| Impure Blood II--The Prophecy The saga continues...a NaNo project, so it's a bit messy and lacks plot development | | by: | |
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Created: 11:19pm on 12-06-2005
Modified: 9:18am on 10-10-2006 | |
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Entry #390916, added on 12-06-05 @ 11:26 pm EST.
[Entry Access Restriction] None.
Title:
Chapter Two
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Time crept for Roan as he sat, waiting for Despina to show some sign of consciousness. The girl had not moved of her own volition since he had picked her up off of the ground outside. Her breathing had slowed and evened, becoming the lulling meter of sleep. The muscles in Roan’s neck slackened; he snapped his head back up, fighting against the weariness that was trying to claim him. His stomach rumbled loudly. The last meal he had eaten was a rapidly fading memory, but he would not leave the girl’s side until he knew she would wake. Her breathing was a tuneless lullaby, soothing his ragged senses until he was aware of nothing but darkness.
Roan woke with a start from a dream he did not remember beginning. The torches that lit the room guttered and hissed. Caleb must have added more of his special oil to keep them burning. Shadows reached across the bed where Despina lay. The towel on her forehead was gone and her small hand was withdrawn from the blanket and rested by his knee. That must have been what roused him from his doze. He moved to sit on the edge of her bed. As softly as he could, he pushed her tangled hair away from her forehead and pulled it off of her neck. The hair was coarse with sand and dried sweat.
As he placed his hand across her forehead she turned her face to nestle against his palm.
She opened her eyes, clear blue spheres of incomprehension. The unvoiced question passed between them.
Roan shook his head, “I don’t know,” he answered. “When the winds dropped I opened the door and you were just lying there.”
Despina nodded.
“Destomurad isn’t really dead.”
“I know,” she replied, her voice rasped. “I saw him.” She pushed herself up to rest on her elbows. The torn shirt slipped further from her shoulder, exposing more white skin.
Roan realized that he had not yet put his clothes back on. He was torn between running out of the room and pulling his blanket off of Despina. Hoping that his face was not turning too red as the blood rushed to it, he attempted to pretend that nothing was out of place.
Despina placed a cool hand on his chest, fingering the ridged scar whose blow had nearly taken his life. She too, was pretending not to notice the absence of his pants, but he could feel her darting glances. His cheeks felt consumed by the fire of embarrassment.
“I may have found,” Caleb walked into the room carrying a dilapidated scroll, squinting at what was written on it. He trailed off when he saw Despina was awake. “I suppose it won’t be needed now.” He shook his head at the girl, “You gave us quite a fright, my girl; running out with such lack of sense and conjuring a windstorm to throw this one,” he waved toward
Roan, “flat on his back as a new turtle.”
“Why did you tell me my father was dead?” The young woman ignored his lecture.
Roan felt a tingle, an odd sensation he could not describe, through the hand that was still lying on his chest before Despina pulled it away to cross her arms.
Caleb sighed. “I thought to keep you from it,” he muttered, half to himself, “but there is something I must tell you.”
Despina flicked a quizzical gaze in Roan’s direction.
He shrugged his massive shoulders.
“About my father?” She fixed her stare upon the old man again.
“Yes and no. It concerns all of our kind.”
“What do you mean?” Roan broke in.
“There are things I must see to,” Caleb said vaguely, retreating backwards through the arches entryway. “I shall explain when all is set.”
“But what—“ Despina started.
“No no, no no, no more questions. All will be explained. For now all you need to know is rest, and perhaps some decent clothing, yes? For both of you,” the man gave Roan a pointed look, complete with a raised eyebrow. “I shall summon you when all is set.” He tucked the scroll haphazardly under his arm, the thick paper crackling in protest as it wrinkled; and with that, he left the two younger half-Bloods alone in the bedchamber.
“Decidedly odd, that’s what he is.” Despina stated as though she had just now realized the fact. She pulled her legs out from under the covers and swung them over the edge of the bed. “What would he be keeping from me…or me from it?” She mused, pushing herself to stand and promptly falling against Roan as her legs wobbled out from beneath her.
“Perhaps it would be best if you stayed in bed a bit longer, as he suggested.” Roan said, fully aware of the slender arm that the girl had thrown around his neck, and the flat, wiry muscles of the legs that were resting in his lap.
“I do seem to be lacking my physical strength,” she agreed. She did not release her hold of him.
Roan leaned over to place her back into the bed, and pulled back the blankets to tuck her in. The girl’s right leg was exposed to her thigh where her skirts had been torn by the wind. He feigned not seeing it, though the image of the pale skin swam in his mind.
“You will wake me?” Despina’s jaws cracked in a yawn.
“I will.”
The girl closed her eyes, a small smile playing at one corner of her lips.
As soon as she seemed to be asleep Roan grabbed his worn brown trousers from his pack, and pulling them on, he left the room. His face still felt warm, and he could almost feel Despina’s light touch on his chest, tracing the scars. Images of sun-brown legs that paled to delicate whiteness leapt unbidden to his mind.
Fool, he thought to himself. She is a princess. He tried to stop replaying her fall into his arms in his memory. She was not meant for you.
The thought had a sobering effect on his dazed state. Roan’s feet dragged across the stone floor and he trailed a hand along the wall as he made his way back to the entry room where his sand-filled clothes lay on the floor.
Caleb was not in the anteroom. The writing table he had been at earlier had been cleared and the spilled inkbottle refilled. Roan’s clothes had been folded and placed neatly on top of his stool, the sword balanced on top of them. The mess on the floor had been swept away as well. For a lonely recluse, the old man kept a clean house. Roan pulled the shirt over his head, letting everything else clatter to the floor. He didn’t bother with his high boots. The door was pushed open far enough to admit a beam of sunlight that lit the room as it bounced from one mirror to the next. Squeezing himself through the opening, Roan sat in the sand, folding the lower ends of his wings across his back. The bright light of the morning sun did not improve his despondent mood. He sat with his back to the cave and brooded.
It was early evening by the time Caleb summoned Despina and Roan. He led them through a twisting maze of tunnels to a room that neither of them had seen before. A large stone platform rose out of the middle of the floor, serving as a table. Upon it were countless papers and scrolls, each one appearing older than the last. Books bound in cracking wooden covers from the beginning of the Age lay next to translucent scrolls that appeared to be from the Age of Legend—the Age of the Ancients. Caleb set his torch in the entryway to the room and set about arranging his mirrors to illuminate the rest of the space.
“This is what you didn’t want me to see?” Despina asked, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What is all of this?”
“Patience, my girl, all will be explained,” was Caleb’s only reply as he continued making adjustments to the mirrors.
The flame of the torch flickered wildly—its reflections in the mirrors wavered as well, causing the room to be thrown into intermittent phases of light and dark.
“It will have to do,” Caleb muttered. “Now then, I will attempt to answer all of your questions—“
“Why did you tell me Destomurad was dead?” Despina’s voice was ice, her irises blazing a frosty white.
“If you will allow me to speak, girl, your answers will be better served.”
Despina turned her eyes to Roan, looking for support, but he looked only at the ground. Frustrated, she set her mouth in a petulant pout and tapped her
slippered foot noiselessly. “By all means, explain yourself.”
“What you see in front of you is the result of my life’s work, searching for others of our kind.”
Roan glanced at the table. There were easily a hundred books and other records scattered across the surface of the platform. Curiosity piqued his ears as Caleb rattled on.
“Not all of the information you see here is useful, and I believe that much has been destroyed over the years, whether through the natural deterioration of age,” he gestured to a stand holding pieced remains of a piece of parchment, fitted together as if it were a puzzle, “of through more purposeful means.”
“These are all written about half-Bloods?” Roan asked.
“No. All of this is concerning full Ancients. In all of my years I have never come across mention of any written word that was explicitly about our kind.”
“Are there more of us?” Despina’s foot stopped tapping.
“A handful across the histories. Not many were crossed with humankind until recently.” The old man stooped to pull a thick leather-bound volume from under a pile of others. At its origination, the leather had been a deep, shining brown, decorated with golden lettering. The letters had long since worn away, leaving behind only slight impressions of the words that no longer were. As he opened the book, Roan could see that most of the pages were loose, not bound at all. Their edges all were tattered and bent.
Caleb stroked the dull, softened leather with his thumbs. His voice took on a note of reverence, “I believe this to be in the hand of Destomurad himself.” Despina stepped forward, one hand outstretched, and stopped. Her mouth stood open, but no words came forth.
The girl seemed speechless, so Roan broke in, “That was written by the hand of the Father of All?”
“It is my belief, to the end of my blood,” the solemn vow coming from
Caleb’s lips carried great weight.
“But it is not nearly as old as some of the works you have here.”
“It doesn’t need to be. He is still alive, somewhere. He is the last of his kind.”
“My mother—“Roan started.
“She is something different, my boy. Not quite full-Blood, but near to it. There are perhaps three of her kind left in this world.”
“Where?” Hope sparked in Roan’s head.
“That’s quite impossible for me to say. Even after I realized what you were, it took me almost the full 7(?) years of your captivity to trace her back to the home you shared with her. There is simply no trace of her that
I have yet found. You were my only clue.”
The spark that had just struck in his heart winked out. He had made peace with the possibility that he might never see Evellym again the day he found the sword. At least she was alive, but where would she go?
“What of my father?” Despina broke in. “Where is he?”
“Child, I have spent an Age trying to answer that question, and it is likely that I would spend every Age granted me in trying to find him, if that is what I cared to do with my time, which it is not.”
“But—“
“Unless he wants to be found, you will never see him.”
If it were possible for the girl to cry, tears would have spilled from her eyes. As it was, they flickered a dull shade of their normally translucent blue before she reigned in her tight control of her emotions.
“Why would you hide this from us?” She asked, gesturing at the volumes in front of her. “What purpose could that have?”
“I would not that you harbor false hopes.”
“You lie.”
Roan was pulled from his thoughts by the conviction in Despina’s words. He glanced at Caleb, standing across the book-strewn platform. The old man shifted the weight of the book he was holding. There was a struggle taking place behind the old man’s eyes that was apparent even to the fighter.
“Tell me the truth.” There was no uncertainty about the command that floated from the girl’s lips. Sometimes it was easy to see that she came from royalty.
“The truth,” Caleb sighed, “yes, the truth. It is not so simple as that.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“Us,” Roan broke in, “explain it to us.” He avoided looking at the princess, but he could feel her eyes on the back of his head.
Defeated, the old man sank to his knees. He clutched the book to his chest with wrinkled hands that showed spidery black veins running just beneath his white skin. “You must understand—I wanted only to save our kind, nothing more.” Sadness punctuated every word. The man seemed to grow older before their very eyes, his body sagging and his eyes drooping.
“Go on.” Despina said shortly. She appeared to hold no sympathy for Caleb.
Roan stole a glance at the girl from the corner of his eye. She was standing like royalty—her back was straight and chest held up, her chin elevated to give the effect of looking down her nose. No emotion showed in her face. The girl was meant to marry someone like her. Someone who knew how to hold himself just so, to look down upon the world from towers high. Roan tried to push Despina out of his thoughts. There was no use mourning something that could never be.
“Years ago, many many years, mind you, I was part of Watcher society.”
Caleb’s voice was low and graveled; the walls of the room seemed to amplify the sound so that it seemed as though his words were coming from every direction at once. “I was a high official in their ranks. There wasn’t a one that would dare question my actions then, and none knew just what I was.”
“Is this quite necessary?” Despina interrupted, her foot again tapping without making any sound.
“Apologies, my girl,” Caleb nodded, seeming for all the world a befuddled servant. “While I was in that post, this book,” he hugged the old leather tighter in his arms, “was discovered. Although, it was not so much discovered as left where we would find it. No one has ever been able to determine where it came from, or from whom.”
Roan watched the old man as he spoke. The wrinkled face appeared to smooth, as Caleb remember younger days. His eyes stared into the distance far beyond the walls of the cave, as if he could see his own past playing before him.
“It was exactly one year to the date after the book was left us that the prophecy appeared, again without a single trace of who left it.” Caleb squinted, he unaware of his surroundings as his voice flowed on. “Mass hysteria broke within the society. Every finger pointed at someone else, attempting to drive out those who would betray us. Trust vanished completely, and the society crumbled. Only a few loyal watchers remained.”
Despina’s foot tapped out a steady rhythm, carefully making only the slightest percussive sound against the stone floor. Her impatience went ignored.
“Over the years some returned to the society, some did not. New members were added, but it was never the same. Suspicion was harbored in every imagination, and one day, it pointed its finger at me. I was the member in highest standing. Many ambitious young men coveted the position, and I knew it. So I left. I took with me this book and the original prophecy, nothing more. They have been looking for me ever since.”
“We have already read this prophecy, if it was this that you were hoping to keep from us,” Despina said.
“You’ve read it, yes, seen it with your own eyes, have you?”
Roan nodded, unsure of what the man was driving at.
“Were you then also told that the original prophecy was not written?”
“What do you mean?” Despina asked, frowning slightly despite her efforts to keep an impassive face.
“The original prophecy was spoken in a dream—a dream shared by the inner circle within Watcher society. What you read has been repeated countless times, and no doubt been miswritten countless more.”
“Are you saying that the prophecy is incorrect?”
“Oh no, no no no, the words are all there, but the meaning has been lost.”
“How can the meaning be lost if the words are there?” Roan was confused. Caleb was not making any sense at all.
“I am the only remaining member of that inner circle, and the only one who still remembers the words of the original prophecy. Watcher society has misjudged those words again and again, searching in all the wrong places for their Savior.”
“The prophecy is simple—what is there to misjudge?”
“Ah, my girl, that is what has led Watchers astray for the better part of an
Age. The words do not have the same meaning now as they did then. Legends have been forgotten. Repeat to me the beginning of the one you read.”
“The savior of all that evil is not, shall of old blood be?” Despina’s voice lilted at the end of the sentence. She glanced at Roan, the unvoiced question asked in her tone.
Roan shrugged, and dropped his eyes to the floor.
“Yes yes, and what does that mean?” Caleb’s eyes took on new life, drawing out of the shame that he had let himself become mired in.
Neither Roan nor Despina had an answer.
“Never mind, I shall spare you the time and tell you what they think it means. Originally, it was thought to mean that the savior would simply be old…a ridiculous notion. According to current Watcher society, it must be someone of the Age of Legends. Last I heard, they were busy busy busy tracing every Watcher’s heritage as far back as they possibly could, looking for an unbroken line to the Age of Legend. They do not even see the futility of this quest, but I say let them have their fun. They would not even know what to do with the savior, could they find—this person.” Caleb rushed on to cover his hesitation. “The fools!” He very nearly laughed. “If they could only see past their own fat noses, they would see that the next lines give it all away.”
“And I suppose you know the true meaning of the foretelling?” Despina raised an eyebrow.
“I am the only remaining person who heard the dream. All I know is my own interpretation, which I believe to be correct,” Caleb answered.
“To the end of your blood?” Roan’s question was simple, but carried the meaning of Ages long past.
“To the end of my blood.” There was no hesitation in the man now. He was sure of his belief, enough to stake his life on it being fact.
“And what is your belief, old man? And why did you try to keep it from us?” Listening to Caleb speak was beginning to bore Roan.
“Because it holds only death for our kind.”
“The prophecy we read says nothing about death, especially not ours. The only reference I can even see as a possible connection is the ‘old blood,’ and that could mean hundreds of things.” Dara shook her head, black hair swinging neatly.
She must have combed it. Roan found himself thinking. The blue-black color gleamed in the sputtering torchlight. She had also put on a clean dress, one that was not torn from her shoulders, nor exposing any of her leg. Stop
it. She was not meant for you.
“Not at first glance, no-no, but I have studied the words for years, more than I can remember. If the world of mankind is to be saved, two of us will die.”
Silence rang loud in the small room. Roan could hear the hissing of the torch as the flames devoured the oil Caleb soaked the ends in. He rolled his neck to work the stiffness out of his muscles; he was not sure how long they had been down there. His right wing jerked spasmodically, accidentally bumping one of the mirrors. Shadows leapt out of the darkness, playing tricks with his vision. The only light was the guttering of the small torch |
© Copyright 2005 Nadja B (UN: nadjabaer at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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