Dark Eyes, Burning Like Death (666 hits)
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Submitted by Magicaddict (View user info) at 2004-06-16 10:54:55 EDT
Pt 1: A Rake's Early Progress - http://www.ubersite.com/m/35727
It is said that the lucky and cats fall on their feet. Even now I change my opinion daily as to whether the six months following my departure from the Morridar estate revealed me as a lucky cat or a luckless cur.
I had quickly left the main road, which would eventually lead me to the capital city of Aneron and eventually the border with Scarafor, in favour of a more scenic route across open country. I wanted to test myself and the skills I had been taught. My fighting was proven, but what of its transferable properties? Surely a snare that could trap a man could trap a rabbit, a well-trained soldier was as unwise to my approach as a wild stag and, well, a wound from an arrow bound no differently to a wound from the same stag's antler. All very un-soldierlike, and father would never have approved, but I adored it, and it worked. For what I think was about two weeks, I wandered as I pleased, hardly straying in sight of civilisation and not caring the distance I travelled. For all I knew, and in a sorry regression from my training, had someone asked me where I was during that time, I wouldn't have known - or cared - which country I was in.
I found I liked forests best - they had a beauty about them that was truly unique. Everywhere I turned there was magical scenery. Everywhere I looked something was moving, something was alive and going about its business, but with none of the bustle and disruption of a large city. Before I had known forests only as places of noise and bluster as my father led a hunt. Now, making as little disturbance as possible, I came to appreciate their dynamic stillness - it was at once exhilarating and restful by turns.
It was in one of these forests that my life took rather a downturn, starting when I heard a scream.
It wasn't normal to hear a scream in a forest. Maybe the call of a bird or a rabbit rustling through the leaves, but not a scream. Worse, this was no ordinary scream.
It was the sound of a man, though no man with all of his faculties could have made such a noise. It was the cry of a man devoid of any hope or reason to live, with only despair and death to look forward to. Without thought, I was off towards its source at a dead run. If it was bandits, I was well equipped to deal with them, and if it was a fatal hunting accident, I imagined myself to be a better binder of wounds than anyone they would have in the party.
As I mentioned before, we all make mistakes.
When I quietly arrived on the scene, the screaming had stopped and I heard two people in calm discussion. A moment's investigation showed me a man and woman standing over a heavily stabbed corpse with their backs to me, the man wiping off a knife he had obviously just used. Too late to prevent the first option, I thought. Bandits who had taken a life - a personal favourite of mine. Behind and to the left of them, I was in the wrong place to launch a sneak attack, and wasn't about to charge them head on, so I settled down to wait for the right moment.
What happened in the following few minutes will remain gouged into my memory for the rest of my life.
The woman was just over average height, and young, with flowing black hair that reached as far as her waist. Indeed she seemed to have patterned her clothing after her hair, dressed in a long black dress with similar coloured lace, and a black velvet cloak. A spellcaster, I thought - she moved with the grace and spoke with the authority of one used to weaving magic.
She was leading the discussion, telling the man to set the body just so, facing the "right" direction, and prompting him to remember what he had learned. He was a little shorter than her, and rather older and more gnarled. He had the same air of self-assurance about him that named gave him away as another spellcaster, but he had a little less authority about his actions, almost as if...yes, she was teaching him something.
The penny dropped with a sickening thud. There is only one type of magic that involves the dead.
The woman retreated some distance from the man and the corpse, and proceeded to watch him intently. He set himself facing the body, his features showing wear and tear that spoke of a long life casting very draining arcane. He lowered his head, and raised his hands in a wide arc chanting an incantation. I didn't want to consider what he was doing, but it's blatant obviousness forced itself ungraciously into my mind. She was obviously excited by what was happening, and he was working himself up into some kind of crazed state, judging by the volume and maniacal cadence of his speech. With a screamed final word, he brought his hands down and pointed them open palmed at the body. For a few moments nothing happened.
Then it's hand twitched.
It was all I could do to curtail my scream into a sharp intake of breath, but this, unfortunately, was not enough. As if on springs, both of their heads snapped round and faced my direction, staring intently, as the woman began to speak an incantation of her own.
Her face was beautiful, as wise looking as it was youthful and with very pale skin, though her eyes were a cold enough blue to make her overall outlook a combination of fire tempered with ice that would have been truly disturbing if it had merely remained the same.
However, as she spoke, I swear to this day that I watched her eyes change colour. Her ice-cold stare clouded over and was replaced by pools of pure black. No whites, no coloured ring around a black dot, just two black surfaces where her eyes had been.
The last thing I saw before I turned and bolted was the corpse raising its arm into the air.
I ran like I had never done before. Necromancy. I had just watched someone raise an undead. Not only illegal, but sickening to the heart and as wrong and evil as it was possible to be. The thought of it twisted my stomach, razed my mind and numbed my legs. I wanted to throw up, to scream violently and cry with despair for the poor soul they had just imprisoned, but I knew that all that remained was my attempt at escape from whatever this duo had in store for me.
Two piles of leaves stood up on either side of me and made grabs for my arms and legs.
Without thinking, I pivoted forward and broke into a role on my right shoulder, drawing my knives from their scabbards in the small of my back as I did so. The thought had occurred to me that they weren't going to make much imprint on these plants, but I felt safer with them in my hands. As I completed my roll, I made a slash at the "arms" grabbing for me. The knives made no impression whatsoever and all I got was an arm gash of my own from the creature's makeshift claws.
I ran, my heart pounding with abject terror, never stopping or slowing down. Around me, more plant creatures stood up out of the leaf litter - two, three, four at a time, they made attempts to grab me. Transferable properties of my skills? Yes, I managed to evade them - the prospect of being faced with those eyes again ensured that, but I only hoped I could keep get far enough away to evade them before the pace I was setting killed me.
I shouldn't have been hoping, I should have been looking.
A hand shot out from behind a tree and grabbed my face. I lost my footing and tumbled forward, but was pulled back and held against the tree.
"Be quiet and don't move, or we'll both die."
The assailant's other hand passed in front of us, and the air shimmered a little. A leaf construct shambled into view, and straight past us. It didn't even stop to look in our direction. Somehow, my mystery saviour had managed to mask our existence from it. I wasn't about to complain.
We stayed that way for minutes, while other constructs shuffled past. After they had gone, my mouth was released and I turned to look at who had grabbed me. He looked straight back.
"Who was it? Who did you see?"
"Nec...it...was...nec..."
"Yes, yes, necromancy, I know. Who was doing it? Male or female? Short or tall?"
I blacked out.
I woke up.
A woman was kneeling down to the side of me, holding the gash on my arm and uttering a quiet incantation. She let go before I had what I thought was the good sense to jerk it away and push myself back from her.
"You are safe here."
It wasn't the woman with the eyes. This one was a little fairer, and wearing a dirty white robe, as if she had been hard at work in a garden all day. It's funny the things you remember when you're half delirious.
I looked around. I was in a cave near it's entrance, along with the woman, the man who hidden me and what looked like another man, though he looked more feral than human. I looked down at my arm, and was surprised to see that the angry wound I had been sporting only moments earlier was now completely healed. My level of confusion was rising, and was not helping my brain to reorder itself. I began to feel floaty again. The feral looking man stared at me like I was some kind of animal, and the other man peered out at the forest as if he were looking for something hard to spot.
"You will not be harmed, we will protect you."
She spoke again. How would you plan to do that, my mind idly thought as I began to drop off again.
"My name is Aurora. My brother just saved your life."
I blacked out again.
Miaow.
User Reviews
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2004-06-16 17:03:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Why has this only got 6 reviews??
Blinding.
Submitted by StonedSilly (user info) at 2004-06-16 14:42:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Magicaddict, you're quickly becoming my favorite writer on this site.
Submitted by indigogecko (user info) at 2004-06-16 13:21:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
top notch, once again.
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2004-06-16 12:28:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh wow... you kick just a little bit of ass I think.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2004-06-16 12:19:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oooh... send shivers down my spine, it did.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2004-06-16 11:57:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Rock, Rock On!
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2004-06-16 11:45:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
These were both excellent. I am looking forward to reading more.