Chapter Twenty One
Promises
White walls and long halls. It seemed like I had been walking for a long time and reached nowhere and I was getting frustrated. This surely couldn’t be heaven, because if it was my disappointment with it couldn’t be higher.
Finally I saw something different up ahead and I rushed to it in eagerness for something different from the sameness all around me. It was a window. I stepped up to it and peered through it. On the other side of the window must be heaven.
I looked out upon a beautiful garden. It was full of flowers, butterflies and children. There were several girls and several boys of different ages all frolicking in the idyllic setting. All of a sudden looks of joy washed over their faces and they charged toward an approaching figure screaming
“Mother!”
The mother was Raya! My heart squeezed inside of me at the sight of what I hadn’t been able to enjoy with Raya. She looked happy and whoever she had married must be treating her right.
I was glad for her, but this was more like torture than anything having to see the future without me in it. The children were screaming something.
“Where’s father?”
Raya laughed, “He’ll be along.” And then she looked right at me.
A door I hadn’t noticed popped open beside of me and stood ajar. I stared at it for a moment and then I reached for the handle and I opened my eyes.
There was Raya sleeping beside me and I kissed her till I felt her kiss me back and then I just kept on kissing her, because I knew it was real and what a gift I had just been given.
Her hands twined into my hair and eventually we both had to come up for air. She was looking at me with her heart in her eyes, “You came back to me!”
I smiled, “Yes, the Heavenly Father is good!”
I kissed her again and when I drew back it was to see a smirky look on her face. My brow wrinkled in puzzlement and I looked at her questioningly. What had I missed?
“It doesn’t bother me honey, but you do know that we have an audience don’t you?”
I glanced upward and around at the large crowd of grinning warriors some of which were crying while they smiled and blushed slightly.
My thoughts had been completely focused on enjoying the gift of life with my lovely bride. Those same thoughts had figured heavily into getting started with the kids I had seen in my dream vision. I looked back down at the still slightly smirked up face of my temptress, “I guess we won?”
“Very much so!” Gavin said squatting down beside us and even though he was smiling he was also wiping away tears.
“I could get a tent set up for you here if you would like Zevin.”
I let a look of false relief pass across my face, “Could you please?”
Raya smacked me in the chest and laughing I got up and then helped Raya up. I picked my sword up and my merriment of the moment faded as I saw the mountains in the distance and the work still needing to be done.
“We will assist you in restoring the order of Assoria master Zevin.” Said Thora indicating the mountains at which I had been looking at.
Looking at her closely I asked, “How did the sorcerer gain access to Tadias’s powers anyway? I thought that he left everything sealed away and he had mighty beasts such as you to guard it. How did the sorcerer breakthrough?”
Thora looked extremely remorseful, “Like you we had confidence in our master Tadias’s sealing away of his work, when his time came to leave this life. But we sadly did not consider the potential of his lock being misused. You see Tadias intended that one day his work would be found by his descendents and carried on, but sadly all families no matter how noble some are there are often weak links in the family chain so to speak. His work was always open and available to those of his own blood line.”
Incredulously I stared at her, “You’re saying that the Sorcerer is a Ta’lont?”
“Yes, he is Tadias’s younger half-brother by a different mother. We knew that he had arrived from somewhere off world. He did not go by the Ta’lont name, but rather by his mother’s and by the time we realized our mistake it was too late and we could only watch as our fellow guardians fell from the sky. Since then it has been our ardent desire to bring this errant strand of the Ta’lont family to justice. We never suspected that any relation of Tadias’s would be capable of what the sorcerer has done. We have paid a great price for our foolishness and all Assoria with us. We cannot stop now! We must finish what has been started master!”
I couldn’t agree more with what she was saying.
“Why do you call me master?”
“Because that is what you have now become! May your father and mother be blessed among mankind for giving birth to one in the likeness of character and strength as your great ancestor Tadias. I have but known one master before and now it is with pride that I accept you as my second.” Thora bowed her head low to the ground as she finished.
Humbled beyond words that such a great beast would bestow such an honor on me I was not prepared for Kregridor’s rusty rumble, “I have lived longer than Thora, but without her wisdom I would not have lived half as long as I have. Thanks to her our part in this victory today has been made possible. I am a tannin and perhaps the oldest left of my kind. I have known but two masters and now I welcome a third. Each has been as great as the last. And now while the opportunity is ripe let us end this struggle once and for all!” He roared even as one massive wing extended out to me its tip touching the ground at my feet.
Resolutely I walked up the wing and then across the massive heavily plated back to sit behind the giant neck. Raya looked forlorn to me standing alone on the ground, when surprised she turned at the gentle tap of a wingtip on her back. Thora gave her a toothy smile and nodded towards the back of her neck.
“Mistress if you would please allow me to be of service that is if you wish to follow the master.”
Raya looked at her hesitantly.
“As I said before the past is behind us child. Now let us instead embrace the glorious new future opening up before us shall we?”
Raya ran lightly up the wing and across Thora’s back and sat down as I had and the great beasts took off in unison.
What a rush! Never would I have believed it if I had been told by someone that one day I would ride such a beast as the tannin were. We beat high up into the air and soared among the lower clouds. The land passed by quickly beneath us and it seemed that within moments the great up thrusting bulk of the mountains were upon us.
A few minutes later and I got my very first view of the Blue Castle. The castle had been built by my great ancestor Tadias just as Thunder Ridge had been. It wasn’t the fortress that Thunder Ridge was, being much smaller in size, but in beauty of structure and setting it had no equal as it lay nestled firmly among the mountain peaks.
It was terrible to know that so much beauty and the power it held within had been in the hands of a madman for so long.
A madman that I was directly related to.
Everyone has a choice in life and some do not choose wisely, but at some point unwise decisions come back around for judgment. No blue lightning bolts shot out from the castle to blow us out of the sky.
The castle in fact as we circled nearer appeared completely deserted and it looked as if it had been so for a very long time. Gardens and lawns were unkempt and overgrown. Sections of roof were missing on some of the towers torn off by some storm in the past never to be repaired.
Didn’t the sorcerer care for the upkeep of his position of power?
It seemed incredible, but it appeared that he hadn’t in a very long time. Kregridor and Thora sat lightly down onto a high upraised commons that must’ve been made for just such a purpose.
Kregridor spoke, “The sorcerer will be somewhere behind those two doors in the deeper confines of the castle. Raya should know the way.”
I glanced at Raya and woodenly she nodded as she gazed at the double doors ahead of us. One of them was half off of its hinges and slightly ajar. Raya and I started off for it even as Thora and Kregridor prowled off elsewhere.
I started to pull the one half attached door open, when it literally broke off its rusty hinges causing me to have to catch it and set it heavily to the side.
“Why is everything left gone to pot around here Raya?” I asked as I stepped through the empty doorframe sword in hand.
“My mother.”
I glanced at her briefly as we made our way up the darkened corridor.
“What does your mother have to do with it?”
She was quiet for a moment and then spoke, “The sorcerer fancied that my mother had to love him simply because of who he was and the power that he held. He is that arrogant and self conceited about himself. My mother felt quite the opposite though. She hated him, but she kept it to herself on behalf of her father and the safety of her people, but it ate away at her and what she’d been forced to agree to. When she saw what he had done to me she went crazy and she destroyed part of the energy core feeding the various abilities of this place and in the process limiting what father’s capabilities were. He caught her before she could finish her work and he told her that he was going to rape her to death for her treachery. In the process of trying to rape her she cut his maleness off and slashed his face badly. She nearly killed him, but the guards dragged her off. When he was recovered enough he had her tortured and cut into pieces. He made me watch.”
Oh God I wasn’t hearing this!
The thought of any girl having to see such a thing done to their own mother was beyond horrible!
“He sent me into Lanoria after that promising me that if I didn’t succeed in killing the tannin he would do the same to me.”
We made our way past abandoned rooms and halls that the absence of care and the ravages of time were evident everywhere one looked.
“I must have something of my father in me because I was able to lie well enough to convince him that I had killed the tannin. Soon after that I ran away with the rest of the slaves into Lanoria. It was me that caused there to be an explosion that destroyed the mining operation beyond repair. Before I left though the signs of an increasing paranoia were quite evident in my father. He had servants and soldiers alike killed for no apparent reason. He was petrified about dying mainly because the ability by which he had concocted of staying forever young had been taken from him by my mother.”
She glanced at me and in the half light I saw her embarrassment.
“Thora told me about it Raya.”
There was silence for a moment, which she then broke.
“It’s a wonder that you can love me at all as messed up as I am!”
“Oh honey becoming one flesh with you now that’s an aspect of loving you that isn’t hard to do at all!” I said tongue in cheek.
I deserved the punch to the back of my shoulder.
A little time passed and I asked, “So you think it was his increasing paranoia that drove everyone away?”
“Yes and his scarred face. He is very vain or at least he was and he wouldn’t have wanted anyone around to see his disfigurement.”
We were quiet then as we made our way up to the castle’s higher rooms.
“Do you think you could be comfortable or even happy living in a place where you saw so many terrible things occur?”
“It would be hard to in certain places of the castle, but it’s not the castle’s fault for what happened here. I could live anywhere really and be happy as long as I was with you.”
I turned back to her, now that deserved a kiss, but she held a finger up before our lips could connect.
“You need to stay on task Zevin!” She said breathlessly.
I moved her finger to the side, “Not a problem I assure you!”
I kissed her hard pressing her up against the wall behind her for a long moment.
Pulling back I whispered, “Not bad for a guy who was dead today huh?”
“Don’t joke about it! I died inside when I thought you were gone!” She whispered back her voice full of emotion.
“I’m sorry I said that honey, but it’s hard to contain myself. Right now I’m just so darn happy to be alive! You don’t need to worry about your father. Everything is going to be okay Raya.”
She looked up at me out of her softly glowing eyes questioningly, “Why what do you know?”
“We’ll talk about it later, but for now just trust me.”
She searched my eyes with hers and whispered back, “Okay.”
I took her hand in my free one and together we walked toward the last pair of double doors. I kicked them open and found exactly what I had expected to.
Raya’s father wasn’t much more than a dry husk of a man. His beady eyes fairly popped out of his sunken in slashed face and he had to crane his head upward to account for the stoop in his back.
His voice was warbly and thin nothing like the voice that had boomed out of the menacing cloud cover on the battlefield. He quivered as he pointed at me with one bony finger his voice cracking with age, “Now! Now you bring back my cup of eternal youth! What good does she do me now! I see that you’re enjoying her for yourself wretched fool! You’ve stripped me of all my hard won possessions! Assoria was mine! You killed my babies! The army that would have defeated any army ever made on the field of battle, but no! You couldn’t play by the rules! You used technology against me to do what? Protect people little better than cattle long overdue for the slaughterhouse! You drained me of my last vestige of power! You’ve taken everything from me!”
Spittle dribbled over his shrunken lips and down his chin as he screamed hollowly at me.
“It’s time I take something from you brave young fool!” He brought up a red tinted crystal and laughed manically.
“You see this dear boy all I have to do is insert this crystal here like this and push like this and it’s all over for you!”
He laughed hysterically, which ended abruptly with him bent over coughing and wheezing for breathe.
He regained some control of his breathing and peered up at us with a maniacally insane look, “Even now every trinial power cell on this continent is imploding on itself and causing a mass eruption of the entire landmass and beyond, but long before you the one I detest and hate most dies in the glorious flames of my destruction of your new kingdom you will see the traitorous witch, my elixir of youth that you stole from me blown into a million billion itsy-bitsy pieces as the trinial explodes within her! Let’s watch her destruction together shall we!”
With a crazed intensity he stared raptly at Raya with the exuberance of a child waiting to see what’s in an unopened package.
The minutes ticked by and nothing happened. A frown began to form on the sorcerer’s wrinkled brow. He began to rub his face nervously and mutter what sounded like calculations of some kind. Then absurdly he got down on his knees and put his ear to the floor as if listening for something. Getting back up his muttering and gesturing intensified and then he stopped.
Staring at the inserted crystal before him he exploded in anger and turned back to me, “But of course you drained all of my power away! There’s none left to initiate the process!”
Then all matter of cursing and profanities issued forth as he shook his finger threateningly at both of us from his little upraised dais. I raised my sword towards him and he gasped and stopped his tirade to flee behind his chair, which he then peered over the top of at us.
“You’ve taken my destiny from me!” He whimpered out.
I shook my head no, “No I haven’t. Your destiny lies over by the window. Go take a look.”
He looked from me to the floor-to-ceiling window and then back again to me disbelievingly.
“Really?” He asked his eyes excited and I nodded yes.
He shuffled excitedly over towards the window kicking through the debris of the room, while dragging one leg slightly out behind him.
Reaching the window he exclaimed angrily, “This isn’t my destiny! This is the same boring view as ever!” He said turning back to me with a vengeful light in his eyes.
“Look again.” I said pointing to something behind him. He turned back and came face-to-face with one of the big red glowing eyes of Kregridor.
The sorcerer’s high pitched squeal of sheer terror drowned out my words, “Behold your destiny.”
The taloned pawl of Kregridor’s forearm smashed through the window. The talons closed tightly around the sorcerer before he had a chance to flee and then the sorcerer was pulled kicking and screaming out the window. They were quickly out of sight as Kregridor took off flying towards the west.
The room was quiet and I glanced over at Raya who was already looking at me. There were a few tears tracking down her face, which she brushed away.
“Where’s Kregridor taking him?”
I squeezed her hand, “To a pit of his own making.”
More tears kept coming as she looked up at me.
“Can you really still love me when part of me comes directly from a man as crazy and evil as my father?”
I pulled her into my arms and hugged her, “Raya all of humanity is related to your father. Human history is filled with such monsters, but whether monster or genuine good person they all came from two people and as a race we humans bear the blame equally across all cultures, because each of us has the potential to do evil and have done evilly ourselves. You bear no more blame for your father’s condition than anyone else does!”
Her arms closed around me and I heard her mumble, “I love you!”
I hugged her tighter, “I love you too sugar!”
Looking around I shook my head, “We have a lot of work getting this place back into shape.”
At some point Sarcis Ta’lont’s voice gave out and all he could do was rasp weakly as he pleaded for his life. The tannin had flown toward the west and now Sarcis could see the devastation of the Western Kingdom firsthand.
It as a kingdom was truly no more. All that was left was broken rock and ground where the land had fallen inward or had been filled in by either seawater or great pools of seething magma that rose and oozed out over the remaining land.
It was over one of these lakes of fire that Kregridor paused in flight and began to unload his prey, but screaming hoarsely with renewed vigor Sarcis hung onto a single talon.
“No please, anywhere but here!”
“But I have brought you to your friends. You wish to go somewhere else instead? Perhaps a cool forest would be more to your liking?”
“Yes! Yes! Take me to the forest!”
Kregridor tightened his talons and flew further south as Sarcis breathed out a sigh of relief at having escaped the hot lava fields.
Kregridor’s mighty pumping wings smashed branches and made a general ruckus of noise as he descended to the forest floor. He released Sarcis, who quickly shuffled away from him.
Kregridor studied him for a moment with a dismissive look and then rumbled out, “Enjoy your new kingdom.”
And then with a thrashing of wings he beat his way back up out of the clearing and away. Sarcis looked up after Kregridor and laughed shaking his fist at the sky.
“You fool! You should’ve killed me why’ll you had the chance! I’ll find a way and I’ll come back stronger than ever! I’ll roast your egg chicks over a fire, while I make you watch from a cage of my own creation!”
Satisfied with his vengeful plan in place Sarcis looked away from the patch of open sky to his surroundings. First things first, he had to find out where he was before he could embark on his great revenge quest.
Now if memory served him right the only forest this far south was the…… dark forest!
His mind froze at the realization of where he was. Silently he cursed the tannin that had dropped him into this hellish forest. Maybe they hadn’t heard, but on the tails of that thought came the snap of a twig.
He wheeled around to see one of the brutes of his own creation standing there looking dumbly at him. Sarcis’s bone chilling initial fear quickly turned to contempt, “Why you’re just a stupid animal! Out of my way!”
But the brute didn’t move, but instead another appeared beside it and then there were more and as one their stupefaction over his sudden appearance in the forest changed to open mouthed snarls of demented lunacy as they advanced on him in mass.
He had time for only one brief statement of fact, “Oh dear I’ve killed myself!”