Darker Instincts

Something I was working on a while back. Two movies were given to me, and I thought up this.

          Prologue: Troubling Revelations

            “This cannot be accurate.”

            “It is, My Lord.”

            “How long do we have?”

            “Who can say? A day? A fortnight? A month? A year? The message gives no time frame, as you can see, My Lord.”

            “What can we do?”

            “Little, My Lord. We can send messages out, but who will believe us? And of those who do, who will aid us?”

            “Surely we have allies who would aid us in such a desperate hour!”

            “Against a host of magic wielding fiends? My Lord, there are few who would risk a battle of that magnitude. Those who once did are now little more than legend. The Templar Order of Gerty has all but died out; and, if I may say so freely, The Paladins of Jetril, though they are masters of cavalry and excellent tacticians, are just not up to the task. Not since the loss of Sir Wirslon, several years ago. My Lord, we have little hope.”

            “You are wrong to doubt so early. There is always hope! We have but to seek it out. Have you forgotten the teachings of the Great Prophet Ulyt-ferk? What of the Battle Clerics of Lepry? Can they not defeat such a foe?”

            “My Lord, the last time anyone heard from a warrior cleric was an age past. Too many have tried to seek them out, since the Great Reclusion, but to no avail. To send a man to find them, to send any one out, would be no less than murder!”

            “We can hardly fight them ourselves!”

            “You name the truth that so many already suspect, but refuse to admit, My Lord.”

            “They suspect as much?”

            “They do, My Lord.”

            “What other options do we have?”

            “I don’t know, My Lord. I don’t know.” The silence between them stretched on, unbroken, but for the sounds of their breathing.

            “Well then, leave me be. I must meditate on this.” The attendant left the large room, and the King of Havithon was left to think in a silence so utter, it could have swallowed the entire kingdom, if a kingdom Havithon could still be called.

Havithon had once been a proud nation, a large nation, surrounded by friends. They had all been…unique, all been prosperous and generous. The King’s ancestors had toiled to make a living here, high up on the cliffs of the Trewy’s smallest peak, Daedal. They hadn’t listened to the rumors of the forest’s taint. Ages later, they had seen the proof firsthand. Slowly, the nations had been swallowed by the forest. The King had watched as the nations began to grow suspicious of each other. Nations that had once never doubted another’s word were anxious for proof. They had soon turned on each other. Wiped each other out. Only Havithon had remained, clinging to the mountainside; clinging to its sanity; clinging for survival against the taint of the forest.

            Land had been lost to Havithon’s allies and enemies alike. The Kingdom had severely diminished in size. The time when Havithon had been a major trading kingdom was over. The only people who entered its walls were there for protection, fleeing their homes. The constant influx of people slowed to a trickle. Havithon became a refugee nation, and it couldn’t survive that for long. Too many people, too few of them working; there was soon not enough space, not enough food, not enough of anything to support them all. Scores died, and the stories were revived, while yet others were started.

            Too many of these ghost stories spread, driving away those who could have aided the decaying nation. There was little hope left for this rocky kingdom, where agriculture was impossible. The only source of income the kingdom knew was lumber and meat. But the stories, increasing in number and complexity yearly, almost monthly, had driven the few remaining lumberjacks away. No one dared brave the Shani forests now. Not now, not ever again.

            If that had not been enough, the best family of goat herders had lost an entire generation to the cold. The goats seemed to get weaker every year; the cold more bitter each winter; the families grew poorer, and could hardly support their children, let alone their livestock. The King had recently had to supplement their income with money from the treasury. It seemed that not all of the ghost stories had been just that, mere story, but fact. Whispers of death and doom to come were spreading.

            The King raised his head from his musing, to rest his gaze upon the ruins of his palace. The waning hours of the day resulted in mingled, growing shadows cast upon the light beige and amber walls of the throne room; walls-cracked, and pillars-broken, lay about a floor that had fallen into disrepair. There was hardly any furniture, in a room that had once hosted conferences of hundreds; no guards to be seen, men who had once protected the nobles of the land; no courtiers to be heard, to breathe life into the once famous throne room of Havithon. It had seen better days, better decades. There had been an order, once, to renovate it, but there was little cause to do so. There was not enough money to spare on the renovation. There was not enough land to make the money.

            Yet, before him, was a tapestry, soiled and torn, hanging still in the breezeless room. His family, as it had been. His gentle and courageous wife; his brave and quite son; his outspoken and calm daughter; each a seeming paradox, each a vital part of the kingdom, a vital part of him, all lost. His wife first, in the initial political wars; his son second, in the true physical wars; his daughter, finally, in the aftermath, trying to help the poor people left, dying from the contact, a mix of diseases that her immune system just didn’t have the strength to fight against. He was all that was left.

            The King felt a tear slide down his cheek in memory, but knew that he had to remain the rock that his people drew strength from. The King was always the embodiment of the Kingdom, the foundation. He didn’t know how much longer it would last, this façade. Even he needed a symbol, something to hope for, to hope in. But what was there, in this cold world, which could act thus? What was there, in these bleak times, for a man to believe in? Soon, he knew, without it, whatever it was, he too would crumble, and the story of Havithon would end, to be heard and seen no more.

            “’Tis not fitting, that a nation such as this should und in this manner.” He said to himself, speaking for the first time in the language of his fathers. As if unlocking a hidden part of him, a part long buried, he remembered its prime use. Slowly, he stood, and walked forward three steps, down the stairs that held the throne. There, he kneeled, and there, he prayed.

            “Under thy light and wisdom have I guided this nation, as my fathers had before me, as their fathers had before them; but I find myself arriving at a place of pure despair, where thy light has seemed to fade. There is no one to take my place. There is no son of Havithon to claim thy throne. For the first time under the rule of my fathers, have we arrived at this place; so here, I bow before thee, asking for thy guidance. I ask in the hope that thee doth hear me. I ask for thy wisdom to once more restore this nation to its former glory, so it may one day commence in thy honour and praise thy power. This I pray. In thy infinite names, I ask that this be done…Sulme.”

            His voice sent echoes into the cavernous room, and the last strands of his words bounced back to him.   Once.  Twice.

            Then, the light from the windows behind him vanished. He rose to look out the large window; he walked to it, gazing over the forest; he touched the glass, secure in the thought that what was left of his kingdom was safe, for a little while longer at least. Out over the forest, the sky was blanketed with rain clouds. There was the distinct rumble of thunder, accompanied by a brilliant flash of lightning. He watched the rain fall, watched from his palace on the mountainside. The city was stretched behind the palace, and from the ground, all one could see was it, set on the cliff, shining in the sun…when the sun shined.

            It had been their standard, once, when there had been an army to carry it: a mountain with a shining jewel, the shining jewel that was the palace, forever guarding their city. It was their hope. But now, few ventured down, or up, the mountainside; none saw the palace, shining as it had then. They had forgotten. The King knew that there was no way to revive their hope, not in the palace at least. They knew what it had been; yet they saw what it had become. They saw the images behind the mere, physical sight of a ruined palace.  And he could not keep that sight, that knowledge, from them.

            “What am I to do?” The King asked of his reflection. If only he could reach the Kingdom of Jetril, far to the Southeast. Maybe they could help, for old time’s sake. They had been one of Havithon’s greatest trading partners, outside of its immediate neighbors. They could gather men and supplies from the two smaller nations, Pylire and Cavril. Together, they would rush to his aid…if they believed him.

             There was also the Holy Kingdom of Ojrelo; but they were pacifists. They could aid in the spiritual sense only, and the King knew that that alone would not save them. What protection it could give them was not enough to banish the evil that he felt emanating from the forest. It was the gift of his fathers to be able to sense the presence of evil, to sense brewing trouble.

However, in the very bones of his body, he knew.

            This was not a battle that the light could win.

                        Not unaided.

           

“My Lord?” The attendant had returned, and the King could see him in the window.

            “Yes?”

            “I have dispatched our fastest riders to the surrounding kingdoms.”

            “Good. If we do not have them when the time comes, it won’t matter if they believed us or not.” The King said grimly. “They will have found proof in our blood.”

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

            That night, a man stirred in his sleep. He turned in the hay of a loft outside a wayward tavern, situated on the road to Fyrle, the farthest port extension of the Kingdom of Jetril. He had not paid to sleep there. He had no money with which to pay, for he held no job. How could he? He was despised by all who saw him, for reasons well know, but not of his doing. Not directly, at least. He had features so recognizable, that it was near pointless to hide them. Nevertheless, he always wore a thick traveling cloak, the cowl up, night or day. He had no horse; but one set of clothes; one pair of boots; a short blade, well hidden in his sleeve; these were all the possession he owned in this world. He took what food he needed it; drank from rivers along the way; did his best not to stray into towns, or villages. All because of a lineage that he had not asked for; a history that was his curse to bear.