M.J. Markgraf
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Kingdom of Rust Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2022-04-19 11:34:55 +0000 UTCLost in my own thoughts, I only caught brief portions of the conversations between the three Chosen. The black-skinned, tall, bald man tried getting my attention a few times but I was in no condition to respond.
“He’s in shock,” I heard the other man say. Although, I didn’t agree with his reasoning for my condition, being the eight men attacking me.
That was barely a blip on my mind as I tried to deny the fact that I killed the one person in this world I truly cared about.
At first, I tried to explain away the man in the village as someone that just reminded me of Gan. But that was delusional at best. There were too many little things that pointed to it being Gan, now that I knew what to look for. There was of course the familiar haircut. Gan always liked to be well-groomed. Most men of the village had thick beards and long wavy hair that they tied back but Gan never liked long hair.
Then there was the fighting style. I hadn’t realized it at the time of the attack but looking back it was a perfect bite of the viper strike. Had I been on foot…
I stopped that thought cold. Gan had attacked me. I was having problems dealing with that revelation as much as I was with the fact that I killed him. What would I have done if I were in Gan’s shoes?
He was just told that my father and I were traitors to the village and a danger to their lives. If I were in Gan’s place and he in mine, would I react any differently? If I had been waiting near the village and then one day he shows up and all I see is him ransacking houses, what would I do?
For the sake of the safety of my family and the rest of the village, I would try to kill the threat. He had to know it was a long shot. He had trained with me for years and was never really my equal with a blade and that was before my former mentor got his grubby little hands on me. He wouldn’t have known that but even so, that left surprise as his only option.
He had almost succeeded too if it wasn’t for my horse being startled.
Neither of us had ever practiced fighting someone on horseback. So when he attacked me he was forced to improvise and went for my stomach. Knowing what I know now, it would have been a mistake even if he did manage to cut me open. The wound would have eventually killed me but not before I got my revenge.
‘Perhaps that would have been for the best,’ I thought as hot tears threatened to stream down my face but I kept them at bay.
“Where are you taking me,” I managed to choke out through the lump in my throat.
“… um,” the black man replied.
It seems I surprised him by talking as he was lost for words.
“Ignore Rycan’s lack of decorum. I’m Vataria, and that’s Helios,” the gentle-looking woman with thick auburn hair gestured. Helios grunted in reply, the man was shorter than me and stocky but it was more muscle than fat, his long blonde hair held back in the typical fashion of the area. “And what’s your name cutie?”
“Bakus,” I mumbled.
“Well, that’s a beautiful name, Bakus. As for your earlier question, we are heading to the tower.”
I didn’t know what tower she was referring to or why these three were being so nice to me. Surely they must know what I did. And even if they didn’t they would find out when we arrived at this tower place.
The conversation drifted off after that and I slipped back into my thoughts. This time they revolved around my father. Obviously, the man had known something of the occultists. It explained why he had been so adamant about me not getting involved with the Chosen. But why flee? Why leave behind the map? What was he after? And where did he go?
These were all questions I had no answers to. That only left me with anger. Anger at myself for being misled, for killing the man I cared for, and for being lied to for my entire life.
That anger slowly replaced my sucking black pit of loss and despair that had formed after I realized what I had done to Gan. It would still haunt me to the day I died but I couldn’t let it control the rest of my life.
I chalked my quick recovery up to the fact that he wasn’t the first life I had extinguished. Then again by the time I came out of my depressed state, four days had passed.
When my mind finally cleared enough to stop just going through the motions of life, I decided to learn about my ‘captors’. I used that word lightly because they hadn’t so much as secured me at night while we camped.
It was near evening and the four of us were sitting around a small campfire. Rycan was the first to notice my changed mood.
“Feeling better?” he asked with a friendly smile.
I nodded, “the- there was a lot to deal with,” I replied.
“Everyone deals with grief and shock in their own way. If what we overheard was true, I’m sorry.”
I just nodded again, suppressing the new tears that threatened, and decided to change the subject as that was still a sore topic. “How did the three of you find me?”
“Well, as a fellow Chosen, I guess we can tell ya, not like it matters if you know or not. I sensed your vibrations when you were near that abandoned town.”
“Terrani,” I guessed.
“Actually, no,” the man smiled. “Although, most guess that same thing.”
“But, you turned the ground soft?” I stared at him, trying to determine if he was lying to me.
He chuckled. “That’s a little trick of mine. My master called it liquefaction. My gift is Aurili, the child of sound.
I had heard some people call the blessings the children of the gods. But most people didn’t bother even speaking of them since it really only affected Chosen. I was generally curious to know more and it helped that it got my mind off of recent events.
“Sound?” I tried to ask but all of the sudden the entire area felt dead as all sounds disappeared. It felt like someone had clapped thick pads over my ears and all I could hear was the beat of my heart and more disconcertingly, the sound of my blood rushing through my veins. Thankfully, the man dropped whatever he had been doing and I let out a breath of relief.
“Sorry about that,” he said with a shrug. “It’s easier to show than to explain or convince someone you aren’t lying.”
“Quit picking on him,” Vataria chided Rycan. “Once Rycan spotted you watching, I simply sent a small shower of my infused water over the area and followed the trail. It was quite easy to keep tabs on you after that.”
“Wait, was that why I always felt like I was being watched?” I did notice that the sensation went away now that I remembered to check for it.
“It could be,” she said as she brushed her horse. “Some Chosen can feel powers used on them more clearly than others.”
“Oh,” was all I could say. It seemed like this was basic knowledge that had been purposefully kept from me by my former mentor. Had I not left him for dead on that cliff, I might even be angry with him. “What about…” I went to gesture at the last man but he was no longer sitting at the fire. I looked around but couldn’t find him anywhere.
The others started laughing, then I heard a chuckle from where the man had been sitting a moment ago. It looked like the air was distorted by a haze of heat before he reappeared, having not moved from his spot. I saw Vataria roll her eyes before she went back to brushing her horse.
“Helios is a bit shy,” Rycan chuckled.
“I’m not shy,” the gruff man said, “I just prefer silence to inane jabber.”
“Uh-huh, anyway, Helios is blessed by Liminos the child of light. You’ve seen one of his skills just now. We’ll ask him to keep his other gifts for some other time as the light can be painfully bright if you aren’t prepared. So that’s our gifts, what about you, Bakus?”
“I… um, I don’t know. I only just got my calling a few months ago.”
“Really, well it is a good thing we are going to the tower then. What city did you go to? I don’t recall any of our watchers in the south mentioning anyone having survived.”
I told them where I went. I hadn’t even known there was a city in the south.
“Huh, I would have thought the Order of the Purifying Flame would have found you.”
“The what? Aren’t all of the orders the same?” I asked naively.
That got more than one grim look from the three. “No. While we do tend toward the same goal of protecting the world from the Father’s machinations. Some of the Orders take that to an extreme. Take those men who tried to attack you back at that camp. Sure they are part of the Cult of Atam but they are mostly harmless. We, meaning the Order of the Silent Tower, tend to only get involved when the cults dabble in forbidden knowledge and try to resurrect it.”
“I think I ran into some of those,” I replied without thinking.
The three stopped what they were doing to stare at me.
“Bakus, be honest, did you already join an order?” Rycan asked his soft-spoken demeanor hardening.
Knowing that lying here wasn’t a good idea, I told them what happened after I survived the city. “… then my former mentor attacked me and I defended myself and fled.”
“Well, by your description, that was likely the master swordsman Holton Aloo. You’re in no danger from us turning you over to their Order if that’s your worry, assuming you wish to stay. We don’t conscript Chosen like some Orders. Although if you choose to remain freelance, you will have to follow certain rules. But my master can go over those choices with you after we arrive.”
With those words, an invisible weight lifted off my back. It also gave me hope that I could finally start piecing together the broken parts of my life, figure out my gift, and track down my father to finally get some answers.
“Thank, you,” I said. “I did activate my calling a few times, maybe the three of you could help me figure out what it is?”
“We can try, I like to think my knowledge is more complete than others here,” the man dodged a small rock that Helios tossed at him with a chuckle, “but I can admit I don’t know everything.”
I told them about the first time I think it activated in the cave.
“You said the knife was metal?” Vataria asked and I nodded.
“Could be the twins,” Rycan rubbed his chin in thought.
“The twins?” I asked in confusion.
“Oh, right, not many people know of those children. They are called Oi and Io, the push and pull of metal, sometimes referred to as magnetism.”
“How do I know if that’s my calling?”
“Usually you feel drawn to something. Like with my Aurili, I loved to sing and listen to music.”
“Too bad, you’re tone-deaf,” Helios cut in, earning a titter from Vataria and a grimace from Rycan.
“Didn’t say you had to be good at it,” he mumbled. “Do you feel drawn to metal?”
I held my new sword in my hand but it just felt like a heavy sword. “No, not really. Does that mean my power isn’t from Oi and Io?”
“Hard to say, it could just be very weak. What else did you notice?”
I mentioned the bandits in the valley.
“Good, so that was you. We were concerned we might be looking for a killer after figuring out what you were up to. But if you say they were bandits, that’s good enough for me.”
“Could be Allvar,” Vataria added.
“Let’s hope not,” Rycan winced.
“Why, who is Allvar?”
“Allvar is the child of weight and gravity. There is nothing wrong with being a Chosen of Allvar… though, few are ever proven to actually be his Chosen. That child is fickle. There was once a powerful Chosen of his that lived a few hundred years ago. Nobody is exactly certain what happened but the prevailing theory is the man had a nightmare as it was said he was asleep when this happened. When the innkeeper found the man the next morning, what he discovered was a condensed ball of flesh and bone. The rest of the room was coated in blood.”
“Wait, your calling can turn on you!”
“No, not exactly. But as you already learned, there can be subconscious acts of will that activate your gift. The Mother knows there is enough regret in our line of work that it's possible our dreams become all too real and frightening.”
There were becoming fewer and fewer reasons to actively want to be a Chosen but I had made my choice and would stick to it. I hadn’t suffered through the city just to turn around and give up now.
“But unless you feel like a literal mountain of weight is on your shoulders or you are light and feel like floating away, chances are slim that you are his Chosen. You don’t feel that way do you?” I shook my head and the man sighed in relief.
“Good, good. Speculation is fun and all but we should probably get some sleep. Master will help you figure out your calling when we arrive at the tower and then he will train you on how to bring it to its potential.”
