Sep 7

Sep 7 Evil Arises

Evil Arises - book excerpt

Prologue

The moonlight streaming through the narrow slit of a window is strong tonight. Its eerie, silvery light filled with mysteries yet to be discovered, and the ghostly whispers of voices yet to be heard. And peace. A breath of quiet, still peace that I have not felt for quite some time.

I have been in this cell for oh so long. Years. Decades. Perhaps centuries. . . I cannot say.

But it's time, brother.

Time for me to leave the confining space of this narrow dungeon cell. Time to elude my captors, and again take up the sword and shield. The fight will continue. What was. . . will be again. The promise of futures lost perhaps ready to be born again. There is no escaping the cycle. Years of solitude, of captivity, have only made me stronger.

Aye, brother. . .my body is old and frail. White grows my hair now. The wrinkles of age on my face are too numerous to count. My bones creak and groan every time I stir from my bed. But the soul, brother . . . the soul within this ancient casket of flesh and bone remains strong! And for as long as my soul lives. . .

How long I have been in this dungeon cell, I cannot say. I gave up counting the days and years long ago. Suffice it to say, it has been at least one lifetime. Perhaps two. This narrow slit deep in the bowels of some ancient fortress long forgotten, its walls made of stone streaked with a rare metal that limits my wizardry powers, has counted with me many summers and winters passing. Patiently have I waited for this day. I endured. I survived. I fought back the pain of my captor's torments. I fought the long hours of unbelievable silence that pushed me close to the edge of the abyss called insanity. For years, I heard not the sound of a human voice. Yet I endured in this cell of infinite solitude.

I gather strength standing in the light of a full moon. Now, in my old age, it is the white light of a full moon that soothes the troubled waters of my soul and infuses me with a sublime, almost sensual feeling of strength hard to describe.

Years ago, while still a young man, I would never have admitted such a truth. My training, my religious order, would have frowned upon these words and would have forced me to recant. But not now, faithful servant. Not after all these years of abandonment and solitude.

Know you, pilgrim. I am, or at least at one time long, long ago, a Bretan monk. A Bretan warrior-monk. I wear still the yellow robes of that ancient order with deep humility and love. Even though . . . even though in the eyes of my kind, both brothers and sisters of the order, I am an apostate. A feared and loathed disbeliever who has taken up the sword against his faith. Against the teachings of the Bretan.

They will tell you, my Bretan brothers and sisters that it was I who brought this Great Evil among us. It was I who, when given the chance to destroy this Great Evil long before she became what she is today, failed in my faith and allowed her to live. To not only live, Pilgrim, but to thrive! To grow in her strength and powers of the Netherworld through the training and technique of a Bretan wizard.

She is, indeed, a formidable power. Her command of the Netherworld magic is beyond comparison. She lives in both worlds at the same time. Both here in the Middle Kingdom, where all our souls—still wrapped in these caskets of flesh and blood—reside, and in the World of the Dead as well. The Netherworld. She is aware of both worlds and interacts in both dimensions all at the same time. No mortal wizard or witch before her has ever accomplished such a feat.

How many have died because of her? How many empires have fallen? How many loving families ripped asunder? Millions. Hundreds of millions. And still, She reigns over the many. Because of her, a great imbalance permeates throughout the Great Cycle around which both the Netherworld and the Middle Kingdom revolve. An imbalance that must be corrected. Must be corrected if this universe, as we know it, is to remain intact and operate like the great mechanism it is.

But she is, Pilgrim, not the She whom I raised. She is a different soul. A She from some far distant Past who, when the opportunity was offered to her, stole the one whom I raised with love and tenderness and patience, and imprisoned her.

Aye, brother. . . aye. It is something beyond knowing, beyond belief, that which I scribble hurriedly on this parchment. A she from a different past, you say? How can this be? What Dark Magic is being laid bare here? How could someone from the past, someone long since dead, return to the Now and replace the living? But it is so, Pilgrim. It is so. And it falls upon my shoulders to rectify this Great Schism and bring back the Laws of Order and Tranquility from the Rules of Chaos and Darkness.

It begins tonight, my brother. Tonight. . . when the full moon hurls its first bright beams of pure light through the bars of this narrow dungeon cell. When the shaft of soft, silvery white light touches the stone floor, I will step into its sweet embrace, and I will. . . I will. . .

But before this happens. . . before the struggle begins anew, I will hurriedly scribble a few lines of what took place before. I will write a short history of the struggle with the forces of Chaos and those entities who reside in the Netherworld.

I am Bretan, brother. Once known as an honorable warrior-monk and wizard. I am Roland. Known as Roland of the High Crags.

This is my story.

Chapter 1

The devout know the terrible truth. Evil cannot be destroyed.

- From the Book of St. Albans-

Holding a large burning torch held over my head and slightly in front of me, I slowly moved up the stone steps of the monastery’s ancient East Tower, disregarding the frigid winter’s grip whistling through the tower’s massive stone walls in some somber summoning of the dead. Outside, a winter storm screamed and moaned and howled in rage. Snow—in vast clouds of white fury so thick, one could be buried from nape to toe in a matter of moments—would soon add another four or five feet of snow to the already prodigious amount filled the narrow valley below the monastery.

Winters in these mountains are deadly. Neither man nor beast dared to leave their warm hovels or protected caves when such a storm slipped over the ice-capped mountain tops and sank down into the valley. Even here, in this ancient Bretan monastery built on the side of a towering cliff—clinging to the hard granite walls of the cliff, like some ancient monster refusing to die—the ravages of the storm outside could be heard clearly.

But I was not ascending the spiraling stone steps in the East Tower to observe the storm. Another dread compelled me to leave my cubicle, warm and comfortable with a brazier filled with glowing red coals for a fire. The mass of blankets and coarse cotton sheets that softened the hardness of the cold slab I had been sleeping on moments earlier—a cold, stone slab like that all Bretan monks slept on in their cubicles here in the monastery—nevertheless had felt warm and luxuriant to me.

For you, Pilgrim, the idea of sleeping on hard stone only marginally softened with blankets and a thin pad, may seem barbaric as you read these words sitting in the comfort of your favorite chair beside a burning fireplace. But for a warrior-monk like myself, sleeping quarters, which I had only moments earlier occupied, was a luxury rarely experienced by me. It had been years since I had last slept in this monastery. The premonition that stirred me out of my deep sleep, compelled me to dress and find my way to the East Tower, suggested I might never have the opportunity offered to me again.

In the clinging darkness of the tower, the oldest bastion of strength built in the Bretan monastery called The Knave, the feeling of approaching evil pulled me out of my slumber and sent me here. Above my head, a large burning torch hissed and sputtered, glowing embers into the darkness, yet creating a large enough bubble of illumination that enveloped me like protective coat of armor. Together, the torch and the bubble of light slowly ascended upward toward the deserted topmost chamber.

In my chest, I felt the stirring. So faint, I told myself I might be imagining it. But no, Pilgrim. I was not imagining it. Far away, some great Evil was stirring. A powerful force of dark malice a Bretan warrior-monk and wizard such as myself could not dismiss. All my life in my Bretan training, the teachings of this ancient order compelled me to confront Evil whenever its viper’s head revealed itself from out of the darkness. For years I roamed the snowy crags of the High Kandris and dwelled among the clans of the foothills, placing myself in front of those too weak, or too old, or too young to stand before Evil themselves. That is the way of a warrior-monk. A warrior-monk of any religious order. Their calling, their sworn sacred oath, compels them to protect the weak and the helpless from those who wish to prey upon them.

But this Evil, Pilgrim. This stirring of dark fury awakening itself in some distant land felt like no other Evil I had ever encountered. My wizard’s Inner Eye sensed a power of immense strength. A fury based not of this world—this world of the living. But instead, I felt the threads of otherworldliness, of the Netherworld, entwined into this fury.

A specter of Evil escaping from the Netherworld and immersing itself into the land of the living? A vile creature of immense power. Such a force would be cataclysmic in nature for both humankind and dragon-kind. If my fears were true, this creature of the other world had to be found and destroyed as quickly as possible.

At last, I stepped onto the wooden floor of the upper tower’s chambers and paused. The head of the stairwell was a long, but narrow alcove used now for storing heavy crates filled with whatever flotsam a massive monastery as large as The Knave needed to store. But the greater half of the floor was walled off from the stairwell by heavy timbers. A large, partially oval-shaped door of ancient oak usually sealed off the rest of the floor from the curious and the foolish. But now, as I stood with torch in hand, I saw the heavy door was partially open. From within the large room on the other side of the wall, I saw the distinctive flickering light of torches such as mine cutting through the room’s darkness.

And in the dust that had gathered for generations, lying on the floor where I now stood, I saw the distinct clutter of footprints—three sets of prints in total—informing me I was not the only one to make this solemn journey in the dead of night. At least three people were standing in the room on the other side of the open door.

I felt their invisible auras burning brightly in the invisible spectrum and recognized them instantly. Clovis, the monastery’s eldest Magi and abbot of the monastery. Malinitrix, the monastery’s Master of Arms and Keeper of the Faith. And a younger, brighter aura. That of a recently sanctified warrior-monk by the name of Golida of the Golden Hills. Without hesitation, I ducked underneath the rounded entrance of the open door and stepped into the large room to join my fellow Bretan monks.

It seemed as if the abbot, master of arms, and the young warrior-monk had been expecting me. All three held torches such as the one I held over their heads. All three nodded silent greetings to me as I stepped into the room. Clovis, in a heavy robe of deep yellow trimmed in dark blue and belted around his waist with a blue-and-silver sash, smiled faintly as he nodded in my direction.

Malinitrix was dressed in the regalia of a typical, but simple Bretan warrior-monk. A half coat of fine chain mail underneath a heavy yellow full length surcoat. Leather trousers with fur-lined boots on his feet. Around his waist was a wide belt of thick leather needed to hold the typical Breton forged straight sword. Golida, the youngest member of this troika, dressed very similarly as the master of arms.

“Roland, I knew you would come. In your face, I see the same concerns we have. A powerful force journeys toward the High Kanris. A force does not bode well for those who are misfortunate enough to stand in its way as it moves through the night.”

The abbot’s voice was soft yet filled with resonance. The voice of a man in full mastery of his mind and body. A voice of a seasoned warrior. A seasoned general. Once, years back, this man and his monastery, protected me and hid me from those who wished to destroy me. Another time. Another dark moment for anyone who claimed to be Bretan.

But what I felt in my soul was a danger far, far greater than any I had ever felt stirring in me before. This danger was so intense, so powerful. It could mean only one thing. Old enemies had risen from the grave and were now gathering their forces to descend on us. Descend on not just we of the Bretan faith, but on all of Mankind. As I gazed at the faces of each man standing around me, I could see they, too, felt the same.

“We have not seen their kind this close to the High Kanris in generations,” Clovis a strong voice filled with worry. “The dragon clan, our ancient foe, has decided to gather again under the banners of a strong leader. Their desire, of course, is to fulfill the dragon prophecy.”

“Who, Blessed Father?” Golida asked, his young face of untested youth glowing in the flickering torchlight.

“Clan Hartooth,” I said, frowning. “The First Clan.”

The man-child—for, in truth, Golida was but a young warrior yet to be sent out into the Middle World, this land of the living we humans currently occupied. He had just completed his training here in The Knave. He was a promising, skilled warrior-monk. But he had yet to face his first life-and-death battle with the creatures of the dark who inhabited this realm.

“I thought the Hartooth had been destroyed long ago,” Golida whispered, growing pale as he glanced first at the abbot, then at me. “You mean they still exist?”

“Yes, my son,” the abbot replied. “In growing numbers. Like a living plague, they have decided to come out of their ancestral lands and consume all who stand in their way. Dragon clan or human kingdom, it does not matter. I fear they are marching toward the High Kanris. The last bastion of humanity.”

“To defeat us and make us into servants and slaves?”

“No, Golida,” Malinitrix growled like a bear as his dark eyes lifted and stared at me. “To fulfill prophecy, as Roland has said. To destroy us all.”

Golida’s eyes widened. What little color left in his face, drained even further. More ghost than human, he stared at the monastery’s abbot in despair.

Clovis continued to speak. “We feel their growing strength. We are aware of their desires. We must prepare. Each of us knows our duty. But first, before we can truly plan, we must know of their strengths. Their intentions. And if any, their potential weaknesses.”

The eyes of the three monks fell on me. My wizard’s Inner Eye feeling each of their auras. Each had raging emotions within their chests they could barely contain. Anger. Fear. Rage. Hate. And loss. Infinite loss of what was to come. Especially the raw pain of genuine loss as they stared at me.

`“Roland,” Clovis addressed me. “You are our most celebrated warrior-monk. You are also our most powerful wizard. What few of your kind is left to the Bretan are scattered far and wide across the High Kanris. On your shoulders must rest this responsibility. We must know our enemy. We must confront this Evil. We must gain time in order to rally our strength. You, my son, must find us a way to fulfill all these requirements.”

“I understand, Blessed Father. I will leave just as soon as the storm breaks.”

A wave of immense pain swept across the vibrant, but invisible aura of the powerful Bretan abbot and warrior. He knew what he was asking me to do. He knew what my ultimate fate would be. But it had to be done.

I smiled. Unexpectedly.

This surprised both Malinitrix and Golida. They, too, understood what my fate would ultimately be. They knew my mission was a journey toward death. What challenges were waiting for me to confront that no man—not even a wizard of some modest renown as I—could withstand. The Hartooth were coming. The First Clan. Their military prowess and Dark Magic legendary. They were, as tradition dictated, supposedly invincible.

“‘What will come, will come,’” I quoted an old Bretan saying, still smiling.

The Blessed Father smiled weakly. Stepping forward, he placed a calloused, dry hand on my shoulder and squeezed it fondly.

“You have always been the quiet rebel within our ranks, Roland. You have questioned almost every tenet we Bretan have professed as true. Challenged almost every master and teacher whom you have encountered. Others in our ranks have looked upon you with suspicion. Are you a true Bretan monk? Or someone who chants the mantras, but believes none?

But I have never doubted you, my son. Your service to our cause has never been doubted by me. Your commitment to our cause is unflagging. I fear for you, my son. What lies before you is filled with terrors and dangers incomprehensible to any of us. But I also know this. If there is any Bretan monk who could face the impossible and survive, it is you. Go with my blessing, my son. Confront the ancient enemy and defeat them. Survive, Roland. Survive and return to us. Our fight is just beginning.”

Clovis smiled sadly, and then, withdrawing his hand from my shoulder, stepped around me and quietly left the room. The two Bretan warriors stepped up, laid hands on my shoulders, smiled, and silently departed as well. Alone in the large room, the rage of the storm clearly audible through the stout stone walls, the artic cold of the room gripping me more firmly with its cold fingers, I was left alone with nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company.

War was coming. War of unimaginable destruction and death. And Evil. An old, ancient Evil whom the gods, both human and dragon, foretold would arise from the dim memories of both species. An ancient Evil with bloody fangs and the stench of death wrapped around its hideous body like some Cloak of Invisibility. A prophecy no human nor dragon would be able to turn aside or defeat.

What was I to do? How could I, a monk and warrior, trained in the arts of Bretan magic, supposed to defeat this abomination? Prophecy which clearly foretold no magic of human or dragon could possibly stand before it with any glimmer of hope in defeating it. This Evil was older than the first human. Older than the first dragon. All these years, it had lain dormant. Biding its time. Waiting for the right moment to lift itself up out of the Darkness and fulfill its prophecy. Humanity would perish. Dragonkind would reign over this land from pole to pole. And if you believed in the prophecies, there was nothing. . . nothing. . . powerful enough to defeat it.

Nothing, Pilgrim.

If you truly believed in the prophecies.

Which, silently acknowledging it to myself, I did not.

But we would see. Ultimately, the test would come. Were the prophecies true? Or did yet a glimmer of Hope still beat in the hearts of those who were trained to defy Evil in all its forms.