Chapter
Blood Dreams
Mikel awoke with a start and lunged back as a demonic face erupted in his vision. The chair he was in first teetered, then collapsed as he tried to correct himself. Before he could, he toppled over backward and hit the ground in a sprawl, groaning.
“Gods, my head,” He rumbled as he rubbed his temples, his other, newer injuries from the fall washed away in a rush as the aches from the previous day came roaring back.
Through it all, the dreams Mikel had just emerged from played behind his closed eyes.
It took long minutes for the visions to ease back into his mind and even then he felt uneasy. The face of the thing attacking him was too real.
In a way, he felt as if it had imprinted on his mind.
Mikel shivered and looked around. This was the second time he’d woken up, hungover, in pain, and in a weird place. Like staying with Helsket, he was confused and ached all over as if he’d been beaten… In this case, he had been beaten a bit. The booze he’d drunk didn’t help.
Unlike staying with Helsket, this time, he knew he was traveling and didn’t let the weird feeling of waking up in an unfamiliar place get to him.
He was traveling through a place he could hardly fathom - but that was beside the point.
Mikel got up and walked to the door separating the living quarters from the smithy. He doubted if such a meager term could apply to the mansion Telgil lived in, and paused to consider some of what had happened to him in the past week since he’d left his home on a mission he could scarcely call sane.
Did all of this really happen? Maybe I’m dead. Maybe I died in the attempt for The Callisto Jewel.
Unconsciously, his hand found its way to the cold, hard gem around his neck. He squeezed The Jewel until his hand began to wince and he withdrew - the pain still a phantom on his skin, as the face of the demon still on his mind.
The creature had been… Unique - but the scene the creature had been in had not. He recognized it from a story he’d heard his entire life.
The dream had taken Mikel to a place he’d never been, to a time he’d never lived through. In the dream, he’d witnessed a version of the fight his father and his retainers had with the Time Demon - the creature that had claimed Crest of Evening, his family’s ancient sword, as the cost for defeating it.
Mikel had never seen the blade in person, it being either stored away when his dad was home, or it was being used in the field - but he wondered if the price his father paid had been worth the succor of victory. Crest of Evening had been the sign of his house - but now lost and broken, he wondered if the lost sword had been a portent to his people’s fall. He wondered if he would have been different if he’d trained with or even touched the blade.
Mikel shook himself and cleared his throat, marshaling himself against the memory. He needed to wake up and felt a walk around some of Telgil’s holdings would help.
Resolved, Mikel turned the cold, brassy handle on the door and walked into the workshop.
The first thing to hit him in the dark space was the smell of roses from the blue-green fire, burning merrily in the central hearth of the forge. The next was the smell of steel, oil, and leather which had soaked into the walls over long years. He wasn’t sure how old Telgil was, but by the way the smith talked Mikel had to guess some absurd number. One hundred? Two? Maybe more. He liked Telgil, but the feeling of agelessness that dripped from the man was unsettling.
His eyes lingered on the shimmering hammers, weapons, and armor collected in the shop - a king’s fortune of material and tools.
Mikel sucked in a breath and nodded - sure he’d glimpsed at least some of what the adventurer life had in store for him… Should he live through the year. Helsket would drag him along if he lost his way. He hoped.
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The fact that Helsket was coming reassured him - but only somewhat. It was a long way to HelGate and he didn’t have long to get there.
Every minute he spent in this strange place four minutes passed in his world. An hour, four hours, a day - most of a week. A year here and almost half a decade would flee without a whisper.
Magic was something foreign to Mikel and although he knew Helsket and Telgil were easing him into things as best they could, the tide of information still overwhelmed him.
He knew places like The Market existed, although he’d never set foot in one - as well as things like the Callisto Jewel - although he hadn’t yet figured out how to work the ancient artifact. He also knew that it was working on him in ways he couldn’t understand or imagine - the hideous monster’s face in his dreams was a sure sign of sinister things lurking within him and put there by The Jewel.
For the hundredth time, he wondered if seeking The Jewel had been the right thing to do. It had power, and it was the power he needed to complete his mission. It had come to him so easily - all that he’d needed to do was…
He didn’t want to think about what he’d done to get The Jewel. The images were still too fresh.
Mikel closed the door and wandered back to the table and was irritated to see that someone had drunk the rest of the peach liquor.
“Helsket,” He cursed as he tipped his glass upside down on the table and set it back in place.
His eyes drifted to the box Telgil had used to sample Mikel’s potential and scowled at the still-black interior. He hadn’t been through this particular test when he was younger, but somehow, this one served to hurt him even more.
Magic, although relatively rare in use, pervaded every aspect of life. Everything from the smallest bug to the largest leviathans dwelling in the depths of the ocean were fueled by Essentia. It granted bees the ability to fly even though their weight exceeded the ability of their wings - it gave strossels the instinct to know exactly when huge storms were rolling off the Western Sea - it gave humans the ability to weave spells and to shift their very reality around them.
Even the smallest child could use basic magic with training - and yet, here Mikel was. Bereft and barren of any mote of Essentia that might fuel his mission to save his father.
It was no wonder he’d sought out The Callisto Jewel.
He sniffed at the box and turned away as if he’d smelled something foul.
If Dad could do it - so could I.
He winced as The Callisto Jewel shivered on his chest and cold tendrils bit into him.
The experience wasn’t something he wanted to get used to, but all the same, each time The Jewel woke up or did whatever it was doing when it quaked, the sensation bothered him less and less.
Mikel knew there were side effects associated with The Jewel, but hoped the worst would stay away until he’d finished his mission. After that, well, he didn’t care too much what happened. If he managed to infiltrate Helgate, find and retrieve the artifact he sought, and return in most of one piece, he could consider that a life well lived. Some heroes hadn’t done so much and had entire epics written about them. He knew he was a Raithson, and he would either die as a hero or live to pave the way for future generations… If there were future generations. He was, to his knowledge, the last of his line. If he died a hero, there wouldn’t be any more Raithson’s - no more stories and no more heroes. At least of his family.
He shook his head as he removed The Callisto Jewel from his shirt and took the seat he had at dinner. He stared into the blood-red gem, looking more like crystalized ichor than cold minerals.
“Are you a mineral?” He asked the gem as he slowly spun it between his index finger and thumb.
He’d never felt the gem even remotely warm. It always had a cold aura wrapped around it, preventing any heat from entering into the dark depths of the interior of The Jewel.
Something thumped behind him and he dropped The Jewel and leapt to his feet.
“Hello?” He called, scanning the darkness of the dining hall, willing his eyes to work better in the near-permanent darkness of the interior of the building. From what he gathered The Market existed in perpetual darkness, the only natural light coming from the amazing star-filled sky above.
The house had few windows, to begin with, and these only let in enough of a suggestion of light to cast further confusion on the scene as Mikel’s mind tried to make sense of half-seen forms within the darkness.
“Helsket?” He asked, his voice hitching only a little at the end.
He thought of the “Training” Helsket and Telgil had put him through earlier and swore quietly - his sword was up in his room on the third floor of the mansion and this exact scenario, alone, isolated and weaponless was what Helsket might call “Prime footing for instruction.”
The bump came again and Mikel took a half step back, his heel striking the chair he’d vacated. He only turned his gaze away for a moment - but the moment was enough.
From the darkness opposite him, a figure shifted out of the dark, and before Mikel could react, it had him pinned to the table, his goblet and test box shot across the room, clattering away.
Mikel yelled and lashed out with his fist, unable to make out anything but a vague form in the dark.
“You’re going to pay for this, Helsket!” He yelled as his fist struck flesh - but it wasn’t warm and it wasn’t Helsket. The cold felt all too familiar.
A dry cackle slid from the figure’s throat as it slowly dragged Mikel off the table and held him up in front of it as easily as if the figure were lifting a child.
Something in the night shifted and Mikel could, for just a moment, make out exactly what had attacked him.
What he saw made his heart drop.
Whatever the thing in his dream had been - whatever had attacked him and woken him, had made its way to the real world. The creature from the dream looked up at him with a gaunt face, bone-white teeth grinning, and emaciated muscles working better than any living man’s should - all while laughing in a hoarse cackle at Mikel’s plight.
The light faded and the thing sank back into darkness and Mikel's stomach dropped. Something was amiss and he thought it might cost him his life.