Chapter 6 – A Journey of Awakening

After Oliver’s outburst, Adam’s eyes darted towards the beautiful, silvered ceiling of the Talon’s Circle. Caine sat on one of the ostentatious chandeliers in a relaxed pose, as if he was waiting for them after one of their old pranks.

“I knew I could find you here,” said the man Adam used to love as a brother. The bastard raised an arm.

Adam immediately dashed away to grab one of the Penduli’s dropped swords. However, a deafening, roaring noise erupted from the floor. Adam’s eyes widened. He jumped back out of reflex when a pattern of bright, green light shone right through the thick carpet over the entire breadth of the floor. The air became thick as a bizarre, unfamiliar Invocation surged into life. The blinding light of concentric circles and symbols that Adam didn’t recognize burst up all around him. There was no escape.

Damn it! Adam wanted to roll away, but the Invocation slowed down his fall somehow and he hadn’t even hit the ground. A green glow of tingling, unnatural energy appeared all over his body. It took forever to raise an arm. He wanted to look at Caine but even the movement of his eyes had slowed down. By the time he’d caught sight of him, Adam hung in the air as if frozen in time, trapped by Caine’s unfamiliar Invocation.

Caine stood utterly still as well, with an open hand stretched out and an intense frown on his face. How is he doing this? He’s not making a Novaseering gesture… so it… Adam’s thoughts slowed down. Everything around him grew darker. A cold shiver ran down his spine before even the sense of touch faded. Pitch-black darkness clouded everything from sight, except for Caine, whose features were clearer than ever. It was like nothing other in the world existed. Adam couldn’t tell how long he looked at the man he thought to be his friend before his vision faded into nothing.

Soon, blurry images flashed by Adam. Although he couldn’t remember why, he was running over the vague streets of Gotterburg, the lovely city as it used to be before the wars. However, the colours were warped and strange for some reason. The comfortable hum-buzz of people on the streets sounded oddly distant.

Adam grinned widely. There was no tension in his neck or shoulders for the first time in years. Finally, there was no weight of a difficult past he had to carry wherever he went. He was… happy. He was free.

A laughing Oliver of about ten years old ran to the left of him. A young version of himself ran to Adam’s right.

“Oh man, the face of your butler!” the young Adam said. He wiped tears from his eyes, still brown at the time. “I wonder how long it’ll take before they find out we’ve released chickens in the library as well!”

Adam’s mouth moved on its own. He said something, although he couldn’t quite make out his own words.

A veil of darkness moved over their surroundings and all the cosy colourful buildings disappeared. The three friends ran, as if nothing was wrong, into a pure black nothingness. Slowly, they drifted further and further apart in the hollow darkness, although Adam had never intended for that to happen.

“Don’t worry!” Oliver’s voice sounded as if he was far away. “Both of you can stay at my place! My dad made meat pies!”

The sound of the cheerful voices dampened until nothing remained.

After what felt like weeks of nothingness, Adam woke up by a raw, merciless pain that burned through his head. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and everything spun around him. His heart sent heat through his body. Although his limbs, if he still had them, felt absent. What, where am I? Am I dreaming?

Slowly, he became aware of sounds around him, like screaming and the clatter of falling glass. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids were heavy and his vision was strangely blurry. He only saw vague shapes of green and blue. Rough hands picked him up and laid him on a flat surface of some sort, as if he was a slab of meat ready to be butchered. Beside him, what seemed like pale bodies lay motionlessly on other tables. Blurry figures moved in the chaos around him.

Damn it, Adam! Don’t let them do this to you! He grunted, baring his teeth in the effort to sit up, only to fall back down again. Come on, get up! Adam growled and squeezed his eyes shut as he forced his body to rise. Yelling voices came towards him from the left. Something heavy hit Adam on his temple before he could react. He saw nothing but darkness and bright dots before his consciousness slipped away.

When Adam got to his senses again, wheels softly creaked beneath him. The muffled steps of a large animal sounded somewhere in front of him. It smelled of fires, and there was an earthly scent that reminded him of fungi. He lay on his belly. Wood pressed uncomfortably up against his chin and made his head bump up and down. His splitting headache was gone, but he still couldn’t see for some reason.

Huh, what… happened? Am I in a cart? Where are Emily and Oliver?

Absent-mindedly, he tried to move his arms, but there were bindings around his wrists. He gasped, feeling the blindfold on his face and the gag of sturdy straps in his mouth. He groaned in shock and anger, and struggled with all his might, but even his feet were bound together. Oh no. No, no, NO! His breathing became faster and faster.

Old, repressed memories bobbed up. How the suffocating water had been all around him, how he had struggled with all his might to tear free. How his lungs had burned in desperation.

“Stay alive,” his heart whispered.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut and bit into his gag with all the strength he had in him. The jaw muscles at the sides of his head clenched and ached. His breaths came even faster and he lost the feeling in his legs. Yet, he kept on biting. And bit by tiny bit, the fibres of his gag loosened.

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Sharp pain erupted in his cheekbone; he was hit by something hard. A small crack sounded from Adam’s neck. The cart stopped.

“Quiet, you mad piece of shit!” a gruff, female voice whispered from somewhere in front of him. Something hard pressed into his chin and pushed Adam’s head up. “You’re damn lucky you’re still drawing breath. But one more sound, just a peep, and I’ll give you what you deserve here and now! Got that?”

Adam couldn’t even nod from this position. All he could do was try and calm his rapid breathing before it got out of control.

“Careful!” a male voice breathed, somewhere to Adam’s left. “Lord Caine’s Command was to—”

The hard object was pulled away from Adam. “I know the Command, you idiot! And you should know better than to doubt me!”

Silence followed. The cart started moving again.

Adam waited a while before he bit the gag again, as quietly as possible. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the blood rush to his face, as he bit through the last bit. He spat out the cloth and soundlessly gasped for air. Waves of relentless headache battered him. Laying his head on the wooden surface, he focused on his breaths. Easy Adam, you can do this.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go east, to the Node of Caine’s house?” the male voice whispered. “I’ve heard the Roots are on the move. The Overgrowth has spread and infected three Nodes west of this one. Even the Node of the Starwing Grove...”

The woman made a fake gasp. “What, really? The Roots are spreading? Who would have known!” Adam could almost feel how she glared at the guy. “They’ve conquered those days ago. The library here is out of the question as well; the Roots have swarmed all of our resistance. Even a couple of other intruders have been spotted.”

The man groaned.

“Silence. The last Command we received was to bring him to the Palace of Origin, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Adam found a small ridge between the planks he lay on. Gratefully, he rubbed the edge of his blindfold against it to push it up. ‘Lord Caine’, eh? Arrogant twat. You truly found some loyal subjects among the Penduli, haven’t you? The planks ground against his cheeks and the skin around his eyes. Bit by bit, Adam managed to pull the blindfold upwards on its right side, although its left side became even tighter. It’ll have to do.

The lacquered, black planks became visible, which turned out to be part of a war chariot of some sort. Adam turned his head a bit to look up.

He seemed to be in a town inside a huge cave. Broad buildings, hewn out of and based upon stalagmites and stalactites passed by. A strange light shone on both crumbled remains and proud domed roofs, decorated with hieroglyphs and many, many statues. Most of the intricate decorations depicted Caine and an elegant woman. They were pictured as mighty Lords or powerful Novaseers. However, many buildings were reduced to ashen shells and hollow ruins with the unmistakable scars of battle. Many of the large trees that lined the street were still smouldering.

Adam curled his lips in confusion. By the night… where… am I? Adam’s mind raced. He’d visited many cities around the world and searched through even more ruins of ancient cultures. However, he’d never seen a place with an architectural style or hieroglyphs even similar to this before. Some battle was fought here, recently. Is this some far-away territory of the Penduli?

The man who walked in front of him whimpered softly when they turned into a different street. Adam’s eyes widened. Most of the buildings here were overgrown with masses of strange plants, reminding him of a fungal infestation. Thick purple and brown vines curled around statues of Caine like constricting snakes. Leaves with savage thorns covered ruined households and their broken furniture. Bushes of thorned vines and trunks reached two storeys high and grew fast enough for Adam to see them move. Even the system of towering aqueducts was affected; purple vines hung from their elegant arches of obsidian.

Adam was vaguely aware that his jaw hung open. Unwillingly, he remembered how Jeremiah shared stories of the Tainted. Remarkably consistent stories about endless tunnels and ‘beings of wild emotion.’ And something about visions and dead relatives showing up?

Cold sweat broke out on his back. Is this where the Taint is applied?

Adam’s instincts screamed at him to get out. To bust out of his bindings somehow. To run back to Gotterburg no matter what. His eye darted around for a way to escape. Squirming on his belly, it took all of Adam’s willpower to stay quiet. To keep his breaths from becoming too loud. Damn it all! Okay, calm down, Adam. Just…. Breathe.

After a while, Adam managed to force his brain into a path of reason. Most likely, he was trapped by some offshoot of the Penduli, crackpot enough to call Caine a lord and make statues of that human turd. All of the strange thorns and bushes seemed messed up enough to be part of the ‘Overgrowth’ his captors talked about.

This place is bizarre… did they Taint me already?

Adam frowned and mulled it over. He could still think and reason perfectly. Aside from being mighty uncomfortable, tied up like a sausage, he didn’t feel differently. Nor did he notice any gaps in his memory. His surroundings seemed way too clear and consistent to be some kind of hallucination either.

Annoying as they might be, Adam doubted that the people who were moving him on the stupid chariot were powerful enough to apply something as sinister as the Taint. They just seemed to follow commands and guide this chariot through enemy ‘Root’ territory. Maybe this ‘Palace of Origin’ they talk about is where they want to Taint me?

Adam arched his back to look in front of him. Both the large, flightless bird which pulled the chariot and his remarkably short and broadly built captors looked… exotic. Sadly, there was no sign of another chariot with Oliver or Emily. The strange people wore long black robes, sashes, and a long cylinder-shaped headpiece, embroidered with golden floral patterns. Despite their elegant, almost regal way of movement, they’d apparently dyed their curly hair green. Their staffs seemed perfectly suitable for combat.

Adam’s eyes widened when he took a closer look at the bird. By the night, a terror bird! Its build reminded him of the cassowaries of the Oberian islands, but its body was way more muscular. Its broad, predatory beak, which stood at least nine feet high, was powerful enough to kill horses. Wrappings muffled the steps of its clawed feet.

Truly an amazing creature. The problem was that they had been extinct for centuries.

Adam’s thoughts were interrupted when the man turned his head a bit, looking anxiously at the vegetation. His skin was a dark shade of blue, except for the green symbol tattooed on his oddly sloped forehead. A bead of sweat dripped down his prominent eyebrow ridge and into his well-groomed curly beard.

Adam frowned. What? I’ve never heard of a people with blue skin and green hair before, not to mention a forehead like that. They speak without a trace of a foreign accent though…

The man turned his head a little further; his eyes were exactly the same as Caine’s. No matter how hard Adam looked for differences, their shape and the shade of yellow were unmistakable. Okay, Caine, I know you’ve spent some time being promiscuous, but these are some weird-ass children you’ve got over here.

Adam laid his forehead flat on the planks, trying to process whatever was going on around him.

He exhaled softly. I don’t know why you did it, Caine, or where you brought me. But I know that I’d rather burn than let you get away. He clenched his hands into fists behind his back, shivering with rage. Your filthy goons told me enough; you are near, or at least close enough to give them commands. ‘Other intruders’ were spotted near this library, which may very well be Oliver and Emily. I’ll find them, and then we’re coming for you, ‘old friend.’