04-27-2019, 10:01 PM
Sleep or unconsciousness. It was hard to know which darkness won the day. Either were welcome respites…
He walked through the woods. No; he crept through the woods, careful with every step as though the wrong footfall might detonate an invisible bomb. At the left and right, others purchased similar grounds. It was in the hour before sunrise when the world held its breath before hellish light broke the horizon. He wasn’t tired, though. The opposite. His heart pound in his chest such that he put a hand to his jacket, checking the buttons holding it snug like they might burst open moment. Just an easy, steady pace. Move forward. Leaving his own heart trailing in the dirt was not in the plan. Fingers itching for activity found their comfort upon silk cords at his hip. A touchstone, and he breathed easier.
A wisp of Air brushed his face, their signal, and he halted. They all did. Jay slid to the ground, crawling by his arms forward until he was able to peer down the slope beyond. The house was exactly where he expected to find it, but no pride lit victory within. If anything, his guts twisted to knots for what they were about to do. And he was the one that led them here.
The signal flared and from the distance a storm of the one power surged. Lightning bolts struck the house, and Jay threw an arm to shield his eyes from the brightness. Fire rolled, turning night to day. When the first occupants fled the structure, Jay grit his teeth and gripped the sword hilt tight, but he didn’t move. Soldiers erupted from the compound. The barn doors were thrown open and raken escaped. He paid them no mind and sank his chin to grass. Not yet.. not yet…
Two shapes burst out finally, running low and together, darting from fire to fire. Saidin cauterized the frayed edges of his soul as he struck them down. Two more followed, this time crashing back with fires of their own. He cut them down like blades of grass. Three pairs of damane died that morning.
As sunrise lit the landscape, brothers doused the fire before it caught the woods wild. Eventually, Jay joined the cauldron and helped render the farmstead to ash. They stacked the bodies of the dead, lifting them like twigs tossed on to a pile. The raken was stripped of its skin. The leather sold fantastically high, and the Black Tower’s vaults needed replenished like everyone else.
As he rummaged through the ashes and lifted three gleaming collars from the remains. He turned the ter’angreal in his hands; they were always strangely clean. Another successful mission, he told himself.
He started to stand when he noticed the filth caking his boots. Ash washed easily enough, but what grabbed his eyesight wasn’t the flickers of metal here and there, nor the lumps of dying coals, but a motion beneath. It crawled like a rodent, though nothing could possibly survive the pyre of Asha’man incinerations. Jaw clenched, he put a hand to the hilt and backed away.
His foot landed on a knobby ridge. He gasped and spun. Motion crawled beneath the ashes all around him. The One Power flooded, and with one hand gripping the gleaming prize of the night and the other wielding the sword of his great-father, Jay watched with horror as skeletal fingers punched through. A hand clamped onto his toes. He kicked it away and stomped it to bits, kicking ash with the disturbance until it choked the air around him.
Whips of fire swept the ground, but for every arm severed, more took its place. They grabbed his feet. His ankles. He kicked and tried to run, but his feet snagged into a rib-cage and he fell. Black clouds puffed, stinging his eyes, burning his throat. When he looked up, it was to stare straight into the empty maw of a skull. He screamed, scrambling away. One ripped at his arm, tearing the sleeve. They clawed at his chest, the cloud rolling thick. He couldn’t breathe!
The sword! He grabbed the sword and swung in panicked frenzy. Fighting his way out. Arm and chest bleeding. Coughing wracked his lungs. Tears streaked black down his cheeks. Finally, he fell out of the devil’s fog. His fingers clutched at the grass, grateful for escape. Until toes peeked beneath his face. Gray fabric pooled. He looked up to the face of an angel. Dark hair rimmed her cheeks. A gentle, gray dress waved on the wind.
She knelt, tipping his chin with her girlish fingers, and Jay looked into the eyes of a girl he murdered earlier that night. When she stole the collar from his clutches and put it back on her own throat, he started to scream..
He woke with a start. Arm, chest, lungs everything burning alive. Memory hovered two worlds for a moment, reality hung in a balance, until the brute physicality of it all pulled the soul toward the present. He glanced up, and when he beheld the angelic face of a young girl with dark hair and a gray shirt, he froze.
Zacarías laid a hand on Alana’s shoulder. “I warn you daughter, he may appear frightening, but I promise you are completely safe,” he said. His daughter was thoughtful but nodded with silent determination that she was ready.
When they entered the room, they found a man slumped in a chair held up only by the bonds snaking his body. A smell lingered, but he did not think Alana would find it too unpleasant. Closer inspection found Jay Carpenter to be as pitiful as his pictures represented. It had been explained that the black streaks coursing his chest were some side-effect of the electricity surging across wet skin. Cords and clamps were tossed aside, waiting the return of Placaso.
Jay stirred, and Alana slipped from her father’s grasp to stand unafraid before the traitor. Zacarías smiled with pride while his daughter confronted the man that so greatly traumatized her.
The girl’s eyes were wide with fear. It was entirely possible he was hallucinating. He’d been dreaming, he recalled, even as the memory of it faded to oblivion.
“I saved you,” he said, voice straining above a whisper. It hurt to speak, but he had to get it out. “I’m sorry it happened that way,” he said, mind wracking for an explanation that justified the way her uncle was killed. He had none.
The girl sought something of her father, and Jay raised his gaze to the elder Amengual just long enough to understand. The blue-eyed man joined them, readying his cables, and Jay struggled weakly, but the bonds held. He scrambled for the power, clawed frantically at the cages built up around his mind. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “he was going to kill you,” he said, voice scratches. The blue-eyed man offered something to the girl. Jay couldn’t believe it. The girl he saved the night that started this whole thing thought he was the monster.
As long as Cayli was safe, it didn’t matter, he told himself as fresh pinches dug razor teeth into his skin. The girl herself toggled the switch that surged her justice. The last thing he saw was the eerie smile of a proud father patting her on the shoulder.
Then all fell black and the nightmares began again.
He walked through the woods. No; he crept through the woods, careful with every step as though the wrong footfall might detonate an invisible bomb. At the left and right, others purchased similar grounds. It was in the hour before sunrise when the world held its breath before hellish light broke the horizon. He wasn’t tired, though. The opposite. His heart pound in his chest such that he put a hand to his jacket, checking the buttons holding it snug like they might burst open moment. Just an easy, steady pace. Move forward. Leaving his own heart trailing in the dirt was not in the plan. Fingers itching for activity found their comfort upon silk cords at his hip. A touchstone, and he breathed easier.
A wisp of Air brushed his face, their signal, and he halted. They all did. Jay slid to the ground, crawling by his arms forward until he was able to peer down the slope beyond. The house was exactly where he expected to find it, but no pride lit victory within. If anything, his guts twisted to knots for what they were about to do. And he was the one that led them here.
The signal flared and from the distance a storm of the one power surged. Lightning bolts struck the house, and Jay threw an arm to shield his eyes from the brightness. Fire rolled, turning night to day. When the first occupants fled the structure, Jay grit his teeth and gripped the sword hilt tight, but he didn’t move. Soldiers erupted from the compound. The barn doors were thrown open and raken escaped. He paid them no mind and sank his chin to grass. Not yet.. not yet…
Two shapes burst out finally, running low and together, darting from fire to fire. Saidin cauterized the frayed edges of his soul as he struck them down. Two more followed, this time crashing back with fires of their own. He cut them down like blades of grass. Three pairs of damane died that morning.
As sunrise lit the landscape, brothers doused the fire before it caught the woods wild. Eventually, Jay joined the cauldron and helped render the farmstead to ash. They stacked the bodies of the dead, lifting them like twigs tossed on to a pile. The raken was stripped of its skin. The leather sold fantastically high, and the Black Tower’s vaults needed replenished like everyone else.
As he rummaged through the ashes and lifted three gleaming collars from the remains. He turned the ter’angreal in his hands; they were always strangely clean. Another successful mission, he told himself.
He started to stand when he noticed the filth caking his boots. Ash washed easily enough, but what grabbed his eyesight wasn’t the flickers of metal here and there, nor the lumps of dying coals, but a motion beneath. It crawled like a rodent, though nothing could possibly survive the pyre of Asha’man incinerations. Jaw clenched, he put a hand to the hilt and backed away.
His foot landed on a knobby ridge. He gasped and spun. Motion crawled beneath the ashes all around him. The One Power flooded, and with one hand gripping the gleaming prize of the night and the other wielding the sword of his great-father, Jay watched with horror as skeletal fingers punched through. A hand clamped onto his toes. He kicked it away and stomped it to bits, kicking ash with the disturbance until it choked the air around him.
Whips of fire swept the ground, but for every arm severed, more took its place. They grabbed his feet. His ankles. He kicked and tried to run, but his feet snagged into a rib-cage and he fell. Black clouds puffed, stinging his eyes, burning his throat. When he looked up, it was to stare straight into the empty maw of a skull. He screamed, scrambling away. One ripped at his arm, tearing the sleeve. They clawed at his chest, the cloud rolling thick. He couldn’t breathe!
The sword! He grabbed the sword and swung in panicked frenzy. Fighting his way out. Arm and chest bleeding. Coughing wracked his lungs. Tears streaked black down his cheeks. Finally, he fell out of the devil’s fog. His fingers clutched at the grass, grateful for escape. Until toes peeked beneath his face. Gray fabric pooled. He looked up to the face of an angel. Dark hair rimmed her cheeks. A gentle, gray dress waved on the wind.
She knelt, tipping his chin with her girlish fingers, and Jay looked into the eyes of a girl he murdered earlier that night. When she stole the collar from his clutches and put it back on her own throat, he started to scream..
He woke with a start. Arm, chest, lungs everything burning alive. Memory hovered two worlds for a moment, reality hung in a balance, until the brute physicality of it all pulled the soul toward the present. He glanced up, and when he beheld the angelic face of a young girl with dark hair and a gray shirt, he froze.
Zacarías laid a hand on Alana’s shoulder. “I warn you daughter, he may appear frightening, but I promise you are completely safe,” he said. His daughter was thoughtful but nodded with silent determination that she was ready.
When they entered the room, they found a man slumped in a chair held up only by the bonds snaking his body. A smell lingered, but he did not think Alana would find it too unpleasant. Closer inspection found Jay Carpenter to be as pitiful as his pictures represented. It had been explained that the black streaks coursing his chest were some side-effect of the electricity surging across wet skin. Cords and clamps were tossed aside, waiting the return of Placaso.
Jay stirred, and Alana slipped from her father’s grasp to stand unafraid before the traitor. Zacarías smiled with pride while his daughter confronted the man that so greatly traumatized her.
The girl’s eyes were wide with fear. It was entirely possible he was hallucinating. He’d been dreaming, he recalled, even as the memory of it faded to oblivion.
“I saved you,” he said, voice straining above a whisper. It hurt to speak, but he had to get it out. “I’m sorry it happened that way,” he said, mind wracking for an explanation that justified the way her uncle was killed. He had none.
The girl sought something of her father, and Jay raised his gaze to the elder Amengual just long enough to understand. The blue-eyed man joined them, readying his cables, and Jay struggled weakly, but the bonds held. He scrambled for the power, clawed frantically at the cages built up around his mind. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “he was going to kill you,” he said, voice scratches. The blue-eyed man offered something to the girl. Jay couldn’t believe it. The girl he saved the night that started this whole thing thought he was the monster.
As long as Cayli was safe, it didn’t matter, he told himself as fresh pinches dug razor teeth into his skin. The girl herself toggled the switch that surged her justice. The last thing he saw was the eerie smile of a proud father patting her on the shoulder.
Then all fell black and the nightmares began again.
Only darkness shows you the light.