FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE (108 page)

     “I see. This is very intriguing. And I suppose you would like me to use my powers to reveal the identity of this murderer and explain his strange escape method
?
This is hardly a challenge for someone like me
!
I can do it, but it will be quite expensive. 300 gold coins would be fair compensation for my effort, what do you think
?
” said Channeller Styruss.

     Sky almost choked on his drink. He opened his mouth to voice his disagreement but Ray stopped him.

     “Coins _ 300 gold of these we shall compensate you if you are successful,” said Ray, much to Sky’s surprise.

     “Very well then. Please give me a moment to prepare. Meanwhile, please eat and drink,” said the Channeller as he excused himself and returned back to his room upstairs.

     Sky helped himself to another cup of orange juice. Ray and Clover still neither ate nor drank anything.

     A few male servants showed up to place various items on the coffee table in front of where the Channeller had sat. There was a small copper urn with a few incense sticks planted into it. There was also a silver bowl of clear water. The servants placed a small plate of lime fruits and a small knife as well. The last servant brought a candlestick with a burning candle and a plate with a small towel in it.

     “Please, sirs and madam, enjoy the food and drinks
!
” said the last servant to the trio, while pointing to the abundance of snacks that were already there on the coffee tables.

     Ray took out the Original Vanguard Manuscript and gave it to Clover. She took the book and laid it on the coffee table in front of her. The black Vanguard Jewel lay still in the centre of the book. Then the Channeller reappeared from the first floor, this time wearing a strange green robe.

     “Please, eat and drink. This will take a while,” said the Channeller.

     Ray and Clover nodded politely, but did not indulge. The Channeller lit the incense sticks. Sky began to feel sleepy. The Channeller then cut a lime fruit in half and squeezed the juice into the silver bowl. He then dipped his fingers into the bowl and with them, sprinkled drops of the mixture all around him. Sky’s head began to spin. Finally, the Channeller dried his fingers with the small towel and began to go into a trance of some sort. Ray began to go into the meditative state while Clover observed the Vanguard Jewel. The jewel did not move. Clover kept looking. The jewel still did not move.

    
Slump!
Sky falls to the floor. Clover turns her head towards Sky. Ray wakes up from his meditative state. He sees something moving on the first floor. Instinctively he executes a Stone Wall Spell. A wall of solid stone springs up from the ground between the trio and the walkway on the first floor, sending a sofa flying to the ceiling.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Arrowheads smash against Ray’s conjured wall. He and Clover roll away to avoid the falling sofa, which smashed against the floor and broke into pieces.

     Clover instinctively turns towards the kitchen. Ray recovers to focus his sight on the first floor. He sends a series of Pebble Darts at their attackers on the first floor. Ray hits the first male servant in the chest and the second male servant a few times in the arms. They both yell in pain and collapse. The third male servant dives for cover. The kitchen door swings open and the fourth, fifth and sixth male servants come charging with swords in their hands. Clover executes her Horizontal Tornado Spell and blows the fourth male servant backwards against the wall. The force of the impact knocks him unconscious.

     Breathing in to help summon her soul energy, Clover executes a frozen trident spell, sending the long shaft of frozen ice flying through the air and embedding it into the chest of the fifth male servant. He lets out a frustrated yell as he drops to the ground. As the sixth servant approaches Ray, he slams the end of his silver staff straight into the servant’s face, breaking the man’s nose and knocking him down. The third male servant on the first floor takes the opportunity to shoot another arrow at Ray from a kneeling position, but Clover sends a Liquid Gush Spell to knock the arrow off-target. Ray finishes up by touching the ground and executing the Stone Spike Spell, causing a bunch of long, sharp spikes to burst up from the stone walkway on the first floor and impales the last servant. He makes no sound as he dies, for the shock and intense pain of his injuries overwhelm his senses, signified by his bulging eyeballs.

     Ray turns to search for the Channeller, but to no avail. He and Clover burst out the front door. They see the Channeller running towards the main gate. Ray sends a few Pebble Darts into the Channeller’s leg and sends him crashing to the ground. As they approach him, they can hear his puppy-like whimpers.

     “Please…please don’t kill me
!
” begs the Channeller.

     “Kill _ why did you try to do of this to us
?
” asks Ray.

     “Why…why else
?
I’m a
fraud
, can’t you see
?
I knew you could sense nothing coming out of me. No pow… powers
!
Nothing
!
I… I didn’t want to be
captured
… or exposed
!
How am I going to make my living if I was
!?
You two rui... ruined everything
!
Everything
!
” wails the panicky Channeller.

     Ray bound the Channeller with some cordage from the stables. Meanwhile, Clover recovered the Original Vanguard Manuscript and woke Sky up with a blast of water from her fingertips. First came the look of confusion on his face, then came the feeling of embarrassment and then came the profuse apologies. He was a seasoned soldier and he hated himself for falling for the oldest trick in the book. He should have known better than to accept food and drinks offered by a suspect, lest it was poisoned; or luckily in this case, only laced with sedatives.

     The sun was close to setting below the horizon by the time the three soldiers and the bounded Channeller Styruss rode out from the mansion. A night at the local inn was called for, since there was no hurry to get back to Fallsene City. Sky had recommended to his comrades the ‘Gusthaven Inn’, which he described as the best inn in the whole of Southgust. The trio were weary and tired when they checked in at the inn with their prisoner. Deciding to have their dinner before going to bed, they headed straight for the in-house restaurant. They chose a table next to a pillar so that they could tie the Channeller securely to it. They left him with only one free hand to eat, tying his other hand and his whole torso to the huge wooden pillar. Then they sat down and ordered their meals. Ray ordered some bread and vegetables for himself and for the Channeller while Clover ordered salad and some mushroom soup. The Channeller quickly objected, but kept silent just as quickly when Ray gave him a cold stare. Sky then ordered the restaurant’s special.

     He felt cold and scared. His skinny body shivered with every passing breeze. He had refused the food they offered to him. He knew what they were up to, these captors of his. There he was, trapped in a small rusted cage. Inside the building, there were many people eating, dining and laughing, but he was in this cold, dimly-lit backstreet outside. The tears in his eyes were all cried out to the point they formed crusts at the corners of his eyelids. He looked at his tail. It had been round and lively once, but now it was nothing but a skinny strip of flesh, covering a set of hollow bones, hollow just like his heart. Hollow just like his hope. He looked at his hind legs. The fur had long but shed off. That
light-brown fur
of his. The thick glorious light-brown fur that was the picture of better days.

     He was careless. He got caught. He had been stuck in this small, rusty cage for days. He knew how this would end. He heard the screams of his fellow captives. Their cries for mercy that were ignored. Their prayers of salvation that were never answered. And what form of humanity is this
?
If this be the conduct of humans, what right do they have to call themselves humans
?
Humanity
!?
Phah
!
This very term is nothing but an elegant proof of human egotism. To have defined
truth
,
justice, equality, compassion, morality
and any form of
righteous conduct
as ‘humanity’ was truly an overstatement
!
Yes, he knew how it would end. It would end just the way it did for his friends.

     He could remember like it was just yesterday. He remembered when he opened his eyes and first saw the world. How a gentle lick from his mother gave him the first sense of being touched, and being loved. How his brothers and sisters pounced on him in the games that they played for endless months. Yes, he remembered how it all started, this joy called life. Then his father came and taught him and his siblings how to scavenge. The garbage bin behind the butcher’s shop was the best source of food. But certain bones and meat were prohibited and would be left untouched. ‘We do not eat our own kind
!
’ was what his father had said to him. Soon the circle that he knew grew. It was not just his parents and siblings, but the group from their neighbourhood was whom he had also hung out with. Life was a great
!
It was spent from scavenge to scavenge and from game to game. They ran around like wild and free horses. They marked their territory and scared off potential trespassers with their barks and bites. But always, no matter how hungry they got, they never ate their own kind
!

     Then one day, his father carelessly crossed a busy road and was struck down by a carriage. His mother died of grief a few weeks later. His siblings had each found a mate and started their own families. Some had even left the town, preferring to take their chances in the wild. A few had stayed back. Now his nieces and nephews were part of his group. He taught them the games that he and his siblings used to play. And he taught them their golden rule, ‘We do not eat our own kind
!
’ They hunted and they scavenged together. And they moved together, like one big family.

     But the humans had other plans
!
And one by one the ranks of his group perished, caught and trapped by these cruel, two-legged creatures. These vile creatures, who think that they were the master-supreme of The Creator’s good land
!
He had heard many a howling and a pleading for salvation and rescue from his captured friends and relatives, but had never seen a single escape. Once they were caught, they were doomed
!
He saw it all, the good of life and the bad of life. Somehow deep inside, he knew his time would also come. He just did not know when or how.

     He sees the chef coming. This is it
!
This is
his
end
!
He will not go down without a fight
!
But he knows that to go down he will and in the most cruellest and torturous of ways, too. No sin or transgression has he ever done or could ever do could justify this treatment
!
But the end is the end. He barks and he tries his best to bite, but he is in the sack now. Then the first blow comes. He too, cries out. He too, prays for salvation. If truly there is a God out there, then where is the
mercy?
Where is the
compassion?
Where is the
love?
Where is the
salvation?
Or even the
justice?

     Ray’s order came first, followed by the Channeller’s. Just a few short moments later, Clover’s order was served. Just as Ray was about to take his first bite, he heard whimpering sounds coming from the kitchen. Then came the desperate cry of an animal in pain. Ray stood up. So did Clover. Something was wrong here. Very wrong
!

     Ray marched through the kitchen door, leaving behind his silver staff and everything else. Clover and Sky followed closely behind. Sky was curious to see where the two Elementhars were going. They followed the sound to the back door where, to Ray and Clover’s horror, they found that the desperate cries were coming from a sack suspended from a wooden beam that was supported by two steady posts. The sack was moving and wiggling and three men were beating it with clubs over and over again. And every stroke of the club produced the most pitiful, heart-wrenching cries that Ray and Clover had ever heard.

     “Stop
!
” yelled Ray.

     “What
!?
” replied one of the three men, whom Ray had just noticed, were all dressed up like chefs.