the black sky. The sands danced and twirled in the air as they meshed into gruesome sculptures. Ruins of white brick dotted the ever shifting landscape but out of all these distorted and twisted works of masonry, one called out to the ex-novice.
“Thalon . . .” it spoke. The monk looked for the source of the voice.
In the distance, a great pillar of black stone quickly phased through the shifting sands and approached the lost wanderer in the null desert. As it advanced, the sands erupted and sank all other structures, as if cowering before the approaching monolith. It stopped in its tracks with a deafening crash that was not unlike the sound that the monk had caused when he had landed.
Deep below the sands, one could hear its unnatural roots sprouting from the pillar and racing across the dunes.
Thalon felt a great sense of dread as he stared at the black pillar. Worse yet, he saw the rest of the great black menhir.
From out of the very top, where its black brick meshed with the dark sky, a human head and neck began to descend.
The head and the neck twisted around the cowering monk and it spoke to him. “Thalon . . . Thalon . . . Thalon!”
The novice looked at the encroaching head. It was his own. A version that was deformed and covered in all manner of unsightly holes. It had no eyes. Instead, from deep within its empty sockets an unnatural hue of red spilled forth and assaulted his soul.
It continued. “I will find you. Thalon . . . Thalon . . . Thalon . . . THALON!”
“Thalon? Sir Thalon, wake up!” the battered monk heard as he was shaken awake by Val from his nightmare. “Are you ok? You were shaking a lot during sleep.”
“Huh? Yeah . . . I'm fine,” he said as he passed his hands through his hair as if trying to purge the nightmare from his mind.
“That's good, at least,” Val said with an honest, cheerful smile. “Dinner is ready. Let me help you out.” The humble peasant wrapped his arm around the clergyman and helped him limp to the table in the center of the house.
“Good to know we don't need to put him out,” Maud taunted the limping exile as she poured a bowl of soup for herself and the two men.
She left the boiling pot and joined them.
The light of the day had long since disappeared and the small peasant house was kept illuminated by the burning logs in the fireplace and a few scattered candles.
Maud passed a small wooden bowl filled with a strange, light green colored liquid to the monk. A few chunks of solid vegetable and food floated about in the congealing top of the stew.
“What's this?” Thalon asked as he stirred the soup with his chipped wooden spoon.
“Sweetroot stew. We grow it in our garden,” Val said and took a slurp from his bowl.
“I'm sorry that it's not the high quality you are used to at the Palace,” Maud said, half honestly and half as a jeer.
“No, it's quite alright. Thank you,” Thalon admitted before he began eating.
As he ate the humbly made stew, the monk found out it tasted better than it looked. It felt filling and not hollow like much of the food of the divine palace.
“So, why did you fall from the sky?” Maud asked as she looked at the broken novice.
“Maud!”
“What? We are helping and feeding him. I'm sorry if I would like to at least know why he ended up like this,” she retorted at her husband, as Thalon eyed them.
“You can't just barge into people's privacy like that. It's probably personal,” Val said defiantly as he straightened his back.
The minar frowned at her husband. “Personal? Oh yes, I'm sure falling from the sky is considered a ‘personal’ matter.”
Thalon began to turn and twist in his chair until he decided to finally put an end to the quarrel. “No, no. It's alright. I can tell you what happened I suppose,” Thalon said as he shook nervously, feeling guilty for causing his saviors trouble.
“You can tell us all about it after dinner. Now just relax and enjoy the meal,” Val said with a warm smile as Maud pouted and continued to eat.
“Thanks,” Thalon said with a rare smile. “So . . . I don't think I even asked you but where am I exactly?” The monk asked, hoping to turn their minds away from the mystery of his fall.
“Well, Maud and Val's farm of course,” Val answered as he puffed out his chest with pride.
“Honey, no. He means which kingdom, we're part of.”
“Pff, kingdoms,” Val said as he rolled his eyes at the notion.
“Technically, we are inside the borders of the Sigi Towns,” Maud said with a small hint of annoyance, as Val put down his bowl.
“Yes, inside the Sigi Towns but not inside any town or village. I will be dead before I answer to a mayor again, or even worse, a king.” Val said, surprising Thalon with his sudden display of loathing.
“So you are free peasants?” Thalon tried to spot any hint of a royal or clerical document in the house that confirmed their freedom.
“Yes. I was a carpenter for most of my life, and, like I said before, Maud here was the herbalist for the mayor back in our old . . . town,” Val said with a bit of resignation as he remembered the place he grew up in.
“Runds Town, that is. Val and I were dating for a long time and I was friends with the mayor. So, when we finally got married, I was able to get a freedkin document signed for me and Val,” Maud said as she got close and began to nuzzle Val.
“We have been living together here ever since,” Val answered and hugged his wife.
“Our little piece of heaven.” The couple happily smiled at one another.
“Well, it's uh, pretty homey, I will admit,” Thalon said, a bit embarrassed to be trespassing in the couple’s love nest.
“What about you, Thalon? Is it true all the monks in the Palace are born there?” Maud asked, genuinely curious about the inner working of the gods’ dwelling.
“No,” Thalon answered with a slight smile. “No one is born there. Clerics are chosen from the monasteries throughout Vaelia to serve for life in the Palace. It's a very exclusive venture really.” Thalon stopped as he began to reminisce about how he had gotten to his position, but before the couple could talk, he continued. “I . . . actually, I'm from here. Well, not from the Sigi towns exactly. I was an orphan, never knew my parents, they gave me as a baby to the Loreseed Monastery.”
“Ah, that makes sense now.”
“That explains why you were calling for Sigurd,” Val said.
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“Yeah. I only ever knew the monastery. Then when I became of age, I got the offer for the Palace. A position opened up. Of course, being a young adult, the opportunity to serve the gods seemed wonderful.” Thalon readjusted himself in his seat.
“But then . . . I got there.” His expression changed.
“For four years, I just . . . went through so much there.
Cleaning after the gods, fixing their mess and having to put up with their random games and whims. At any point, a god could show up and demand to use you for something they planned. You just had to accept it!” Thalon's sadness and frustration began to give way to anger.
“There were times I spent weeks cleaning entire wings of the palace just for Fluvius, that damn drunkard, to come out and ruin everything.
There were days I was taken from my room while I was sleeping all because Luna wanted to use me as a piece in her games with Fortuna!”
The couple was frozen as they heard the experiences of the novice. His voice began to waver as his anger gave way to sadness again. “I just . . . I had to put up with it. Who wouldn't want to serve the gods? When you join to be a servant of the Palace you can never quit, so I kept going, hoping that maybe one day they would let me go. That the gods would give me a boon for my service and just let me go anywhere in peace.” The monk tried to recompose himself and cleared the tears that were forming.
“Is that why you fell? You were set free by the gods?” Maud said, showing genuine affection and empathy for the novice.
“No. I found the truth,” Thalon said as his tone became serious and his posture changed to one of concern, not for himself but for the couple.
“The truth?” Val asked, unsure if he wanted to hear it.
The monk silently nodded. “Lord Sigurd was on one of his quests for knowledge out and about in Vaelia. And I had been designated to clean and sort his library. The library is this incredible place; It is vast and to us mortals really does feel endless.
It's what I always dreamed of—great stacks of shelves that rise up to the ceiling. The books hold all manner of knowledge of reality, both available and unavailable to us kin. Each corridor of bookshelves categorized into specific themes and subjects. It's a scholar's paradise.”
“Seems like it wasn't all bad in there,” Val said with a slight smile as he noticed the cheerful posture of the scribe.
“Well, I did need to have a reason to endure such suffering and torment,” Thalon said with a half-smile as he prepared to continue his story. “So, there I was doing my designated job for the week. Normally, the library is completely void of light. It's pitch-black inside and only a few torches with a blue fire, the Scholar’s Flame, are kept lit to illuminate the entrances and exits. It helps preserve the pages of the books, you see. I only had a couple of books left to check for the day, and as I was moving the ladder it fell onto the ground and . . . it was calling to me.”
“It?” Maud asked, already knowing what the answer was.
“The truth. Bound in quaint yellow leather. And without any sort of title or signifier. It had nothing. Just a plain, unassuming, yellow book. It was . . . calling me. I picked it up and without thinking, I just opened it.”
“What was in it?” Val asked, he and his wife now deeply invested in the monk's tale.
“Everything. All of the history of creation, from the very beginning to our days. I started reading and then I realized I couldn't stop. I had to keep going. The letters and paragraphs began to change — they became pure light. But even as I was continuing to flip through the pages, in my blindness I could see everything that they represented. It was as if each speck of light was a line unto itself.”
“In that great flash of pure white, I saw all of history taking place, saw the world for how it really happened and not the lies the gods had told us.”
“What lies?” Maud asked, half curious, half afraid for her faith.
“We were not made in their image. They are not our benevolent guardians and benefactors who shield us from the dark of the Void. The kin races were made, not out of their kindness, but because the gods wanted even more power. They created us to serve as tools. To extract what they craved from the most chaotic and powerful source in reality: the Void itself. The souls of all kin hold a small piece of the void and a piece of the gods. When we die, our souls are absorbed by the gods, and their power increases. The piece of the gods is what gave us life. But that piece of the Void, of chaos, holds an unimaginable power and the gods blocked it. All kin have the potential to rival the gods and they are afraid of that. They keep us in the dark and block our power, our Parhon, from being used.”
As the monk finished, the couple looked incredulously at the heretic as they held each other. “You’re lying. That can't be true. The gods would never do something like that,” Maud said. For the first time, she was afraid of what was sitting at her table.
The light of the candle ominously shone the exiled monk’s face, his expression not one of malice, but of sadness at the truth that he carried with him. For the couple in their humble abode, no night had ever felt as dark as this one, no wind as cold, no words as devastating.
The oppressing silence was broken when Val looked into Thalon’s eyes and spoke. –“Prove it.”
“What?” Maud asked, her body contorting with worry as she looked to her husband.
“He said he saw all of this, about power being stolen from us Kin. If that's true, prove it,” Val said as he looked attentively to his guest.
The exile's expression changed to one of sympathy. He sat straight in his chair and spoke. “Very well. Please, do not be afraid,” Thalon pleaded as he brought his hands together, closed his eyes and focused his mind.
The couple looked attentively as he began to murmur inaudible words. Suddenly, whistles of wind echoed and invaded their home. The window shutters began to flap and knock against the wooden frame, reverberating the delicate panes of glass to their very core. Gourds filled with water began to drag themselves across the floor and towards the table. Plants and grass began to sprout from the ground and made their way up the chair, curling around the ex-monk. Chunks from the ground itself, clumps of dirt began to twirl and rotate around Thalon and the fire from the candles and the fireplace flew across the air and joined the other elements as they surrounded the ever-growing mass of physical matter that orbited their invoker. The couple held each other as they witnessed in fear the supernatural manipulation of nature around them. Thalon's face began to turn red. His veins pulsated with a strange golden color and his words became slurred until they were incoherent. The elements continued to spin around him, the dirt and broken vines now melding together with the water that escaped from the gourds and the spheres of fire that were being formed. Their speed kept increasing until the couple lost track of the singular elements and could only see a rotating halo of light circling the caster.
The couple wanted to talk, to say something about what was happening in front of them, but at the sight of such a fast and deafening source of light they were speechless, and only gazed upon it with awe. Thalon raised his hands, slowly moved them further out. With a quick motion, he clapped them shut, enclosing the mixture of light in his palms. The light shone brightly and illuminated from inside of his hands. Shadows enveloped the humble room, broken by the few openings in his fingers where light seeped from. The monk was visibly tired and gasping for air, but as a final show of the truth, he brought his closed hands to his chest, and the couple saw the orb of light merge and enter his bandaged body. After a few moments, he uttered a single word to the couple: “Parhon.”
The world felt still for a few seconds as if everything had stopped. He reached towards his bandaged chest and the couple saw as a great and slowly spinning orb of gold emerged from it and began to float in his palm as he extended his open hand. The couple looked shocked as they gazed at what the magic-user had created. Their hearts filled with fear, awe, and wonder. Thalon looked at them with a tired expression and spoke. “This is the power of us kin.” As the words escaped from his mouth, he closed his eyes and his strength disappeared as he fell to the floor. The orb dissipated in the air as his focus was broken. All went dark, and once again, Thalon fell into the realm of the unconscious.
A memory formed. The great holy palace towered above the young human. The weight of its authority was crushing the poor boy's spirit while pulling his soul towards it. He inspected the letter from the servant master. His new duties for the year were carefully penned with a delicate and ominous script. He brushed off the debris of dirt and rock that spun gracefully around his hands, afraid that the servants, or worse, the gods, realized he had found the truth. He read the note and felt as if his soul itself was drained by it. This was all he feared, the beginning of his eternal torment. However, a glimmer of hope burrowed through the growing darkness as sunlight entered his room's window. A single word escaped from the novice. As he threw the letter to the ground, he heard it repeated like a call of hope. “Parhon.”
The daylight pierced through cracks in the clay walls as the exiled monk slowly woke up in the bed of his saviors. To Thalon's surprise, they had still not kicked him out. He passed his hands across his bandaged chest as if checking his bones were in place again. “Huh.” Thalon let a sigh of relief as he didn't feel any pain anymore.
He looked around the humble house for any sign of Val or Maud. Outside he could hear earth being tilled. While he didn't see them inside the house, something else grabbed the novice's interest. Next to his bed was his monk habit, retailored and repaired while he was asleep. With it were new changes of clothes: A pair of pointy traveling boots, white pants, a gray shirt, a neck cover, and as he put on his old yellow habit, he noticed that it had been restructured. Instead of a monk's robe, it now resembled more of a tabard. All of it however was surprisingly comfortable. Thalon nodded approvingly as he finished tightening the yellow-colored buckle on his belt above his tabard. He confidently walked to the door and finally out to the outside world as he felt a renewed sense of liberation from his retailored monk clothes.
He was back in the mortal world of Vaelia. In the distance, the Zig River roared as it cut its path through the Sigi Towns toward the Eri Hunters. Great fields of green occupied the grand fertile plains of the human homelands, sporadically cut by wild groves and lonely trees that gave shade to travelers. Two imposing fixtures cut through the land. To the east was the great wide hill-ring of the Empire of Len, a series of walls connected to various forts and gateways across the top of the Lenian Hills that formed the border of the great Empire with the outside realms, of which the Sigi were a part of. Most oppressing of all, to the north, were the Holy Mountain and the Divine Palace of the Gods. Towering high above any mortal structure, the great mountain elevated itself high into the sky. So tall was it that the palace could only be seen on sunny days. To the mortals of Vaelia, it was a symbol of protection and safety. But as he gazed into it, Thalon felt nothing but disgust, contempt and anger.
“Well, look who's awake,” Maud called to him from a field she and Val were tilling.
“M-morning,” Thalon said with a slight stutter, afraid of the couple's reaction to what he had shown them the previous night.
“How do you like your new clothes? Maud and I decided to mend and change them a bit.”
“They were in a really bad state, we had to. Sorry if it's an insult to the order or something,” Maud said. The light of the sun illuminated the field behind her.
“Oh no, it’s fine. It's actually very comfortable, thank you.” Thalon said and gave a small courteous bow to the couple, who were pleased with the ex-monk's gratitude. “So . . . about what happened.” He walked toward the couple.
The air felt heavy as the couple heard their guest's words. The three of them looked upwards to the great divine palace. For the first time, Val felt nothing but an oppressing emptiness. Val and Maud rose from their work and with a heavy tone, Val said, “The gods can rot in the Dreggers for all I care!”
“Val!” Maud exclaimed almost instinctively at her husband's blasphemy.
“What else can I say? How can I be silent after what he showed us?”
Maud averted her gaze, looking around her as if looking for an answer. “It can't be true. There must be a reason. How did you even get out of there?” She turned to Thalon, begging for any alternative explanation.
“I jumped.”
“You jumped?” Maud asked incredulously.
“Yeah. I got a notice that Nialasach, the lord of horror and fear himself, wanted to make me his personal servant. I felt trapped and angry. I tried to ward those feelings away, like I always had before, but something happened. When I opened my eyes again, I was falling from the sky. And you know the rest.”
“I can see why the god of fear picked you,” Maud said almost dismissively.
“Do they know you left?” Val asked.
“Who knows. A lot of strange things happened there. Servants went missing all the time, usually taken by gods.” The ex-monk said with a heavy sigh before he looked back to the palace in the clouds and continued.
“One thing is certain though: I'm not going back.”
“Well, you can't stay here,” Maud retorted with an equal amount of stubbornness.
“Maud! He needs our help.”
“Does he? We nursed him back to health, gave him new clothes. We have already done more for this heretic than anyone in the village would have ever done.” Maud turned and stomped her hooves on the ground.
“Where are you going?” Val asked as Maud picked up a backpack and started walking toward a nearby grove.
“To the forest! I need some time alone. And I need to restock the herb cabinet anyway,” she answered with a disgruntled tone as she disappeared into the foliage.
Thalon remained silent, afraid that he would only anger the minar further.
“I'm sorry about her,” Val said as he crouched down and returned to his work.
“It's alright. I was zealous like her once. I understand it's a bit of a shock,” Thalon answered honestly as he too crouched down and observed Val's work. “You don't seem too bothered by it, though.”
Val looked up and let out a small chuckle as he heard the monk's words. “Oh, I am. But I always suspected something was off. It doesn't surprise me one bit that the gods are no different than our old mayor. Power corrupts, it's always like that. It gets in your head and makes you forget who your kin are.
Doesn't matter if you're a mayor or . . . I guess even a God. Power always finds a way to be abused against those who don't have it.”
Thalon looked to Val with hopeful eyes as he at last saw another kin who understood him, and he asked. “I still don't know what to think . . . I was taught the gods loved us and cared for us.
How can I go on after finding it was a lie?”
Val stopped working and looked up to Thalon. “I know what you are going through son . . . that's heartbreak.”
“It hurts.” Thalon said as he looked up to the palace and as he stared at the source of his torment he asked. “How do I make it stop?”
Val sighed and he answered. “It's not easy but for now instead of giving your love to some who do not love you back, you should put your faith and love in yourself.
The only person who can truly help you, is you.”
Thalon looked defiantly towards the horizon, he steeled his heart and he focused in the word of power. He felt as determination flooded his entire being.
As the shadow of the holy mountain loomed above, his purpose became clear.
He looked back to Val and proclaimed with a newfound smile. ”I know what I need to do, I will tell – no – I will show all the Kin the truth.
It may hurt them, but they deserve to know.”
Val nodded with an equally pleased expression as the wizard continued his plan.
“I will need to find more about this hidden kin power. The book that revealed it to me turned to ash after I used it. And I can't go back to the divine library,” the monk said with a heavy heart.
“What about the Loreseed Monastery? I thought you came from there,” Val said and looked to the southeast.
“Of course!” Thalon palmed his fist in realization. “If there's any place where I can find more information, it would be there! How far is it from here?”
“A day or t—” Suddenly Val was cut short as a familiar voice screamed from inside the grove. “Maud!” The humble peasant dropped his tools and dashed towards the source of the scream with the newly reinvigorated Thalon following close behind.
The grove was surprisingly dense and old, moss-laden trunks littered the barely trekked path. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the thick foliage, illuminating the scenery from where the scream had erupted. A wounded Maud tried to crawl with a broken hoof away from a great imposing figure waiting to strike.
“A war-charger,” Thalon said under his breath as he looked to the great beast. A horrible creation by Jut, the god of monsters, it had the body of a warthog, only three times as large, covered by a stone-like coat. War-chargers were known to be highly territorial and aggressive.
“Maud!” Val screamed as he immediately ran to his wife.
“Wait!” Val ignored both the monk's warning and the beast who was preparing to attack.
The beast let out a blood curdling squeal as it stomped its stone laden hooves on the ground and prepared to ram into the couple.
“C'mon, get up!” Val tried to lift his wife.
“I can't, my leg is broken!” Maud cried and looked in horror at the beast. “I'm sorry honey,” she said as the couple both held each other.
“I'm not leaving you,” Val said as he held his wife and prepared to enter the Void with her.
They closed their eyes, hoping that it would diminish the pain.
They heard the creature charge, its hooves stomping through the dirt and leaves, and the ancient breeze dancing through the trees, heralding the end of the couple's journey. However, the end never came. It was as if time slowed down, and the couple could feel the great beast only mere inches away from them. Then the couple opened their eyes and saw it: standing between them and the great monster was Thalon.
The monster’s tusks were right next to them; they were, however, kept in place, as the great heretic kept pushing the monster back. From his palms, great cones of air and wind sprouted and slowly pushed the creature further back as it tried to struggle against the exiled. Thalon's tabard floated in air as the great air currents were pushed and passed through him. “By the gods . . .” Maud said as she saw the work of the novice.
“No, by Thalon!” Val proudly said.
Thalon mustered all his focus and strength and brought his hands together, merging the two cones into a single, great stream of air. Finally, the creature lost its footing and stumbled back, leaving leaves and a fine cloud of dust swaying in its wake.
It was a short-lived victory as the war-charger almost immediately stood back up. The piercing rays of sunlight radiated upon the great stone plating as it eyed and circled its new foe. Thalon did the same, not letting his eyes avert from the creature, afraid that it would attack the moment it saw an opening. He slowly moved, always keeping the couple behind him. The creature gave another bloodcurdling howl and raised its front legs to assert dominance. Thalon took his chance. He made a quick motion with his right index finger and nature obeyed: vines sprouted from the foliage and held the war-charger's front left hoof in the air. He moved his left index finger in the same way, and the breeze carried his orders as vines wrapped the beast’s front right hoof. The novice then threw his hands together in unison, and like a maestro commanding his orchestra, the grove followed him and wrapped the torso of the monster, slowly wrapping itself around the creature's stone plating. The creature tried to squirm but as it did the monk raised his left foot and stomped it into the ground. The grove reverberated with the weight of his will, and as the couple looked aghast, they saw the great creature being propelled high into the air by an emerging pillar of rock. Thalon then positioned himself under the creature, and as the beast plummeted towards the monk it was met with the power of his flaming fist. As the flames connected with the stone plating, the grove became inundated with the smell of molten rock. The fist pierced the creature's soft underside, knocking it unconscious as it fell over with a resounding thud.
The couple looked at their savior, the light radiating above him with his tabard floating in the wind, aghast at what he had done. Maud's lips moved as she faintly uttered “Thank you.”
Her gratitude was cut short as she let out a groan of pain from her broken hoof. With the monk's help, Val carried his wife back and slowly the couple and their savior made their way back to their humble dwelling.
“I owe you an apology,” Maud said.
“Nonsense, you helped me. Wouldn't be fair to not help you,” the ex-monk said as they entered the house. Val gave a quick nod of approval.
“Now I'm the one that's bed bound,” Maud answered with a groan of pain as the two men sat her in the bed. “Now follow my instructions carefully and maybe you two wont mess this whole thing up.”
The night came swiftly as the peasant and the ex-monk followed the instructions from the minar herbalist and spent the day's light tending to the wounded kin. The smell of the herbs and plants she gathered was overwhelming. A medicinal aroma permeated the house as the husband prepared various mixtures and salves to be used on the broken hoof. Through it all, the monk smiled. It might have been tiring, and not too different from what he would do in the palace, but the mere fact he was doing it for another kin who needed his help and appreciated his effort was enough to make him happy. Soon enough, the three of them fell asleep as the night took over.
Once more, the monk fell into the realm of dreams. For the first time in his life, he did not have a dream of dread, anxiety or fear, but a rather pleasant dream. He proudly stood atop a great rock. Below him, hosts of kin clamored and chanted his name to the skies. As small orbs of gold emerged from the hearts of every kin and floated above them, Thalon raised his fist towards the stars and smiled at the world he had heralded.
The morning came too quick. A breeze washed over the former novice as he finished putting a bedroll into his gifted backpack, which he’d also filled with a small amount of sweetroot rations and a few salves. He put it on and looked around. No cloud was in sight and the promise of the open road lay bare in front of him.
“You know, you don't have to go right now,” Maud said , watching the restless monk gaze into his self-made destiny.
Thalon looked back at her with a smirk. “I remember you saying you wanted me gone.”
She leaned on her walking stick and held her husband by her side. “Changed my mind, I suppose.” She nodded to her husband, and he brought a small parting gift. “This is for you. For helping us.”
“For everything. Even the truth,” Val completed. Maud reluctantly nodded her head in agreement.
“A hat?” Thalon asked as he inspected his gift. It was a wide-brimmed, pointy traveler’s hat colored yellow, like his clothes.
“A hat, for a wizard,” Val proudly said.
“Wizard?”
“A wiseman. A thousand years ago, the first wiseman and hero. our God, Sigurd, traveled through the world spreading knowledge and wisdom. Now, you too are embarking on a quest to spread the truth. Seems like an apt title, don't you think?”
Thalon put on the hat. It felt right. “Wizard . . . I like it,” the wizard said with a proud smile.
“Take these for the road too,” Maud said as she passed a staff and an old sword to the wizard.
“Every traveler needs his walking staff,” Val said as Thalon sheathed the sword into his belt and held the oakwood staff in his hands.
“Thank you . . . for everything.” Thalon looked back to the couple. “I don't think I can ever repay you.”
“You already have,” Maud said.
“You have done more for us than we could ever do for you.” Val placed his hand on the wizard's shoulder. “Just remember, Thalon, you have discovered a great power. You must never use it against those who you seek to help, or else you will be no better than the gods or those who abuse their own power,” Val said with a serious tone as the shadow of the Holy Mountain loomed over their heads.
He nodded in agreement. “I won't. I promise you.” The ex-novice looked to his saviors, and with a shaky tone and tearful eyes, he told them, “Thank you. You know, I never had any parents, but if I did, I wish they would have been like you.”
Val brought the young man close and hugged him, and his wife soon joined too. “We would have been proud to call you our son.” The trio took in the hug, and afterward the wizard quickly recomposed himself for his journey ahead.
“Be safe, young wizard,” Val said with a smile.
“Be gentle when you tell everyone about the gods,” Maud warned the ex-monk as she hugged goodbye.
Thalon gave her a devilish smirk. “No promises.” He adjusted his backpack and turned around to the great open road, towards the Loreseed Monastery. He looked back to the couple one last time and simply waved goodbye as the ones that had saved not only his body, but also his soul, disappeared into the distance.
His quest began.