CHAPTER FIVE
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King Te’Korei
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13th of Decepter, 935 PC
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Colin Humphrey liked to talk, lords, did he like to talk. There were fewer words in The Book of The Creator than this lad had spoken in the last nine days. The last thing King needed was another test of his faith, but being a firm believer that The Creator gives no burden too difficult to bear, he bit his tongue, again and again and again. The one saving grace about the loquacious lad was that he made for a good laugh from time to time – something King had been in desperate need of lately.
“How much farther?” Colin asked. “Do you think we’ll be there before nightfall?” A terrible habit, asking a second question before the first was answered, but who was King to dictate how the lad spoke? Of course, he had mentioned it a few times. In case he could inspire personal growth.
King bent over, putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath, then broke out in a violent fit of coughs, turning peace into chaos within the forest; the fog at their feet gave a gaseous hiss as it withdrew from the space around them, the harrow vines that draped from hundreds of branches wriggled high into the trees like girthy snakes, and the curious wildlife that had been hidden moments before now scurried away in a panic. Spittle dropped from King’s lips, alongside the sweat from his forehead. The young tagalong stepped away from him, still unsure exactly how contagious King was.
The dark demise, as Rubora had so delicately put it, could rot you from the inside out. It was a fierce disease, something too strong for a measly herb doctor like herself to cure, unlikely to be cured by anyone in her estimation. She’d delivered the diagnosis with a noticeable lack of sympathy but Rubora had never been one to tread lightly on another’s feelings. Once he wrapped his head around his circumstances, he appreciated the fact that she’d stomped on his morale. Otherwise, he might still be in a state of ignorance, believing he might survive what he thought was an overzealous common cold. Instead of returning to die a slow, painful death, he’d packed up and set off to find a way to survive. He was a blessed man after all, literally not figuratively like so many commoners liked to claim – his magic came in the form of miracles. Surely, if anyone could beat the dastardly disease, it was him.
“Can’t be too much farther, can it?” Colin said. “We’ve been walking in here for two days.” Their eyes met. “Right. Sorry.” Colin clasped his lips shut tight and acted as though he was throwing away the key. However, King had only taken three labored breaths by the time the lad was talking again. “Sorry. My tongue can run rampant at times. Get it from my mum, I’d say. She loves to talk.”
There was a healthy dose of disgust on Colin’s face as he watched the harrow vines lower themselves again.
King made his way toward a nearby strangler oak, judging it a nice place to sit and rest for a few minutes.
“Ew, no. Don’t go near that thing, it’s demented.” Very little courage had been poured into the recipe that had produced the lad. Not much wisdom either. Or good looks. King was not what you’d call a masterpiece either, but he at least had a few nods to the better going for him – caramel skin and naturally contained hair to name two. Colin’s skin was dry and pale, almost like he’d shed his outermost layer but it had not yet fallen from his body and his hair could be mistaken for a bush dipped in sunshine. Which may have been appealing if every strand didn’t have its own opinions on which way to grow. The lad was tall though, taller than King, but certainly not enough to have to look up at. Good thing too with the failing state of King’s muscles. His forest green eyes were a smidge darker than King’s if he remembered correctly, but who really looks at their own eyes all that often? According to Colin’s mother, forest green was The Creator’s favorite color but King had never seen any reference to that in her book. Part of a tale told by mother to son at dusk most likely.
Despite the lad’s disapproval, King took a seat on the roots of the strangler oak. It was not an uncommon opinion to think the strange trees were too hideous to touch, twisted and contorted as they were, rotting and ominous. But King knew they hadn’t started off this way, they’d been made ugly and intimidating by the mysteries of alchemy long ago, for a purpose that filled his heart with sorrow. “There’s nothing to fear in this forest, my boy. Except maybe those.” He pointed at the vine lowering itself just behind Colin’s back. The cowardly blonde turned quickly, jumping halfway to the moon at the sight of the vine. He landed on a root and lost his balance, falling right into a large puddle of slimy goop that often dripped from the trees in this part of the Emerald Forest. King chuckled, sending a scratchy pain down his throat.
Colin stood and looked for somewhere to wipe his hands, reluctantly resorting to his own pants when nothing stood out at him. “What do you mean there’s nothing to fear here? Everything in this forest is horrible.”
“Ah,” King said knowingly. “Everything in this part of the forest is horrible but there are plenty of other parts that would take your breath away.” He coughed again, much softer this time, and into his elbow. “What you see here is only so terrible because my ancestors made it that way. With alchemy.” Colin made a face. “Their intent was to scare off intruders. Hardly worked though.”
“I thought you were a Purist?” Colin asked. “You are, aren't you?”
“What’s your point?”
Colin spoke as though he was more informed than King. “Wouldn’t that make your ancestors Purists too? Wouldn’t that mean they would have hated alchemy?” A naive child. The gift of magic was more a strike of lightning than a flowing river. One must only read the first page of The Book of The Creator to know that. Although, he couldn’t deny magic did have a way of blessing certain families.
“It is true, some of those in Kryte were Purists. Some of which were my ancestors. But whether you had magic in your soul or not meant nothing to the Krytens. And it certainly didn’t decide what knowledge any of them pursued. Solving the mysteries of the world. That’s what they were after. It was the Purists outside these trees that had a problem with alchemy. And not all that many of them if we’re being honest.”
“You mean the Purists in Locke?”
“Aye.”
Colin ran his fingers through his hair, not realizing he still had hints of slime on his hands. His hair stood even taller in places. “And here we are again. Only the roles are reversed, aren’t they?”
King tried to climb to his feet, wanting to get out of the altered part of the forest by sun down, but his body had no interest in cooperating – a regular occurrence in recent weeks. A friendly hand appeared. “Aye, what you say is true, many Purists nowadays hate the science. Understandably so with the Lotus Army hell-bent on hunting us down.” He straightened out his cloak. “Sacrilege, to say the least.” He walked past the boy, leaving the rest of that history in the past, where it belonged. “Now come along, we wouldn’t want to have to sleep in here again tonight.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Hurried footsteps chased after him. “Are you sure you’re alright? You can keep going…”
“I’ll be fine.” What a fantastic lie. The dark demise feasted on his well-being like a blood-sucking tick. More than just coughs too. A simple wind felt like icy claws tearing at his skin. Soon he would be spitting up blood, food would taste rotten, his voice would fade. By the end he’d be too weak to walk. At least that’s what Rubora had told him a tenday ago. In case the initial diagnosis hadn’t crushed him enough.
“Are you sure? Because you don’t look like it. Would you like to sit down?”
King stopped briefly, looking at the lad. “Is that right? And how exactly do I look?” He pointed at a twisted stick on the forest floor. “Hand me that.”
Colin picked up the hefty stick laying across the roots of a strangler oak. and handed it to him. “Well, you look miserable. My mum always told me not to speak so bluntly, but you asked.”
“Your mother was a wise woman,” King said, shoving the end of his new walking stick into a pile of slime then poking at Colin with it lightly, too slow to actually touch his brown tunic. “Now, enough with the questions, my boy.” He flicked the gooey end of the stick toward the overgrown trail. “On with ya.” Colin grinned and led the way for the first time since leaving the herb doctor’s shop together.
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“And what else would it be than a mountain troll!” King said.
“A mountain troll?!” Colin spun toward him, disbelief shown in his scrunched eyes and gaping mouth. “Mum said those were made up. A thing of stories.”
They stepped over a nasty-looking bunch of roots that didn’t respect the idea of a path.
“And what is this but a story, my boy?! Of course, stories are inspired by experiences, aren't they? You see, Sir Tarlimen was thought to have slayed all the mountain trolls on a quest given to him by his queen. That’s why coming across one on my travels was so incredible.”
Colin contemplated this claim for a moment. “Makes sense. I suppose.”
“Of course it makes sense. Now hush, so I can finish.”
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One couldn’t help but call the beams of sunlight that broke through the leafy canopy heavenly. King made his way into one such beam like a cat on a cold day, biting the fingertip of his wool glove and sliding his hand out as he moved. As a young boy, King had once slit his hand with a knife to make a pact with a friend. He’d held his tears in until Iggy had left, then bawled over how bad the cut hurt. He felt similarly now as the fabric tugged at his decaying skin and a light breeze cut across his exposed hand. Colin’s silence as he watched was a shocking demonstration of self-restraint. Praise be to you Creator.
King’s pocket was full of knick knacks he enjoyed making in his free time, but now was not the time for silly toys. There was but one thing he was looking for. Ah. There it is. He removed the thin glass tube of dark blue medicine Rubora had given him in Goro, tucking his loose glove under his arm so he could pull the stopper out. If he was lucky the medicine would alleviate the pain in his throat for the rest of the evening, and what was he, if not lucky?
“I think you shake it first. Rubora always shakes medicine before she gives it to people.”
“Very well, you’re the apprentice.” Colin was but one of the many apprentices King had seen work under the herb doctor. He’d left little to no impression on King until the pushy old woman demanded that he and the lad travel together into the Emerald Forest. Only then did he notice how unimpressive Colin was, but all in all, he’d enjoyed the company – endless questions and all.
He shook the tube, turning the liquid to an even darker shade of blue. It went down about as smoothly as warm whiskey in a sober mouth; crushed leaves covered in dirt and piss summed it up nicely.
“So, your ancestors lived in the Emerald Forest?” Colin asked, missing the fact that King was trying to chase the taste of the medicine out of his mouth with water. “How could anyone live in this part of the forest?”
King spit on the ground and let out a yuck sound as he wiped his mouth. “Aye. About ten miles that way.” He pointed back at the way they’d come.
“We walked past a village?”
King shook his head. “Whole place was destroyed centuries ago.”
They ducked under an unusually thin harrow vine one by one.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
King coughed into his elbow. “Not your fault. Besides, they should have known not to challenge the power of the Purists. I think the unmistakable eyes of hindsight can tell us that much. Don’t you?” Colin was unsure how to respond. What could be said that would change such an atrocity? Nothing, that’s what. They both knew it so they both kept walking.
“I hate to ask, but if your ancestors were…” Colin’s voice trailed off as he searched for a tactful way to finish his sentence.
“Slaughtered,” King said, agitation hidden the best it could be. For anger feeds the devil within.
“Right,” Colin said. “Then how are you here?”
“Because my grandfather, Athmaran Te’Korei, managed to escape the massacre while his brothers and sisters fought to the death. Sniveling coward.” The way King said the last two words put an abrupt end to that portion of the conversation but not to be denied the sound of his own voice, Colin found a new topic quickly.
On and on they went, marching to the rhythm of Colin’s questions and King’s answers. The lad was kind enough not to express his annoyance at having to stay with King’s slow pace though it was clear he’d like to be much farther along, closer to the safer parts of the forest King had mentioned.
This trip, this hike, this random travel companion and the unexpected friendship that had formed, was King’s way of life. There was no corner of the empire he hadn’t seen, there was no man, woman, or child, he’d consider a stranger. People and places were at the heart of his existence and he loved that. That was what he’d miss most if the dark demise returned him to The Creator, that was why he was fighting to survive, people and places, the greatest of The Creator’s creations. That thought weighed heavily in the back of his mind as they walked, slowly chipping away at the length of his responses to Colin’s endless questions, slowly reshaping the confidence he’d had when they’d set out into doubt.
Eventually, the dark shadows that had masked the forest for miles finally gave way to sunlight completely as the trees thinned out along the path. The final quarter mile was spent in a joyful back and forth until they approached the long slope King called the home stretch.
“Just up there,” King said, pointing up the gradual hill, dreading what it would ask of his ailing body. Hiding the sadness that had grown in him from Colin was a simple task given he was already staring up the hill as though he meant to run the rest of the way.
Halfway up the hill, Colin said, “So, who is this woman you want to meet again? She’s a Purist. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Ethel Marsalla. The smartest woman in the empire if I’m not mistaken. She’ll be able to cure this terrible disease I’ve come down with.”
“Never heard of her, but if she’s smarter than Rubora, she must be remarkable.”
“That she is.” One would only have to look as far as her magic to know she was remarkable.
When they crested the hill the trail came to an end at a wall of bushes. Stiff branches scraped at his waist as King pushed through them – never a fun task, but unusually painful for him and his condition. “Home at-” He stopped dead in his tracks. What he saw in the K’Ruys Valley was nothing short of devil’s work; corpses everywhere, huts charred, trees and rocks torn apart. He was amazed by how quickly all the special memories of this iconic village were replaced by haunting images of death and destruction.
His heart sank as he thought about everyone he’d known in Steppe. And because there was no way the Marsallas were here.
Colin stepped through the bushes and stopped beside him. “Lords. What happened?”
“They found them.”