Between Thieves and Liars

Between Thieves and Liars

Fragment from Record 7, the 37th day of the 61st year after the fall of the Traumitarian Empire.


I have lain down this record to be concealed among the corpses of my fathers. Though, I am bitter to admit it, my mother was more important by far. As I bury this the drumming of soldier’s boots will no doubt be swiftly approaching, announcing my demise. I just hope my efforts are not in vain…

Three thousand years later….

-Scion awoke, shaking violently. What in the name of the Seven Stars had that been? He tried, though it repulsed him, he tried to remember every detail of the dream. As he was training to be a priest, he must be able to record and translate dreams and nightmares such as this. Still, one detail kept slipping away, the man’s name… what had it been? He gritted his teeth, focusing harder, but the more he focused the more it seemed to slip, like oil on water.
-He sighed and rose from his pallet, intending to write down the dream when he saw something that completely drove it from his mind. A massive, black winged silhouette was before him, standing just beyond the curtained entrance to his quarters. He reached slowly for the blessed dagger on his side table.
-At the first hint of movement the creature shifted suddenly, lightning quick and silent as a whisper it lashed out, sending a ripple through the air and causing him to stumble back and fall. The creature did the same, its heavy body tearing through the curtain and landing with a loud thud on the cold stone floor. The sound of heavy footfalls sounded as a Sentinel came running, causing him to cringe slightly. Again the beast mimicked him, its bulk shivering in a manner barely perceptible to the eye.
-The Sentinel reached his doorway and stopped dead. He raised his spear, two-foot, serrated steel head gleaming wickedly, and lunged at the creature with a yell. Impaling it through the heart. Immediately Scion felt a searing pain in his chest. The creature howled and vanished, its tortured cry echoing his own yell of pain.
-The last thing he saw was the elderly abbot hurrying through the door and telling the Sentinel to return to his post. Then the world went black, and he recalled nothing further beyond the dulled feeling of pain as though left him to unconsciousness.
-He awoke to the quiet humming of the medical automatons and the blaring white of the ceiling above him. He sat up, a cloud of inactive nano-bots rose up around him as they fell from where they had been lying, dormant, on his body. He held his breath, waiting for the cloud to settle. When it did, he got off the bed and pulled on a set of brown cloth robes.
-Normally The Religious Order chose to remain in poverty for the sake of less distraction from the desires of the Seven Stars. But they cut no corners when it came to medical situations. No medicine was too experimental or too controversial to be tried at least once.
-He walked out of the hospital room into the stone hall beyond. They gray rock cleaner than most linoleum floors. He turned right and walked briskly to the abbot’s offices. Once there he made sure he was standing correctly and knocked precisely three times at the exact center of the door.
-“Enter.” Came the old abbot’s, still strong, voice from within. Scion turned the knob and went in. The abbot’s office was, as always, pristine. The mahogany desk polished to a glasslike sheen and bookshelves arranged neatly on the back wall. There was a window directly behind the abbot’s head with a direct view over the gardens on the lower level.
-All of this combined to create an air of serene professionalism. An air that the abbot emulated perfectly, his wrinkles and bald head contriving to make him seem more venerable as well as wise.
-The abbot cleared his throat and said, “Sit down, Scion.”
-Scion sat in the proffered straight backed, wooden, chair.
-The abbot leaned forward, his fingers pressed together to form a steeple, and said, “Well Scion, I can guess why you came.”
-Scion cleared throat nervously, “Yes, sir.”
-The abbot stood and looked out the window, his hands clasped behind his back, “You want to know what that creature was.”
-“Yes, sir.” Scion said again.
-The abbot turned and looked Scion straight in the eyes, “But you already know, don’t you?”
-Scion looked down and nodded shamefully.
-The abbot sighed and said, “That was a familiar, Scion. It is a result of witchcraft or black magic. Why do you have a familiar?”
-Scion shook his head and said, truthfully, “I don’t know, sir.”
-“Don’t you?”
-Scion opened his mouth and closed it, not knowing how to respond, then a memory came to him like the world crashing around his ears, “Oh… no…”
-“Yes, Scion. Your mother was a witch, and she gave you a familiar before you were born. So far we have been able to keep it away, but our defenses now seem to be failing. That Sentinel nearly killed you, but luckily he missed the heart.”
-Scion gulped, “What happens now, sir?”
-The abbot’s piercing stare bored into him, “You have two options. One, you die and rid the world of this black magic forever. Or two, you run and try to find a way to get rid of it some other way.”
-Talan sighed; Scion had backed into a corner of his mind. His turn was now. He had known this would be a bad day. Why he had to be sealed in a weak little priestling like this…

Short Story (Possible Continuation)-Eternal

-Death…

-It permeates our world, a constant reminder of our impermanence upon this Earth. At least… it is for most people.

-He turned away from the cliff, drawing his coat about him against the cold wind.

-He is immortal. And sometimes… well just say he wishes he wasn’t. He sighs and walks away, the sun setting behind him over the autumn trees in the valley below.

-He looks over his shoulder at the grave he had been standing by. ‘Well,’ he thinks ruefully, ‘I shouldn’t complain. After all, I asked for this.’ He turns away grimly and walks down the path, his last tie to his old life, gone.

-He reaches the ledge overlooking the wreckage of what had been his birthplace. ‘All my fault, all for my own damned desire to live forever. My family, dead. My friends, dead. My heart… well, that’s dead too now.’

-‘I doubt now that one ever beat in my chest, how else could I have done this?’ He jumps over the small cliff and begins to walk toward the dead city. He walks past the wreckage of the church that once had told him that that was were his soul would be saved.

-It had been the first to burn. For what use could a church be for one without a soul? None at all. His eyes flash red in the light of the sun. ‘My flesh may be clean, but my existence is forever stained with blood.’

100 years later

-He watches as a cart rumbles past, wondering how these people still lived while death surrounds them. He shudders in pain as he feels his flesh begin to crawl and change. He focuses and stops the transformation, ‘I may be without heart or soul,’ he thinks grimly, ‘but human form, at least, I will keep. A beast in the flesh of man.’

-The, probably not so, innocent merchant disappears around a corner and he steps out onto the path and heads in the opposite direction. He soon arrives at his destination, slipping into the shadows of the wall as a guard passes above. When the guard is gone he quickly scales the wall and is soon at the top.

-He crouches in an alcove as a second guard passes, then flips over the other side and snags a ledge with practiced ease, making less noise than a breath of wind. He then braces himself and drops the fifty feet to the stone flagstones behind a tavern, his bones swiftly mending and he is soon ready once again.

-He leaps onto a roof and quickly begins to make his way to the citadel at the center of the city. He grins behind his mask. ‘Of all the occupations I have had,’ he chuckles inwardly, ‘being an assassin is by far the most fun.’

What's Going on Here.

I am posting stories I write. Some of which I may or may not follow up on. They can be fanfiction or stories with characters, plot(s) and settings all my own.

Universal Foreword

What I write here is written for entertainment. Whether or not it entertains you is not my decision, though hopefully it does, as that's the whole point of this.