Bound to the Abyss (32 page)

With his companions out of site, Ean found a good clearing to open up his Pocket. Taking a seat right in the middle, he pulled off both his leather gloves; the tattoos on his right arm glowed faintly. Other than the short amount of time the previous day, it felt like days since he had taken either one of his gloves off, and his hands were starting to cramp as well as smell. Once off, he tossed the two elbow length gloves off to the side and took a good long look at his arms.

Both were so completely different now that they felt like someone else’s arms. His left, horribly scarred from the Hound’s saliva, was pale. The skin looked like a patched-up cloak of different colors where the drops of saliva had hit, a mass of scars where the teeth of the Hound had done their damage. It still made him self-conscious around other people, all of those burns and scars, but they were a reminder of the danger summoning anything from the Abyss posed to everyone around him, as well as himself.

His right arm, covered in twisting and intertwining dark blue tattoos that seemed to flow out of his palm and around his hand and arm, was completely different. Slightly tanner from being exposed more to the sun before he had received the tattoos, the skin was completely smooth and untouched. Even the tattoos did nothing to mar the skin, feeling no different as he ran his fingers over them. He had seen and felt other tattoos before, and the skin had been slightly raised around the outlines. That wasn’t the case with his own. Of course, no one else’s tattoos glowed either; the light coming off of his exposed arm was strong enough at the moment to create shadows of branches and trees a dozen paces away.

He needed to be quick. Ean opened himself up to the energies of the Abyss, letting them flow and churn into and around his body. The light coming off his tattoos tripled in strength until the intensity bathed the entire clearing with a dark blue hue. Placing his glowing hand on the ground, he pictured the runes necessary to open up his Pocket.

As fast as the image appeared in his mind, light shot out of his hands, tracing out the required runes along the ground. The circle was completed quickly. He had kept it small, and it immediately disappeared as an opening to the Abyss appeared in its place. Ean reached down and felt around until he discovered the small sack that contained his most intimate possessions. Pulling out the sack, he let the portal close and the runes disappear as soon as the sack was clear and pushed the energies of the Abyss from his body just as quick. Zin’s warning from the night before about the Seekers was still fresh in Ean’s mind, so he wanted to have the portal closed and the energy out of his body as fast as possible.

Opening up the sack, he ignored the other items and grabbed The Abysmal Tome. Book in hand, Ean moved to a spreading oak tree at the center of the clearing. Sitting down, he leaned against its massive trunk, found a comfortable position, and got to work deciphering runes. He was going to keep at it until his friends woke up, no matter how long it took. And he wouldn’t let his mind wander either, like it had so often done in the past. He was going to stay focused on the task at hand.

Placing the book on his lap, he closed his eyes, felt for a random page, and then opened the book wide and looked. A page completely filled with runes and words written in the language of the Abyss. That wouldn’t help much; he needed something with at least one picture as a reference. He flipped over a couple more pages until he finally reached a page with creatures he had never seen before.

The creatures had humanoid facial features and bodies covered in flames. One had a curvaceous feminine figure while another had the masculine form of a male. The same name was written in bold symbols below both pictures in the language of the Abyss. He scanned the pages for other symbols he recognized but only managed to pick out a few words. Bond, growth, intelligence — words he had been able to pry out of Zin years ago.

A creature made of flame was certainly interesting enough for Ean to stay on the page. Sentences were written from the top of the page to the bottom instead of left to right. He didn’t know the majority of what he was reading and had no idea where one sentence ended and the next began. After running through both pages five separate times, he was unable to decipher its meaning with any degree of certainty. Tossing the book to the ground in disgust, he leaned back and began to knock his head gently on the tree behind him.

“I’ll never figure things out at this rate,” he groaned softly. Closing his eyes, he let his mind clear and tried to calm himself down. Which was how, in his more focused state, he was able to feel Zin approaching.

Opening his eyes, he kept a neutral face as Zin approached.

“Are the others up?” Ean hoped that they weren’t. He wasn’t quite ready to grab a quick meal and start moving again. Especially since they had no idea where in the forest they were and which direction they needed to go. “Or did you just wake up on your own?”

“No, the two lovebirds are still asleep,” Zin said stifling a yawn.

A playful jab at Ean’s feelings for Jaslen, or a hurtful one? Ean hoped it had been a playful one. “Yeah, well, you looked pretty comfy all spread out. Anyway, why don’t you try being useful and help me decipher some new words from The Abysmal Tome.”

Zin gave a non-committal shrug and walked over, which was strange as the imp usually avoided anything when it came to the book or the topic of the Abyss. Looking down at the Tome, he gave a small laugh. “You don’t want to mess with these. They’re quite dangerous to keep around for very long.”

“What are they?”

“Brucanima -- living flames. Basically, if you gave intelligence and emotions to a cooking fire, you would get a Brucanima.” The imp laughed again, clearly amused by something. “They are more emotion than intelligence though. A Brucanima could refuse to light even a spark for something it didn’t like. It could also set an entire forest on fire for something it did like and then become confused when the creature it liked died from the flames. All of the living elements are the same, all overflowing with emotion, whether it’s a flame, earth, wind, or water —”

The imp’s voice cut off sharply at the last word. He glanced at Ean for a moment, then returned his gaze to the book. They sat there in silence for a while, Ean letting the imp’s words bounce around in his head until he was finally ready to speak.

“A living water spirit like the one that killed my parents, you mean.”

Ean was surprised at how lifeless his voice sounded as he spoke about the death of his parents. Sure, he barely remembered them, and they had been the cause of most of the anger directed towards him from the citizens of Rottwealth, but they were still his parents. He shrugged off the thought. He rarely thought about them, so why should he be surprised at himself for feeling numb whenever he thought about how they had died?

Lost in his own thoughts for a moment, Ean ignored the awkward silence that he had created. Zin refused to ignore it, though, coughing slightly before speaking again.

“I’m sorry Ean. Maybe we should look at some of the other sections—”

“No. It’s fine, Zin. I’m not going to let two people I barely knew weaken my resolve. I want to learn.”

“Ean, this isn’t just about ‘two people.’ These were your parents. It’s ok to mourn and think about them.”

“Think about them? Were they thinking about me any of the nights they got drunk at the Golden Coin? Were they thinking about me, or anyone for that matter, the night they got drunk and wandered down to Rottwealth’s spring? It was a spring back then, you know, home to one of these living water spirits you mentioned.”

“The water ones are called Vunvuanima.”

“Whatever they are called, the one living in Rottwealth was peaceful. Helpful even. It kept the spring clean and provided the farmers with water that not only nourished their crops but aided in their growth. This Vunvuanima was a blessing to the village, and my parents thought it would be fun to insult and attack the creature in their drunken stupor.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to—”

“To what?” Ean struggled to hold onto the numbness he felt towards his parents, but anger was starting to break through. “Didn’t mean to get killed by the creature? Didn’t mean to anger it to the point that it turned the spring into a stagnant marsh that no one could use? Didn’t mean to turn the whole village against me when I was too young to even know what was going on?”

“Ean, I…”

“Nevermind Zin. Just nevermind. It’s in the past. I’m going to succeed in helping Rottwealth, show the people there that I’m nothing like them. And if they still can’t see that, I’ll move on. I know I can now. What happened in Rensen showed me that. So let’s just get back to trying to figure out the Tome.”

“Yes, well uh, back to the Brucanima. Like I mentioned, they are quite dangerous, even the youngest of their kind.” Reaching down, Zin held his hand up to about ankle-high. “The youngest are about this tall and can barely light a campfire. The largest, though, they can grow to sizes much larger than that Cruxlum you summoned, given they have an abundant amount of materials to consume, of course.”

Nodding, Ean returned his attention back to the open book. “Can you read any of these runes or words? If you know about the Brucanima, maybe you would recognize some of them.”

Ean had expected an immediate denial from Zin, but instead the little imp sat down next to the book and spun it around to get a better look. How many times in the past had Ean asked for help and been denied? Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, he decided not to comment and instead let the imp examine the pages.

"Well," the imp said after a few moments of scanning the pages. "This word here means flame, as does this single rune.” He pointed to a word Ean never would have guessed meant flame, while the rune at least he could pick out what looked like a flame inside of it.

"And this one here," Zin said, continuing on, "means young or small depending on how it is used.”

This continued, Zin pointing out words he knew while Ean tried his best to take it all in. By the time Zin was finished with the words on the two open pages, Ean had learned close to twenty new words. When Zin had finished, Ean's curiosity about why the imp was helping him was finally too much to take.

"Zin, I've been asking you for years now to help me learn the language of the Abyss, and you've turned me down or changed the subject each time. What made you all of the sudden so receptive to helping me?”

The imp shrugged uncomfortably, avoiding Ean’s eyes. “I was hesitant before for your protection. Can you imagine what might have happened if you gained too much knowledge too quickly while we were still in your village? If you became over confident in your abilities while there, what’s to say you wouldn’t try and summon something out of your league or even worse, try to summon something out of anger? By the Abyss, can you imagine what the village would have done to you if you had summoned something right out in the middle of the town square? If you summoned the wrong creature, it could wipe out the entire village. How would that have made you feel if you survived?”

“I wouldn’t have been that upset about — ”

“Don’t even try to act hard in front of me, boy,” the imp said, cutting him off. “I’ve known you long enough to recognize these walls you put up to try and act like you don’t care, but I know better. Given the opportunity, you would happily be the savior of Rottwealth, and not out of spite. You want people to like you, no matter how they treat you and how much you may deny it.”

Boy? Zin had never spoken to him like that before. He felt like he was five again, being lectured by Old Cleff after knocking over and breaking a container of herbs, and what was worse was that he was feeling bad about it.

“Maybe I do, Zin, but it doesn’t much matter. The more power I get, the more I’m connected to the Abyss, and the more people will fear me and want to see me dead.”

“That’s not entirely true. You have the chance to change how people view Ze’an and the Abyss.” Frowning, the imp got up and began to pace back and forth. “Do you know why people fear the Abyss?”

“Well, it sounds like it’s the creatures Ze’an has created and escape from these Scars that cause all of the negative feelings towards Ze’an.”

“Yes, yes, that’s disturbing for people to think about, I’m sure, but I don’t believe that’s the real reason for the fear.”

“And you think you know the real reason.”

Zin shot a glance at Ean and nodded, then returned to his pacing. Ean just stood and stared at the imp, waiting for more, but Zin didn’t break his silence. The forest seemed to be awakening; squirrels were coming down out of the trees looking for food, the occasional bird flew overhead chirping away, and all the while the imp stayed quiet.

“Zin, I need to know.” Ean voice was quiet, especially compared to the noises of the forest, but it caused Zin to finally stop moving. With a sigh, the imp hung his head, his hands balling up into fists.

“Many years ago, I’m not sure how long, there was a man who could control the energies from the Abyss like you.” The imp’s voice was equally low, enough so that Ean had to lean forward to hear him better. “He lived further north, past what is now Lurthalan, where the majority of your people used to live. At first, I think this man was considered a Hero, but by the time I came into his service, something had changed him. All he cared about was his own power, so much so that he eventually turned against everyone in your realm. The humans and even some other races tried to stop him, but he had hordes of creatures at his command. He subjugated most of the people and did horrible things to keep them in line, but with power came the fear of losing it.”

Zin paused, giving a slight shudder. Ean couldn’t blame the imp. As Zin was talking, flashes of Ean’s nightmares had gone running through his head. Was he going to become a monster like that as well?

Zin’s voice, though mellow, cut through his thoughts like a knife. “Hoping to gain even more control over the creatures of the Abyss and access to the energies that reside there, the man attempted to cut a hole into the earth and create a direct route straight to the Abyss. This made everyone under his control desperate, those that were constantly being threatened and tormented. I didn’t actually see what happened, but somehow, they were able to kill the man before he accomplished his goal.”