End Your Sorrow: Chapter One

The light breeze from the vents hit his face gently like the feathers of a flock of birds brushing past his cheeks. It was dark here, with the familiar musty smell of a closed space, his hands reached out and ran along metal so smooth it felt like silk, long fingers trickling down to worn leather straps and automatically closed around them. Hands in place his arms pulled out away from the metal, a light drawing sound was heard as stiff metal cords were unwound and light came to his face. The door was opening. Reaching to his head he pulled down tinted goggles over his light eyes as early morning sunlight filled the closed space and a strong wind lashed across his cheeks. The fingers of his left hand went back to the leather cord, his right foot pushed off the ground and he was dropping... dropping... Flying. A smile cracked across his chapped lips and his hair flew wildly out behind him as the wind hit him full on and he let out a whoop, excitement fluttering in his chest.

A voice broke through the morning air, “Shateiel?”

He was falling... He was falling! The wind died down, providing no helpful breath of clean air, warmth surrounded him beating through his dark sleeves and boiling his very blood. A spell came to his lips, to make the wind rise again to send him back up into the sky, as his mouth opened to sound it none would come, his throat was clogged and nothing he could do would dislodge it.

“Shateiel!”

Panic was paralyzing him, he couldn’t move and still he plummeted down to Earth. No... no... This could not be happening. His eyes widened in terror as he found he was not the one in control of this machine, not the one in control of the winds because they were controlling him. The ground ran up to meet him, his mouth opened wide in silent scream, his body paralyzed, and everything changing to a bright blur of white.

“Shateiel! Shateiel Alexialis!”

He moved. He screamed, he could hear the sound ringing through his ears, cold sweat running down his back, trembling in terror. He was dead... He was dead.

“Shateiel?!”

His eyes opened and the face of his older brother was looking straight into his, green eyes with yellow hair falling into his face. Where he was came back to him, he was in a field near outside the Himmel city limits, where he usually came to think, be alone, or... Sleep. He had been dreaming. His breath came more normal to him as reality swerved back into his mind and took the place of the imaginary.

“Are you alright...? You look terrible.” his brother, Rapheal peered into his face a few more seconds and then stood back up from his squatting position.

“I’m fine, sorry, I just had a nightmare.” Shateiel pulled a hand through his tousled hair trying to look calmer than he felt at the moment.

“Same dream, huh? What happened this time?”

“I became closer to the ground. Close enough to hit it.” Shateiel’s voice sounded hollow in the shock that he still felt in his bones.

“Don’t have that dream anymore.”

“Why?

“Because, next time, you’ll crash.”

Shateiel’s eyes widened in dismay looking off into the distant hazy horizon of midday his brown skin taking on a paler shade.

Rapheal sighed, “...Maybe you aren’t ready for this, I mean...”

Shateiel broke him off quickly, agitation rising in his voice pulling himself back up to stand, “Of course I’m ready!”

“That remains to be seen, you obviously were not ready for instruction. Ten minutes late already.”

“Your kidding!”

“Do I usually?”

No, he didn’t, and here Shateiel was messing up again, ten minutes late, twenty if he went to clean himself up, either way he’d lose, Metatron would have fifty fits. Why was it always him? Inner turmoil filled his head, only resolving in making himself more confused and agitated which then only resulting in a desperate struggle to put on his shoes and tripping on ten stones until he could manage to get back on his feet and start to run back to the castle which even in the distance loomed noticeably over the smaller house and shops of the city. Thus Rapheal could only stand and ponder how it was possible that anyone who had so much trouble putting on his boots could last any amount of time on a heated battlefield.




Fifteen faces turned as the door swung open and fifteen eyes rolled to see who the opener was.

“Alexialis...” a voice rose in the small luxuriously furnished room on a critical note, “How good of you to join us.”

Shateiel’s eyes rose to meet Metatron’s in dismay, his face was far from happy, he swallowed and closed the door softly behind him and stepped quietly over to his seat wishing he could sink into the carpet and disappear. He heard the incessant snickering of the boys next to him as he made a futile effort to mock studying his hands, the curve of his fingers clasped over each other, the rough shape of his nails and the dirt that somehow always found it’s way under them and tried his hardest to ignore the words that came from those around him. “....Low Angel.........picked up from Fallen Lands.......slums....dirt....never amount to anything....” Lower he sunk into the seat, as low as his rank among the others was, the lingering tick of the clock echoing in his head, the drone of Metatron’s voice laying out the names of long dead people, the leering look of the cold blue eyes in the portrait of the King hanging upon the right hand wall, the gold design etched into the carpet, the way the shafts of light fell through the window and made dancing patters on the floor, anything... Anything else he could focus on to block out those words.

“Shateiel?”

He stood, uncomfortably, “Yes?”

“....The answer... To the question?”

The others stared at him boring deeper holes through him, their own private critical thoughts going over in their heads. “....What was the question, my Lord?” Shateiel whispered and a soft snickering rose in the room.



*************


It was cold in this part of the cavern, dripping icicles clung to the ceiling of the room, chiseled out of the rock centuries before his time. Dante’s breath clouded in front of him, forming into a mass of ice crystals before him and melting into nothing. He was not the first to stand in this chamber, not the first to look upon the craggy walls glistening in their own sort of beauty from melting snow that never ceased to run out. Not the first to look upon the carved wooden doors with the familiar sign of his people, three curved lines connecting radiating out from a central point forming the image with a look seeming to be as an almost tropical flower. That of course, would be a metaphor Dante would never use himself, he had never been in such a climate, he had never seen a flower, much less a tropical one, in fact, in all his 18 years he had never laid eyes upon a single woman. Any of those things and so much else seemed completely alien if not entirely non existent to Dante.

He corrected himself, he was not the first, and he was most certenaitly not the last. From the time before him, Uray had stood here, and for ages after Uray would stand here and he felt a sense of pride of his people and truly becoming one of them at long last rise in his chest. To be assigned a Job. To learn and use the powers that had newly awakened in him, there was nothing better than that. Nothing in the world. Yet through his happiness in this cold chamber a silent voice nagged at the back of his mind, a voice he made an effort not to acknowledge. There was more to this world.... What his cousin had always said... Before he...

“The Newly Awakened Durante. Child of Uray.”

Dante blinked looking up at a servant, a tall figure dressed in the traditional white of the Uray. This man had appeared out of nowhere, through the age of the doors he had not heard a single creak to announce their opening. Regaining his composure, Dante pulled himself up straight banishing the ugly thoughts that had drifted in from the back of his mind to take residence in the front, “Yes. Durante.” he gave a slight bow of courtesy.

The servant was unimpressed, his eyes flicked up and down Dante and his lip curled up slightly. Newly awakened? This boy was nearly full grown. A late bloomer, a low Job this one would get and he would show this one no respect, an Awakened Uray or not. “Come.” the man snapped turning briskly on his heel his shined boots making a sharp echoing clack on the marbled floor.

Dante followed eyes flitting about the chamber, it was not likely he’d see this room again, less he committed a Heresy of Uray, and was called in to be punished, to have his Powers taken away. Of this he had no intentions. The servant stopped dead short in front of another door, much like the last in height and width but astonishingly grander, the Symbol of Uray forming an apex as intricate designs swirled around it in a cacophony of detail so loud in design it half made Dante’s head spin.

“Wait. Here.” the servant’s words as short and brisk as his stride, he waited for no response from Dante only disappeared behind the doors and closing them shut behind him.

This atrium gave him a nervous feel, tall mirrors stood upon the walls, being warped by age they showed no true image of the one who peered into them but distorted the looker’s proportions. Dante’s eyes drifted from the mirrors, sizing up himself as tall and skinny in one mirror and short and round in the other then waved and blurred. Without helping himself Dante could not help but let his lips curve upwards in a slight smile of amusement.

“Enter.” The servant had appeared again and stood stiffly frowning at the smiling Dante no feeling hidden on his face, eyes as cold as the room piercing knives into him.



Oh, he was naive! He found the hall he had been waiting in grand. This... This was beyond his imagining. He hadn’t an idea form in his head that would query there was a room as wondrous as this in the Cave of Crystals. A foolish name for the cavern, the thought had always come to his mind, he remembered laughing at it as a child, ‘Cave of Crystals’ he had said, ‘More of a Cave of Rock and Cold.’ Yet, if no where else in this labyrinth of interconnected caves stood fit for such a glorious name this place would give it truth. It was carved out of ice, a warm room, much warmer than the Hall or the Atrium yet nothing melted, no drip of water sounded in the chamber and it was so bright he gazed at it all through the fingers of a hand pressed against his face. The floor, was indeed made from crystal speckled with the colors of agate dancing rainbows in the light that filled the room. Muted pastels reflected from the ice and crystal upon the walls and floor, the ceiling and a blinding gleam of white surrounded the whole place showing colors clearer than Dante had ever seen before in the dark caverns of the Cave of Crystals.

He was upon the King. His uncle. The ruler of the Uray. He blinked pulling away from the wonder he was soaking up as one might soak up the first warmth of spring after the cold of winter. He knelt and bowed before his superior so low the tips of his cropped white hair touched the crystal floor. “Sire.” he whispered.

“Rise. Newly Awakened Durante. Child of Uray.” the King’s voice sounded as harsh as the light of the room.

Dante rose keeping his head low out of respect. “I have Seen.”

A long silence filled the chamber. “Your age, Durante?”

His eyes squeezed shut. Why did it matter? Why did it always matter? He had gained the power to See the future did it matter what his age was when he had Awakened? “...Eighteen.” his voice was barely a whisper.

“Unheard of.”

Dante’s clear yellow eyes looked up at his uncle for a second in fear, then quickly descended back to the ground.

“You Awakened very late. What sort of Job could I bestow upon you? No one would care to have you.” the King’s voice echoed through the crystal room full of cold as Dante’s eyes squeezed shut in his own regret. He did not care though, he had no love for his nephew, to make this boy suffer in humiliation would leave him happier as he made for bed each night. A cold smile twisted across the man’s lips his eyes unblinking. “Ah yes... A job for you. I believe there could be one suitable for one such as yourself.”

Dante’s eyes raised once more, hope and fleeting joy flickering through them like a wick that has caught flame despite a pouring, steady rain. The king’s smile broadened more seeing this, his own eagerness mounting to extinguish that flame before it gained warmth and see the look of despair strike through the boy’s face. This is what he lived for.

“Yes, a job. A Seer.”



************


“...Straight through the heart!”

“And... The look on his face!”

“...some king then....”

“And such a scrawny son! Little and ugly, that one! Fine prince he would be!”

Hearty laughter of the large group of men filled the small campsite, sparks blowing up from the campfire as another piece of wood was added to the flame. In the distance the lights of the grand city Gaulsabis twinkled in the night, outshining the brightness of the stars so that their glory was not as grand. A rubbery popping sound was heard as the leader of the band pulled a stopper from a large jug of ale and more laughter followed as the man drank back a long gulp and the jug was passed around.

A sound not so many could hear though also cut through the night. A sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth. Not farther than three feet from the campsite a young boy barely from his coming of age sat pressed against a small shrubby tree, his fingers bleeding as they fiddled with the rope cutting into his wrists and binding him to the tree. A short sob escaped his lips as once again he found his efforts over these past hours had gotten him nowhere, yet it was stifled quickly. Such a noise from him would be stifled soon with a hard blow from one of the larger of the men.

He pulled hard from the tree in attempt to pull himself away from it, the ropes digging deeper into his bleeding wrists and the more it hurt the harder he pulled until he found himself nowhere but in the rage of tears of anger and bitter sadness, silent sobs racking through his throat. His parents... His parents murdered in front of him in cold blood. His ill father and despairing mother. Dead. And he a prisoner of the men whose hands had done it.

His eyes fluttered open from a clatter and took in the sight of a large plate of food, golden looking food and he only remember how hungry he was. A rough voice spoke, “Eat.” The boy’s eyes traveled up to the man’s homely face set in a malicious jeer. It was amusing for him, the prospect of the boy with his hands behind his back stuck by a simple knot to eat the food off the plate.

“I forgot. You cannot not pick up the food. I suppose I must eat it then, save it go rotten.” the barbaric man’s voice sounding more unintelligent as he played to be polite. “Sad, the Prince Brat can’t untie a knot. And you’re going to rule a country in the future?” the man scoffed his voice in scorn. “Your name again, brat? Let’s hear it.”

“Yuri. Yuri Mizitas.” the boy whispered.


*********


Fifty-six ki’ats of gold in a leather bag. Too close. Too close to enough to pay for ship’s faire to cross the straight to the country Atlantis. Short fingers pulled the drawstrings of the bag closed and a hand measured the bag for it’s weight and then it went into his pocket. He wasn’t leaving, he wasn’t leaving him to die. Not if he could help it at least.

The young man shivered, it was cold, far too cold out for his liking. How he hated to cold and the fever only brought more of it. The sound of heavy boots clunked in the hallway and the young man scrambled setting another bag into the splintered wooden box he closed it and shoved it back to it’s rightful place under the bed. Light spilled into the room and a silhouette stood in the doorway.

“Miki?”

“Yes, Juna?” the young man answered.

Juna yawned his words coming out jumbled with it, “What’re you doing in here?”

“Nothing, Juna. Absolutely nothing.” A sly smile spread across the young man’s lips as he passed by Juna back out through the door he had snuck in through. “Only looking for my notebook.”

“It’s downstairs in the bar, on the table in the far back. You shouldn’t leave your things scattered about the place. Don’t stay up all night either. You’re ill remember.”

This time Miki’s smile was genuine without the familiar slyness in it, “Right, Juna. Big day of work for you tomorrow.” Miki winked.

Juna shook his head in false dismay and a light laugh came from his throat. “As always, as always.” His eyes rolled. “Good night.”

“Good night.” The answer came softly as Miki’s fingers touched the leather pouch of coins that lay concealed in his pocket.