The Flame of Wrath (33 page)

             
Maven shifted her eyes in the direction of the night sky. Her brows furrowed in thought. “There might be something,” she began pensively.

             
Donovan impulsively took a seat near her. “What is it?” he asked.

             
“A question first,” Maven whispered. “What do you fear most? Logos or Aurea's wrath?”

             
A queasy sickness began to torment the King's stomach. “I honestly cannot say.” His voice dropped from its usual commanding thunder. “Both frighten me more than I can say.” An odd sort of shame accompanied his body language at this admission. “I cannot fail,” he added with quiet earnest. “In two days.... the invasion will ensure my life or my death.”

             
Maven reached out and lightly touched his cheek. She compelled his eyes to find hers once more. She stared into him for a time-stilling moment. Her eyes sought out the truest feelings in his being. She shifted her eyes past him to the doors remained slightly apart. “Close the door,” she breathed.

********

              In the fields of golden reeds an unprecedented division stood awaiting their signal to move. They were as glittering stars fighting to remain brilliant within a dying night. Golden armor voiced their virtue or so it had been said by the glorious vision standing before them.

             
Aurea wore radiant white. Her silken toga conformed to her sensuous form in an effort to tantalize the eyes as well as the soul. She grew more beautiful with every passing day. It was rivaled only by her surmounting power.

             
Full blond curls had been pulled up from her graceful neck. Each tress was meticulously held in place by golden thread and glinting diamonds.

             
She lifted her left hand, causing her bare shoulder to dance. “Fear nothing, my blessed army of Light,” she soothed. “Today you succeed where only legends reign.”

             
Aurea scoured over the sea of proud faces. These strong men and women were poised on the abyss of destiny, prepared to claim it with all the zeal in their hearts. Her eyes stopped as she caught sight of their leader.

             
Donovan stood holding the reigns to his white owl. His golden armor was more ornate than anything Aurea had ever seen. She knew that the symbols lining it had been placed there as a means of protection. Through the lion mask of his helmet, she could see his intense blue eyes. She studied them closely, unable to read their innermost emotions.

             
The Empress drew close to him. As she approached, the soldiers dropped to one knee in a slow-moving golden wave. She cupped the face of her chosen general. Tenderly, she bestowed a favoring kiss to a lion's savage brow. “You will be victorious,” she predicted.

             
A silent young boy stepped forward. In his hands, he carried a golden bowl. He struggled not to spill a drop of the blood filling it to the brim.

             
Aurea dipped two fingertips inside the red nectars. She smeared an arc across the forehead of his mask, completing the act of protection. Her eyes met Donovan's deeply. “The Book of Wrath says no harm can come to you now.” She watched as he could only nod.

             
As Donovan moved away, another soldier took his place. The Empress lifted her eyes momentarily to the field. Her priests of Virtue were tending to the masses, anointing them for their journey to Logos. When the last of her army had felt the fiery kiss of phoenix's blood, she knew it was time. Her head turned to gaze in the direction of the approaching dawn and with it, the slow-creeping fog.

             
Maven moved forward. Her heart thundered violently inside her chest. She looked away just long enough to hold Donovan's eyes.

             
He stared at her with a memory racing throughout his mind.
Close the door,
he heard Maven purr and as a man having heard a siren's song, he obeyed. He would not forget. His eyes voiced as much.

             
“Logos,” the young pages called earnestly. They ran along the column lines warning all of the land's impending closeness.

             
The trumpeters sounded the call to action.

             
As the Empress pointed her finger to the sky, her army of anointed followers took flight. She kept her eyes on her coveted prize as the sky became thick with golden soldiers.

             
The light of morning was obscured by the huge owls taking soldiers and supplies to the floating isle.

             
The Empress smiled triumphantly. It would not be long before her army reigned Logos and her towers barricaded the island. Aurea felt her chest swell with the moment.

             
“Logos
will
be mine,” she whispered.

********

              A mighty howl filled the air. It was the island's lament. Logos was screaming beneath the massive wooden planks being driven into the earth.

             
The military carpenters slammed together walls with demonic speed. They had to work in a frenzied pace to erect the towers at all four points of the isle. Around each tower a fort was built to shelter the armies of Virtue which would inhabit Logos, thereby enforcing that Logos was now under Pyrosian rule.

             
Each nail driven into the skeletal structure of the man-made abomination was answered by the passionate blows of the mystical creatures of Logos attacking the Pyrosian forces. It was a struggle for their lives on both sides. The creatures of Logos were fighting for life as they had known it all these millennia while Donovan's men were battling to save themselves from death, either at the hands of these mythical beings or at Aurea's order upon their failure.

             
When the last of the forts had been constructed, they each stood as the dawn of a new era, Empress Aurea's era. It was the downfall of what had once remained untouched and pristine.

             
The sky swirled with dark violet clouds. It crackled with angry lightning. Then as if to break the very sky, a flag of piercing white was hoisted upward brutally. The flag whipped bitterly in the harsh winds. In the flag's heart, a glittering gold star encompassed by radiating rays of light said what words could not.

             
Aurea, Empress of Pyros, had conquered the Land of Logos.

Chapter Twelve

When stars sleep, their light is lost to the night sky. We mourn the loss of their beauty. We plead for their return, but all that is, is black.

-----Book of Wrath

********

             
Time ravaged the earth with an angry hand. It spared no one from its clawed arrival. None felt its stinging caress more than the druids of Pyros. With each tear shed by the druids, another tear was empathetically released by their leader, Soren.

             
Shadows reigned over his existence where once there had been divine light. He traversed the underground world which had taken him nearly one year to find. As he gazed around its crumbling strength, he instantly felt a kinship with this subterranean world. Once it had been beautiful. Once it had been a haven to great knowledge and life, but all that remained now were the echoes of something long forgotten.

             
Soren hugged his body tightly. He walked with a downcast head. In the absolute darkness of this world, his blindness mattered very little. What images he could see were the ghostly auras of spirits not yet realizing their time had passed. As he watched them flutter by, he wondered if perhaps he was like them. He agonized over the possibility. After all, had the time of the druids not ended?

             
With a tiny whimper, he pushed that thought away. If their time had come to a close then so be it, but it should be because the druids themselves had chosen their Fate. The decision of their end should not belong to a tyrannical ruler set upon genocide.

             
His hand snaked upward to clutch his pounding head. He could hear them. He could hear them all so loudly. Their voices stalked him without end. He was the trembling prey and they---- they were the hunters set upon ravenous consumption.

             
Ones thoughts can be a dangerous enemy. And yet, if the thoughts had been his alone, he might have stood a chance of keeping some semblance of sanity. Unfortunately for his pounding head, these were the thoughts of the many. The druids were all tied to him and their every fear floated in the air like a mist. They fell upon him, saturating all he was and knew.

             
He walked almost aimlessly until he found himself lost among an ancient temple. A towering statue of stone loomed over him. In the blackness, it glowed with twinkling moss accentuating the features of a noble dragon.

             
Beneath its face of eerie emerald and shadowy ebony, Soren knelt. He extended his lithe hand. His index finger slowly began to scribe mystical archaic symbols within the earthen floor. As he wrote from right to left, his eyes were vacuous orbs of red.

             
Each word to grace the soot was met with the rise of softly spoken whispers. Their hushed origins were everywhere and nowhere.

             
Nothing existed visibly within the temple, but Soren, himself. And yet, something had come to noticeably weight the air with its looming presence.

             
On the horizon, a vertical line was birthed of darkness. It was a line of shimmering light. As the text grew further and further down the earth's black-bellied scroll, the dancing line of gold began to swell.

             
A reverent tear trickled down his porcelain cheek. He was in the presence of the thread of time. It seemed so strong at first. Yet as he wrote the final word, the word pertaining to the ones he sought, the ethereal light of the thread waned. It transformed from a brilliant gold to a pained red. Then it began to writhe like a small flame beneath a cold wind.

             
The word to doom the thread of time to weakness had been a simple one. Druid.

             
Kneeling with his finger still poised within the dirt, Soren struggled with what to do next. It was then that he decided upon a desperate act, an act of finality. Everything in him pleaded against his actions. He thought that it felt all too much like admitting their defeat, but if he did not, if he held out in his stubbornness, all could be lost.

             
He wrote another incantation with a trembling hand.

             
A parchment materialized from the remnants of twinkling dust. As it drew together to form a tangible surface the quivering thread of time intermingled with it. It interwove so precisely as if Soren had taken to spinning the thread with nimble fingers.

             
“And so our stories lives on,” he murmured, “interwoven in the fabric of eternity even if we are lost.”

_________________

              When the collective wish of a people is not for future accomplishments, but simply to be remembered by the future at all, it is clear that all hope is lost. I know this to be true because it is this very motivation which stirs us to write.

_________________

              “Do you know the story of how Druids came to be?”

             
It was a question asked to me when I was very young. I could only turn my head in the direction of my mother's voice while lost in wonder. I was far too young to realize that my life would be one of trials, one of spirituality and inevitably one of immortality.

             
As my mother sat near the fire, she took me tenderly into her arms. I felt her warmth as she scooped my little body effortlessly from the ground. She guided me to rest against her as I sat contentedly upon her lap.

             
I remember the scent of her hair. It always smelt of flowers. Her skin was always warm and soft, smelling of sweet milk and honey.

             
Being born blind, I had never known the vision of my mother's face, but those things... her touch, her scent, the sound of her familiar shuffling, they allowed me to see her in ways others could not.

             
I listened to her heart beating evenly as we sat bathed in the fire's warmth.

             
“You are so much like your grandmother,” she said. “She was born without sight, but one day she gained a new sight. You will as well, my joy.... my Soren.”

             
Swaddling me closer, she then told me the story which I share with you now. It was the story which would forever change my young life.

             
Long ago
, she said,
when the world was still new, two brothers walked amidst the trees.

             
The first brother was strong and brave. He was so near to leaving behind all childish things to become a young man. He was Sage.

             
The second brother was young and hopeful. His eyes were alight with adoration as he followed behind his brother. He was Omen.

             
Omen tottered behind his brother. He hefted Sage's sword in a wobbly embrace. He was determined that one day he too would be as strong as his big brother.

             
On their walk, Omen was distracted by a presence he felt near to him. Slowly, he began to lag behind.

             
As the little boy searched the horizon, he found that two glowing eyes peered from the darkness of the trees.

             
The Dragon loomed in waiting, watching over him keenly.

             
They say that Omen cried out in such pain that his voice could be heard throughout the land. The immense heat of the Dragon caused his very eyes to catch alight with flame.              

             
Sage heard the cries of his beloved brother. Terrified, he doubled back. He shouted and called for Omen all the while.

What he found horrified him.

              Omen knelt in agony. The flames towered high into the sky as the young boy's face lurched skyward in absolute lament.

             
Unable to bear the sight of his brother in such pain, Sage lowered to the ground. He touched his forehead to the earth in a bow though he had never knelt to anything or anyone before in his life.

             
“Please, spare my brother!” he pleaded. “I will take on his pains so that he might be spared.”

             
The Dragon was so impressed by the young man's willingness to shelter his brother that She decided to spare Omen from the full-extent of knowing Her touch.

             
The fires of Omen's eyes dimmed to live as beautiful flaming pupils and Omen no longer knew pain. Returning to his tranquil beauty, he turned his head with the sound of his brother crying out instead.

             
Sage stifled his sobs, determined to honor the deal which he had made and to do what he must to save his brother. The small arms reaching out to hold him only furthered his resolve.

             
Sage weakly rose to his feet. He took Omen into his arms. Cradling his youngest brother, he saw the flames of Omen's eyes, but Omen's eyes were not alone their transformation. Sage's eyes had changed as well. They were now a blunt crimson with even deeper scarlet pupils.
             

             
“So you see,” my mother said, “Sage became the world's first druid and Omen became the first Chosen Child. Just as it was true for the brothers, a relationship exists between the Sovereign Child and the druids. The druids exist to protect the Dragon Child.”

             
I was so very young. I did not fully understand. The Dragon seemed scary to me then. Why had She punished the little boy, Omen?

             
For many nights, I dreamed of having my eyes burned. I would wake screaming.

             
It was some time later before I could ask my mother the question weighing heavily upon my young mind.

             
She held me close to console me. “Sweet Soren, Omen was not chosen as punishment. He was chosen because of his purity.”

             
“Then why did She burn him?” I asked.

             
“He was not burned by the Dragon, but merely overwhelmed by the intense vision of seeing what cannot be seen.”

             
“What cannot be seen?” I had wondered aloud.

             
For many years, I did not understand. Mother did her best to be a guiding hand. When I reached the age of seven, her influence was replaced by the guidance of the druids. For you see, like Sage's eyes had changed late in life so too had mine. Most druids were born with crimson eyes. Mine had been a milky blue for much of my life until one day I awoke to greet the world with blood eyes.

             
The druids came to me one rainy day. I was to live among them and begin my education.

             
Like I had wondered of little Omen, I found myself pondering if I had been chosen for some kind of punishment. I was scared and alone in a place I did not understand and I did not know why. Why had these men taken me away? When would I be with my family again? My mother?

             
I had always been told that I was of noble blood, that I was meant for aristocracy. That promise would no longer come true. The lavish life of a High Lord's son was contrary to everything a druid's life entailed.  Soren of the Wrath province was simply a young apprentice among so many other young apprentices. That sudden loss of my identity frightened me. I felt exposed and vulnerable. I became introverted. Hiding away from the world around me seemed the only option for a frightened boy. In my eyes, I had been sentenced to a life of unhappiness within a prison.

             
The next great change to befall my life was and continues to be unique to any druid within the sect. For you see, I alone exist in all the world, who can still claim Wrath as their home.

             
Were you to scour the maps of our land, my province would not appear before your eyes. It was consumed by time long ago. From the glorious mountains to cast their shadow upon our lands came fire's rain. The earth ripped until its innermost recesses bled.

             
No one can say exactly how the province was taken. Some believe that the province had finally paid penance for the mistakes of the one for which the province was named. Some believe that the people of the land had so angered the Dragon that She extended Her powerful claws and sliced a gaping wound into the earth where Wrath sank.

             
To this day, I do not know what I believe. There was much chaos in the province though my parents attempted to shelter me from it. All I knew to be true was that my family was gone. My home was gone.

             
The druids rallied around me. It was then that I learned I was the only druid to come from the province in centuries. They did their best to ease my pains. It did not diminish the pain of having lost my family, but it did teach me that these people whom I had viewed as strangers were in fact brothers hoping to stand by me.

             
I threw myself into my studies after that. I learned all that I could, including how to view the world through auras. Again my life was forever changed. It was as my mother had once said. Like my grandmother before me, I had gained new sight.