Despair and Hope

(Adam the mage’s POV)

(Previously – I caught hold of my sister’s friend in a dark room in my house)

I loosen my chokehold a little, and speak softly into her ear.

“If you promise to stay quiet, I will release my chokehold on you a little” (Adam)

She nodded a slowly, and I release my chokehold on her just enough for her to speak.

“Cough, cough” (sister’s friend)

“Speak, what happened here!? Make a sound and I will break your neck, regardless of our past relationship!” (Adam)

“Wheeze, wheeze, the soldier, from castle, they arrive, announce your treachery, put uncle and aunt to stakes, and burn them” (sister’s friend)

“I cannot trust your words. Do you have any proof?” (Adam)

She signals to her pocket, because her hand can’t reach it.

“Don’t try anything funny or I will break your neck” (Adam)

I reach my hands into her pocket and touched a round object. Usually I feel shy and reserved to girls, especially to touch such a secret place as her pocket. But for now, I don’t have time to think about all that. I retrieve the object from her pocket and take a look at it. This one is a magical object I gave her during her 6th birthday. I learned how to put images into a glass object during my study of a book about magical tools. I polished a quartz rock I found at the river during a family trip, and enchant it to store images according to the book instructions. I got an idea from my dream later, and decide to upgrade the quarts from capturing images to recording moving images or video, and upgrade the storage and retrieval ability of the magical tool. I called it a recorder version 2.

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Not knowing which iteration she stored it, I let her handle the magical tool. I also have to take into consideration that my magic seems not working at all since I collapsed after using the forbidden Resurrection spell. The surface of the recorder seems blemished at locations where I touched.

“Show me what you have recorded and proof to me what you said is true” (Adam)

I place the quartz tool on her palm. She also noticed the blemished surface, but continue to operate the tool with her fingers and invocation, probably out of fear of her life. The recorder starts to flicker and the video playback starts.

First, the playback shows the focus of the video on her face, probably from invoking the start of video recording. The video then shows a face forward view, and large jerking of the video, probably from her running. The video quality is very bad, with black pockmarks here and there. Several riders can be seen alighted from the horses, carrying a sort of paper. I can’t see their faces well, only the large horse is visibly clear. The villagers all knelt in front of a soldier announcing something to the group of people gathered in the village square. A person looking like village head goes forward to receive a scroll, and the group of soldiers goes around taking what looks like stick, wood, and wood poles from the villagers who are selling them at the square and the sawmill. The video ends there.

She operated the quartz recorder again, and shows me another video. It shows the villagers are now gathered at what looked like the back of my house. The video quality is very bad. Four youths can be seen dragging two elderly couple and tie them to the stake that is lined up with wood. Two youth can be seen stopping them from dragging the two elderly couple, only to be beaten down by two soldiers armed with pike. One of them is this girl’s brother. The other is my childhood friend. He got stabbed badly. The video quality turn worse, and I can only see dots here and there. I was stunned. My brain froze. What is all this? My father. My mother. Their last moments. I can’t see them anymore in the video. Hot trickle fell to my cheeks again, and I quickly wipe it. Why is the army so quick and efficient only at this type of matter? This leaves a very dark and heavy feeling inside of me.

“Where is my sister?” (Adam, voice hoarse due to silent sobbing)

“…..Sob, ….sob” (sister’s friend)

Tears start to well up in her eyes. I want to console her, but I press for an answer. She wouldn’t stop crying, so I put her into a chokehold again and remind her not to make any noise, and I won’t put up with her attitude. She forcefully chokes back her tears and continues to explain.

She said the army issued a decree that all my family members are to be burned at a stake, so they wanted to kill my sister together with my parents. However, four youths conspired with the kingdom’s officials to sell my sister away to a slave dealer since she is a beauty and still pure. They beat up my parents while the others were scared to offend the kingdom officials, and the four youths had their way with my sister. The kingdom soldiers entered the house after the four youths left, and my sister’s condition was so horrid when the soldiers have finished their business. When she tried to enter the house to help my sister, the slave dealer stopped her and took my sister away. The slave dealer is currently residing in one of the building at the south of the village, near the road facing the capital. They occupied a warehouse building that usually stores the granary.