The Last Chronicle

A future?

20th day, 3d Month, year 234 after Talili                 

We did not know any better. It is clear now after having gotten hold of more of the oldest documents. Seraha and Malik came out alive from the buried city, but they have now disappeared into the darkness and the madness that follows. Among the things they came away with, we found the old letter that now beyond any doubt reveals a different reality before this.

                  Poor Malik, he really wanted to be the one who discovered the past, now he got more than he could handle. I hear him mutter in the cell next to mine, obscure words that are repeated over and over again. They have tied him with ropes so that he will not throw himself against the walls in his attempts to unite with his master. When we found them, he was silent, absent, it was Seraha that made us understand what happened.

***

                  "Seraha! Malik:" I run towards the two stumbling figures. "Praise the fire, you have returned!" Malik falls immediately to the ground when Seraha lets go of him, she looks at me, those beautiful green eyes blank, expressionless. Lia rushes towards us, her dark eyes huge with fear.

                  "They took us." Seraha's voice sounds like she swallowed half a desert, raspy and weak. "We found it, but they took us." She shudders and I grab her so that she will not collapse. "We found it." With a last glance into my eyes she faints in my arms. Lia looks at me with fear in her eyes.

                  "Edo, what does she mean by they took us?" She looks at Malik's lifeless body and wraps her cloak tightly around herself. "She can not ... she can not possibly mean that Barduus hordes found them? We used all kinds of protection we could think of, even made a few new ones to ensure that the expedition would be successful!" Her voice cracks towards the end and I see tears glisten in her brown eyes.

                  "Come now Lia, we do not know what she means. Maybe she is simply exhausted by the hardship and is a little delirious. We must now ensure that they are comfortable and that they get to sleep for a while." With Seraha's body hanging limply against me, I laboriously walk to the tent, Lia follows with the bags they dropped. Malik is so heavy that we both have to carry him, he needs the rest badly. Lia cries silently as she washes their faces clean of sand.

I try not to think about how empty they both seem, despite the fatigue, they should be more alive. Something has definitely gone wrong, but I'm not telling Lia that.

                  "Come Lia, warm yourself with some sweet tea and freshly baked bread." I hand her one of the chipped bowls we use as drinking vessels. She smiles weakly at me and accepts the still warm bread.

                  "How long do you think they will sleep?"

                  "As long as their bodies need it my friend, it was a long journey, even for two as well prepared as Seraha and Malik." I smile a what I think is a comforting smile, before we both eat our supper. "I'll take first watch Lia, and wake you when the first moon rises."

She smiles gratefully at me and curls up into a little ball on her sleeping mat.

                  "The fire guard us, burn away the shadows that lurk in the night, shine upon the people and show us the truth in your hot flame." Lia mutters the prayer over and over again until she falls asleep.

                  I say it quietly to myself and go over to Seraha and Malik to see how they are. Malik is asleep, completely knocked out he sleeps the sleep of someone exhausted. Seraha moves about a little, she mumbles something and I bend down to listen.

                  "No. I do not want to. No. Do not make me. NO!" She sits up and stares at me a terrified look in her eyes, then she looks down at her clenched hands, she opens them slowly and takes a deep breath when she sees what is branded in her palms. With tears in her eyes she holds them out towards me.

                  "Oh Seraha, no ... no, my precious, not you. No, Seraha, my heart's delight, my daughter. Not you!" I hold her hands, looking down at Barduus seal, that is now forever stamped in my daughter's palms.

                  She is crying silent tears, the glittering drops fall down on the ugly red marks. A grinning skull split by a lightning verifies my biggest fear. Our security measures were to no avail, Barduu has found new ways around them, and his burned hand reaches out again for us. After those who still look to the fire as a blessing.

                  "Father." Serahas whisper brings me back to reality. "Father, give it to me" Her green eyes beg me. I shake my head.

                  "No Seraha, no. We'll find a solution." She smiles weakly at me.

                  "Father, there is only one solution. Give it to me." I sigh heavily.

                  "I know my precious, I know." From my bag I get the little bottle with ruby-red contents. "Two drops on the tongue."

                   Her hands are shaking too much for her to get the plug out, so I take the bottle from her. She smiles her prettiest smile and opens her mouth. One, two drops of poison in my daughter's tongue.

                  "Burn my body at daybreak." Is the last thing she sais before she closes her beautiful green eyes. I sit with my hand on her golden curls until the first drops of night rain can be heard on the canvas, to wake me from my trance.

                  "You are with your mother now." I whisper in my daughter's ear before I kiss her one last time.

 

                  To not upset Lia I shroud Seraha in her cloak and conceal the demon mark in her hands. In Seraha's bag I find the document we have sought for so long.

 

Stockholm, 2099

It all started last year when they found the Temple on Mercury. Five humans walked through the gates and when they came out they had been transformed.

When they returned to earth the demons stepped out of the craft: first Talili with the Shackles, then Barduu Lord of Pain, the third was Garosch Master of Madness, the fourth was Enoa Bride of Woe and last came the Dark Fright, Tene.

 

America, with the space port, fell first, then they made their way across the world and quickly enslaved humanity. They built new temples in their honor, indoctrination is almost impossible to resist. They speak to us in dreams, some of us are sick enough to do everything they ask for.

They used their combined forces, and put a second moon in our sky, the tide has now destroyed most of the coasts.

In northern Scandinavia the first gate opened and Talili's hordes emerged from the ground, shackled everyone in their path.

"Praise Talili, may her shackles bind us forever", it is now says outside her Temple in Stockholm.

Barduu built his temple in China, Garosch is found in Kenya, Enoa rules over all, but has her largest temple on Iceland.

Tene, the frightful Tene is found in Antarctica. They melted ice away to reveal the Palaces of Pain. No one has ever returned from there and tomorrow they are coming to take me. I've been warned, the resistance movement's network may be in shambles but they could give me a final warning. 

 

I'll hide this paper in a chest of iron, below the house. If I burn myself to death over the trapdoor in the floor, my ashes will prevent the demons of find it.

The fire purges! Remember that, fire purges! 

                  The fire is now just a faint glow of embers, and I hasten to add more fuel. The text scares me more than anything I've ever encountered. How different the world must have been. Ice? What is that? I look through the books I have with me and find an old note about frozen water, the idea that it would be so cold that the water would freeze into a hard object is also very frightening.

 

                  Now the desert extends from east to west, north to south and the seas are full of demonic monsters. We are stuck on a dying earth and it is we, our cursed curiosity, which is the cause of all this suffering. I gaze at the two moons, one white with large craters, the other an angry red colour, with large cracks across the surface. With a sigh, I go the sleeping Malik and bind his hands and feet, Barduu can get the kindest of soul to carry out the most terrible deeds, all through the infliction of terrible pain.

                  "Malik, brother Malik. One day we will avenge you. "Lia whimpers in his sleep and I take one of the burning branches off to her bed. I'm for it back and forth over her sleeping body, fire hisses and spits and I can imagine how some angry growls to outside the tent.

                  We're not safe here anymore, as soon as it was dawn and we burned Serahas body, we fly further out in the desert. If the old maps match is a monastery in the mountains can be glimpsed when the sun goes down.

 *** 

                  We found the monastery and the people who live here, people who successfully kept hidden. I was ashamed that I took Malik inside their gates. Who knows how demons stays in contact with their victims. I was hoping to find a cure for the madness and the darkness, but he looks at me with empty eyes and mumbles obscurities. Tonight I'll give him the drops, in the morning, we'll burn his body.

                  Lia has turned silent, I know that she has begun to dream, the only question is which one of them reached her subconsciousness. Beautiful naive Lia, my last link to the past. For her, I baked a sweet and sticky cake, the drops have coloured the frosting a lovely pink. Her rosebud mouth smiles until the very end, I tell them that she caught the fever in the desert and that the medicine did not help. At the turn of the month I leave the monastery, I need to get to the Palace of Pain, to their center. Burn them off the Earth.

 

Fire purges, we must not forget that fire purges! 

Author's Note

I've translated another of my novellas, please tell me if something seems odd.
Enjoy!

Reviews

[Poison Ivy]

none of it seems odd at all! its beautiful and full of adventure and intriguing descriptions! i think its great!

[Yheela]

Thank you ever so much. ^_^

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Intoxicating. 3rd last paragraph "demons stay" and sixth last paragraph "The kindest souls". A very inspirational read. Wish I had read the fisrtt bits now. Hey move over Harry Potter!! if you were not married I'd be after your fortune!

[Yheela]

Ha!
Yes, my huge fortune ... it's massive ... yes.
Thank you!

[Ian H Morrison]

i enjoyed it hun there are a few spelling mistakes but spell check should sort that out. It is well written and very exciteing

[Yheela]

Thank you, I did this at 10pm.
Spell check coming right up. :-)