Chapter Four: The Eyes in the Dark

Leogun finds a strange man in the depths of the Great Monastery, and everything changes.

Leogun set the first of the books in his arms onto the table. He had to be very careful, as the pile was stacked nearly to his eyes. It wobbled even as he moved. He had spent nearly an hour gathering each and every tome up. Most of them were histories, some of them books of philosophy, and the last the eight volumes of Ivarord. The histories went back as far as any of Gammesian history, a few hundred years. The monk hadn't been looking for anything in particular. Rather, he had been looking for something to look for. It was too late to become an Iron Arm, one of the Caste, even if he wanted to, and missionary work didn't suit him. What he wanted was to drown himself in an ocean of knowledge. The library had seemed an enchanting place when he was just an apprentice, and he wanted to scour its depths. However, there was no point in searching for nothing. So he looked for something.
The first he opened was one of Saint Halli's Histories, the most detailed of the Order's records of itself. Halli himself had been one of Ivar's first acolytes, and as such, he had written of the first of the Order's years, including the building of the Monastery itself. While he skimmed the text, he still found it immensely difficult to read. It seemed that the old Northern tongue, Skadi, amplified the tediousness of the readings. It was page after page of descriptions of the Monastery's measurements. The young man found himself setting the book down to stare out into the open air more often than he wished. Night had fallen hours ago; night seemed to be the only time Leogun had for himself these days. He was constantly running errands for Kaj, down at the foot of the mountain where the small village of Thuurdis had sprouted up ages past. The old man had taken a liking to the people there, it seemed, and was spending more and more time there, sometimes weeks at a time. That meant it was the new brother's job to ferry messages back and forth, mostly from Kaj to the High Monks, asking for food and clean water. While Kaj's powers were stronger than most, he still lacked enough of the High One's Gift to cleanse a body of water larger than a bowl. Meaning Leogun towed a sled bearing barrels of water and meat down the mountain nearly every day.
The moon was full that night, an enormous white sphere hanging in the sky, framed by twinkling stars. The light washed over the library, and the brothers illuminated their paths with a small, golden wisp of fire above their heads. Any brother could do that. It wasn't hard. What was hard was making the fire big enough to matter. A breeze chilled the air, piercing Leogun's robe. Not that it mattered, anymore. The cold was a part of the North, and a part of every brother's life. Leogun put down the book. There was nothing in there for him. His dark eyes swept over the pile of books stacked high on the mahogany desk. Most leatherbound, and marked with their titles on the side, not one appealed to him. The moment his work ceased, he felt listless. Before, he had something to work for; something to aim for. The blue robe had symbolized everything he'd ever wanted. A strange thing, of course. Most boys dreamed of being mighty warriors, like the so-called Sindri the Bloodthirsty, who was, at the very moment, visiting the Monastery to celebrate his victory over the 'savage selaeron.' Of course, the mountain people, whether they were daronu or selae, were neither savage nor deserving of slaughter. But the monks would seemingly be damned if they didn't speak with the 'great hero.' Leogun chuckled to himself as an old, fat brother sat down on one of the benches beside the pillars that held up the roof.
“You- boy.” He wheezed. Leogun turned. It was Brother Edvin. The man was red in the face, and sweat seemed to rain from his forehead. It was a miracle the man could move; the folds of his fat pushed against his robe, and as it was, he had to wear it unbuttoned, the gold hem straining against the pressure. The man was a drunk, but still, he was Leogun's elder; that made him deserving of respect. If the young man had learned one thing- and he had most certainly learned more than one thing- under Asmund's tutelage, it was respect.
“Fetch me... fetch me a mug of ale. Bring it here, why don't you? Respect your elders, boy. I...” He paused to catch his breath. “I've been a brother for damn near twenty years. I deserve respect!” He seemed to be making counterarguments for points the younger brother hadn't made, but Leogun stood nonetheless, adjusting his blue robe and rearranging his pile of books. He bowed quickly to the reddened old monk and strode out of the library doors.
The main hall of the Monastery was enormous and almost empty. Night was not the favored time for the average brother of the Order. With a bellyful of mead, one generally either wanted a warm bed or more mead. Leogun couldn't stand the stuff, himself. He preferred good, Deharlean tea, a taste Kaj had passed on to him. The few brothers that milled about were mostly gathered in clumps, chatting and planning for the days ahead. Most of the brothers who were not members of the Caste of the Iron Wind- the warriors of the Order, dedicated to protecting the Northern people and the tenets of the Order, to the death if necessary- were either out of the Monastery doing missionary work or busy doing research, like Leogun. The Caste was mostly spread across the nation; most of the High One's Dwelling, as the country was called, governed itself, though the Order of the High One technically ruled it.
Leogun passed by one group talking about the visiting hero and rolled his eyes as he found his way to the cellar doors. They stood tall, even higher than Leogun's own head, and were made of strong iron. He grasped the cold iron door handle of one and pulled it open. Stale air rushed out in a wave towards him, and the smell of old and mouldy wood filled his nostrils. He used his own access to the High One's gift to light a fire above his head and took his first steps into the shadows.
He noticed it was colder in the cellar than above. A strange thing, but one that he paid no mind. The temperature was something all Northerners knew was changeable, even if they lacked the brothers' divine resistance to it. The hallways were carved of natural stone, rather than being made of brick like the Monastery itself, and led in one direction. Leogun walked the path for nearly fifteen minutes before it opened up. The next room was a square, around five feet by five feet, and had a row of barrels of what Leogun must have assumed was mead on either side. He grumbled as he picked up one of the iron flagons to the side of the row. Back. The thought rang through his mind. Without questioning, he stepped back. His eyes found the empty back of the room, and a faint golden light began to encroach on his vision. Even as he drew closer, he felt like it was a bad idea. Touch it. Ignite the flame. He reached out, brushing his fingers against the wall of the chamber. The light faded away, and he sighed.
He heard a hiss.
Five marks on the stone, the same spots where his fingers had touched, shone in the low light. Cracks in the stone seemed to appear, leaking gold, and the cracks began to quicken as they spread. Soon, gold was all Leogun could see. The door crumbled away to nothing, revealing a second pathway. Turn. Back! This time, Leogun agreed with his thoughts, but a second voice overpowered the first. How suspicious. I should investigate. The voice felt fake, like an intrusion, but Leogun agreed with it, too. His steps echoed as he drew closer to the empty blackness.
Gold eyes burned in the shadows.
“Hello?” He called quietly. The eyes were locked on him.
“Are you here to kill me?” Came the tired reply. The voice was shaky and weak. Leogun shook his head, and tried to brighten the flame above him. He looked up to find that it had disappeared. Closing his eyes, he mustered up all his strength, trying to summon it up again, but nothing came.
“I'm not here to kill you.” He promised. The eyes disappeared. A second later, they reappeared, shining in the darkness brighter than before. A fire, smaller even than Leogun's had been but brighter, appeared in front of the eyes. They belonged to a man, appearing Southern, with a ragged white beard and wrapped in rags. He sat calmly, staring at the intruder. “Who are you?” Leogun asked. The man smiled.
“That does not matter anymore.” The man said with a grin. “You are here. I am here. I am old. I am dying. That is all that matters.” He patted the stone in front of him, gesturing for Leogun to sit. The monk turned back, gesturing to the entryway, but found it had vanished. Rough stone was all that remained. Sighing, he sat, facing the man. “Will you stay with me during my dying moments, boy?” The old man asked. Leogun nodded, and the old man nodded too. “Some things must be shared. A man's dying moments should be one of them. For some people, they must be. The gods only know I've seen enough dying moments to know that.” His voice was weak, Leogun noticed, and his body frail, but the man spoke confidently. He truly believed that Leogun had spoken the truth. If Leogun thought someone was trying to kill him, he thought he'd have been more suspicious. Leogun nodded, and the man grinned widely. “Gods bless you. You will need it, I think.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I need it, and I can do nothing more.” He closed his eyes and breathed out. The gold light, both the flame and his eyes, winked out, and then a white fire spilled from his lips. It hovered in the air as the man collapsed. Leogun couldn't take his eyes off the faint white wisp slowly floating towards him.
He breathed in, and he saw the world.

THE RECKONING COMES. Light blinded Leogun, and he recoiled as the suns shone in the sky, illuminating everything. Men in black everywhere, scattered among every person, cried out as the suns set them aflame. Three shining balls of fire hung in the sky arranged in a triangle, and between them, a man stood. Around him a winged serpent flew in a circle, eating its own tail endlessly.
SON OF THE NORTH. All disappeared, and Leogun was left alone in the white light. He could feel a great presence in front of him, but he couldn't see it.
YOU HAVE ACCEPTED A GREAT BURDEN. YOU MUST LEAVE THE PLACE OF YOUR HOME, FOR THE BLACKNESS THREATENS TO COVER ALL THE BLESSED LANDS. Leogun fell to his knees in agony and ecstasy, feeling warmth wash over him. His head pounded, and every one of his joints ached with a vengeance. He could feel a roaring fire inside him, burning his lungs and roasting his insides. BEAR MY FLAME.
All became darkness, and Leogun was left alone. In front of him, a white fire floated in front of him, bobbing up and down. In the back of his mind, Leogun could hear whispers of many voices. He wanted to go to it, to touch it. He moved closer, arms out, ready to embrace the burning wisp. Taking it within himself, he, for no more than a moment, saw the universe.
His pounding headache ignited into a raging inferno, and he saw thousands of event flash through his mind. First, he an army rushing towards him. He knew he was alone, but he didn't care; rather, he was inspired. He raised his hands and white fire flowed from inside him. The army caught fire, from the front to the back, and the army died, one by one. Finally, one man remained; he was older, perhaps sixty, and clad in mail and a steel breastplate. Probably mageforged. The damn elves probably made it for him. Leogun drew the sword at his waist and put it to the man's neck.
“Please. Please.” The fallen man moaned. “Don't kill me.”
“You have betrayed the gods, Sagah.” Leogun said, not of his own volition. It was not his own voice. He looked down at his hands and forearms to see that they were as dark as a man from Brym's. He drew the sword back and struck.
He was gone from the desert an instant later. Now, he was lost in the forest, running between them. All around him, the sounds of battle echoed; there was steel clashing and trees smouldering. He had, once again, a sword in his hand. Its blade was silver, and shone even in the dull moonlight. Fear wasn't in his heart, though he knew almost any other man with any modicum of sense would be; no, fear was for men who were not the Vessel. The Vessel was strong.
As he leaped over the last fallen trunk, he spun, slashing a wide, shining arc with his sword and sending a wave of white fire soaring through the air towards the gathered five men in blue robes.
“It's a Stormfire!” One howled, diving to the side and pulling his brother with him. The edges of their robes caught the flame, sizzling and burning away for a moment as they dove away. He turned, his sword raised, as the blue men rose to their feet. They each held a pair of iron short swords in their hands, and they were rushing towards him. Leogun struck again, cutting into the leading man's chest. The flames consumed him, and his screams rang through the forest. The other two backed away.
“You face the Vessel.” He growled.
Once more, he was gone. Now, he was alone, lying in pain in an old, wooden home. There was a pain in his chest, pulsing against his ribs. It felt as if his heart threatened to burst free of his skin and pour out his blood on the floor. Petros would be coming soon, Leogun knew. Then it could be over. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The Fire wouldn't let him die until he passed it on, but still, his dying heart still ached. It stopped him from sleeping, so he lay there as contentedly as he could. There was a kind of peace with it. Like Amad long ago, he would join his Master soon.
He heard a crash and a yelp, and then the clashing of weapons. The rrash sound of flame searing the air roared through the house, and a blackened corpse went flying past the open door. Leogun closed his eyes. Petros, it seemed, would not be coming soon. No more than a minute later, a small group of men in blue robes burst through the doorway with scarves wrapped around their mouths. Damnation. Leogun thought. They picked him up, carrying him between them, and brought him out the door. Not long after that, there was blackness. It seemed that, for centuries, the blackness had never ceased, never faltered for even a moment... and then it had fallen away, revealing another damned man in another damned blue robe. He was young, no more than thirty or so, with a confused look on his face. Poor b*****d. Leogun thought. He couldn't feel angry with the boy. No doubt, he had been born years after the War. Decades, maybe. Or a century. A voice in the back of his head piped up. He crushed it down. No. I can't have been here a century. His heart still hurt. Far more than before. In fact, all of him hurt. It was a miracle he hadn't rotted away.
“Hello?” The boy said quietly. More of a whimper, really. He was terrified. Leogun would have laughed, if he could have summoned the strength. He was almost sure he could talk. He hoped he could talk. The boy would panic if he didn't explain, if he didn't tell him what was coming. First, a few questions; a bad Vessel was worse than no Vessel at all. His own master had taught him that with his life.
“Are you here to kill me?”
THE RECKONING COMES, SON OF THE NORTH.

Leogun gasped as his eyes opened again. He was curled up in a ball, clutching his head. The ground was cold, and hard, and his back ached. How long had he been down here? Years. He estimated. He blinked. No, it hadn't been him that had estimated. As he thought about it, it hadn't been him who had spoken in those visions, either. It had been... someone else. And now that someone was in his own head.
That didn't happen. Rather, that shouldn't happen.
No more than a few minutes. He thought again. Yes, that was his voice. Definitely his. It sounded like his, it felt like his. It belonged to him. He got to his feet slowly, head pounding like a drum. Sleeping, however sleep had come here, on a stone floor was not comfortable. He staggered out into the doorway. He almost left completely, to return to the Monastery's main hall, but remembered the old monk waiting in the library. The young man chuckled to himself as he poured ale into one of the mugs nearby. He carried it as carefully as he could, but with the terrible pain in his head, that was awfully difficult. Every few steps or so, a few drops of the drink would spill over, mostly onto his boots. He frowned. Those were his favorite boots, and it was a pain to get the stains out of the boots, he was sure. Thinking about how he would have to ask Kaj the next morning, he emerged into the relative light of the hall. Most of the monks had already disappeared to their beds, but still a few remained with a few floating fires above their heads. The light hurt his eyes, so Leogun pulled up his gold-hemmed hood to shade his eyes. Quietly, he made his way back to the library. By this point, the mug was already half empty.
The library was nearly empty by the time Leogun got to it. Returning to his table, he found Brother Edvin sleeping fitfully. The man snored like a lion. Or at least what Leogun thought a lion would snore like. He'd never seen one. Putting the mug on one of the empty spots on the table, he considered waking the old monk. Instead, he decided to go back to his studies.
A RECKONING IS COMING, SON OF THE NORTH. A voice suddenly boomed in his head. Leogun straightened in his seat. Was that the same voice from the dream? The one from the vision in white? They were the same words he had heard before he'd woken. Slowly, he realized that the old man's body was still in the cellar. Next, he heard sounds in the back of his head. Like the buzzing of an insect. He'd heard bees before, and their buzzing was very much like this. He rose from his seat. The body was still there.
You are the Vessel now. Came another voice. Not his own. Not the one that had boomed in his head a moment before. The same one he'd heard just as he'd awoken. The same one that had come from the old man's mouth. You have a duty! Leogun gulped.

He pushed open the doors quickly, running down the stairs and down the hallway. The door to the strange chamber was still opened, and he swept in. No-one had seen him re-enter the cellar. He'd waited long enough for most of the monks still remaining to go to sleep, and he'd done his best to sneak past the ones that had stayed. Leogun flattered himself that Asmund's constant exercises had had some effect, at least; he was strong, he was fast, and he knew how to move through the shadows well enough, even if he wasn't an Iron Arm. The old man's body was still there, what was left of it. Now, most of the flesh had already rotted away, as if the body had been aching to die and now just wanted to get on with it.
I did. The old man said in his head. Leogun grunted, and gathered the stinking corpse in his arms. He carried it up, out of the main hall and out the open pillars of the library. His hood was up once more to protect his face from the winds. Even if the cold didn't bother him, frostbite was still a danger in Northern winter. He trekked out as far as he could while staying in view of the Monastery. It was a small, shining ball in the distance now. He'd walked for almost an hour, he estimated. The dirt below the snows was still frozen from the winter, but Leogun guessed he had enough of the Gift to heat the earth. He felt strong, full of vitality, and warming a little dirt felt like the least he could do. He put the bones down gingerly and extended his hands to the snow. Flames erupted from his hands, almost uncontrollable. In fact, he felt as if he barely had control of his own body. Finally, he thought the dirt was sufficiently unfrozen, and the inferno ceased. He dug the grave itself with his own hands, pulling away mounds of dirt. Already the brown grains were beginning to freeze again in the cold of night, but he dug quickly enough to make a good enough hole to bury the remains in.
He filled in the dirt as best he could and kicked the snow over top. His hands were covered in dirt and, he feared, some of the old man's rotting flesh. He gagged at the notion before wiping his hands on the snow. Before he turned away, he stopped. No man should go to the High One with no words of prayer at his back. He linked his hands and murmured the standard funeral rites.
“May you pass safely from this realm of the living and enter the sky to fly forever with the High One, hallowed be he.” He whispered. He still didn't return quite yet. What am I doing? He thought. Spiriting a body away in the night, digging a secret grave... these are not things an innocent man does. Have I committed some crime? Why don't tell the High Brothers? He gulped. The answer was painfully obvious. His hands shook, his teeth chattered, but it was not the cold that touched them. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he feared for the smell of his armpits. They always perspired when he was nervous. And he was very nervous now. No, not nervous.
Leogun Asmundvard was terrified.