I haven't been busy on my blog recently, but it is all for good reason! I am about 300 pages into my most recent project, a fantasy book I have been writing, and I don't want to release too much until it is complete. In the meantime, I will be uploading sections that I particularly enjoy. The context will be nigh incomprehensible and for that I apologize, but if you would still like to read, it I hope you find it to be engaging for what it is!
Thanks for reading,
Nick
"Take him to the tree!" A concerned voice penetrated the utter calamity that had become of Laryn's thought, a voice he knew, but familiarity meant nothing. The words meant nothing. Shadow crushed the wide space of Laryn's mind so that his focus was entirely on them. Harsh darkness wrapped him and it's deep tendrils crept through Laryn as he sat there, unconscious and helpless. Suddenly he felt a familiar comfort. The back of a tree, his marath. That was a feeling he would always know. His marath. Laryn's body rested, but his mind was all but asleep. Suddenly, light broke through the dim haze of black and time became nothing. Forces outside of himself fought in his mind as he slept, powerless to their outcome. He could only watch. He lay there in loose consciousness in a trance of thought as his mind forced him to recall what felt like memories he did not know he had. They were visions, but unlike any he had seen before. They were more intense. More real. As the forces clashed, each blow jarred his mind. Where something would come loose, a memory or a thought, another distant idea molded itself to replace it.
The darkness lunged a swirling blow into the body of the light and suddenly Laryn stood in the middle of a crumbling throne room. Tapestries and beautiful paintings were turned into shards of mosaics, scattered far and wide across the vast expanse of the grand keep. He looked around him, carelessly gazing at scorched bodies that littered the stones. Some wore heavy scaled armour that was burnt and blackened, their lifeless bodies underneath cooked in the latent heat of their chest plates. Others were garbed in linens that had become one with their raw skin, itself having doubled over into crisp and flaky shreds. The floor and walls still gleamed in their ivory luminescence, untouched and reflective so that the piles of bodies, heaped over each other in protection and fear, echoed deep into the memory of the polished stones. Laryn caught his own reflection in a far away wall. He stood tall and bright in his glory, a shimmering armour of gold made him brilliant. He was just missing his crown. He looked massive next to the familiar bodies that slumped lifeless on the ground. Some were friends, some were enemies. He supposed they were neither now. Just dead. Somehow it was better that way. Gaping flame clung to the folds in his armour and escaped in wisps through the scaled gold that made him look like a living furnace. Heat swelled inside of him and filled his veins, flooding his body, but it wasn't painful. It felt like a power Laryn could never before imagine. A powerful and overwhelming fire rose in him, eager for a release, and he felt ready to do so. His neck tensed with strength as a spray of spit flew from his mouth alongside a fit of manic laughter which rang through the vast hall. His voice filled the hot air surrounding him. A small chatter of a voice caught his attention and only the echo of cruel laughter remained, slowly dying in the heat of the room. He lowered his head in frustration to a face that meant nothing to him. It was distantly familiar. Piercing silver eyes looked up at him with a deep love and understanding, but he felt only the flame of betrayal and hatred kindle in his heart. He raised his golden boot over the face and the love turned to fear, just as he had expected. He pressed his leg down hard in hopes that he might feel hard ground beneath the bone.
As his foot dug hard into the ground, it met earthy resistance and grass splintered up from the dirt. Green salvation sprouted from around his foot and spread like hope a matter of seconds across the flat plain around him. He raised his head to a crowd of people, disheveled and dirty, all cheering for him in weary and weak voices that were empowered by this miracle, but he knew that it was no miracle. It made him tired, each blade of grass sapped his newfound energy, but he continued to struggle. He would die for them if that was what it took. A sea of bright green washed underneath the people like a wave washing over a beach. These faces were so tired. Laryn knew they had spent weeks hungry, tired, and beaten down, yet they prevailed. The sky above them was dark in the dim Sun and he looked past the people, over fields full of rocks and brambles that once held golden barley or corn taller than his head. He smiled, and for once, salvation seemed possible. Determination took him. He would save these people. He knew Noth'Silkan didn't have the power of hope behind him. Laryn felt like nothing would slow him down as fields of rock and rot crumbled and shook to reveal strong Earth underneath. He pulled upon more power than he ever imagined he could. Tree's sprouted around him, erupting from the ground already thick as century old oaks. Rock's grew moss in an instant and bushes laden heavy with berries popped from the now soft soil as quickly as people could eat them. His determination drove him and the will of the people surrounded him in strength. The people rushed to his side, mingling about the new forest. Tears of joy and laughter rose up around him. His body coursed with energy as he felt the strength of their strong souls empowering him, working alongside him, all hoping for the same relief. As he watched the dry earth live once again, he looked over his people and they looked back. Their land had been returned to them, but there was still much more to do. A small victory, but a much needed one. As he ripped his foot from the ground like a thousand year old root, he collapsed into darkness.
Laryn opened his eyes as if from a blink. He was running frantically into a wispy grey fog that built up around him, growing thicker with each step. He looked over his shoulder into a growing darkness that destroyed the fog like a raging bush fire. Darkness swelled up in the obscurity behind him as he ran, giving it a strange clarity. He felt like he had been running for hours, but he still felt half the world away from safety. Each footstep felt heavier as if something was piling rocks onto his shoulders as he ran. Harder and harder he pressed, but slowly the earth could not support him. There was no life around him, only death. Slowly his will, his need to escape grew weak. He no longer had to turn around to see the darkness as it ate up the mist around him. He felt weak, so weak. Every step used energy he no longer had. The Green had abandoned him. Hope had abandoned him. Now he fought against the urge to let it take him. He had been fighting it for so long, but what was the use? The fight was so hard, it drained him for everything he had. He fell to his knees, but sadness did not come as he expected.
'Who am I fighting for? Simple farmers? Common people? What can they give me.' Laryn thought to himself blankly. Shadow wrapped his skin and he felt a familiar chill run through his veins. "They give so little. What are their worthless lives compared to mine? I sap my soul for them, I am killing myself for *them*. Selfish. Worthless. They call me their hero, but I would rather be a leader of servants than a hero to sheep." Darkness seeped through his veins like ice and he felt strong. Alone, his strength was all.
'Good child. You finally see what we can do. What we are capable of. Rise my child, and understand out strength.' Came a thought from deep in his mind. Laryn rose to his feet and looked. The darkness was gone and mist hung heavy in the air. A gust of cold wind suddenly shook the ground beneath him. Before he would have been swept by it, thrown to the sky like a leaf. Now, his feet didn't move. No hair on his head shifted as the dust and rocks were picked up in the flurry surrounding him. The fog dissipated and a long smile unravelled itself across his face as he looked across the wasteland to the mountain peak where a golden city sat, shimmering in the red sun. Darkness shrouded him once again.
Laryn opened his eyes and a warm light flooded in. The darkness of his eyelids was still new to him and it scared him sometimes when he took too long a blink. He started to cry and a high pitched wail of a noise came from him. Through the darkness, something reached for him and gripped him gently. He opened his eyes and a large face looked back at him, strong with love. Calmness filled his small body and the tears stopped as if they had never been. Tiny arms outstretched in front of him to touch the white stubble of the man's face. A small hand, no larger than one of the man's fingers, reached out in front of Laryn. It was a hard, stony face which looked to be carved by ancient rivers of ages past. A weathered face full of love and hope. A huge smile cracked across the boulder of his head and large green eyes looked back at Laryn.
His voice sounded like the groan of trees in the wind. "Mer, come look." He said softly, but Laryn felt the force of his words echo through his small body.
A woman appeared at the man's side side, quick as wind. Her brown face was sculpted like a wood carving, beautiful and sharp.
"Let him touch you." He said as the man pulled his face away from his tiny hand. Laryn reached with all of his length to get back to the man, to touch him again, to feel his warmth and the sea of his stubble. Laryn started to cry again as he left the comfort of the man's massive hands, but it soon returned. He lay in the woman's breast and she swayed around the room like a dance, soft and slow, each step light and precise. He sniffed his tears back, there was no need for them. Laryn felt warm in her arms, a mother's warmth, the kind that only her child could ever know. The woman came close to his face as she danced across the room. She shushed him gently, cooing him to calmness. He reached for her face, curious to feel the sharp edges and soft cheeks. He placed his hand on her face, cool and hard. Her eyes opened wider and her smile turned into a gasp.
"I fell it, I really do." She said happily. She started to laugh as happy tears rolled down her face. Laryn started laughing as well, his body had room for only one emotion and it was joy. The man appeared again standing far above them like a tree-top. He kissed the woman on the forehead lovingly and looked down at Laryn. The both did. He looked from face to face. They were so different yet so similar. Their looks fell in perfect harmony with one another. She was the rustling wind to his solemn tree top, he was the un-moveable stone in her rushing river. The man hugged her, Laryn still at her breast. He wrapped himself round both of them easily and the cool shadow of his body covered him. Laryn closed his eyes to sleep and decided that he could stay there forever.
Laryn awoke to a heavy pounding at the door.
"Gregor! Gregor!" A heavy voice called from outside of the door. It was so familiar. Laryn heard a ruffle of heavy covers as the man rose from bed behind him and walked past Laryn's crib.
"What is it?" Gregor said as he opened the door in a voice that sounded prepared and full of energy as if he had not just woken up. Through the doorway came Holder and Gertha. Laryn looked at them placidly, yet his mind flooded with a confusion that had no place in the vision. Mer was quickly by Gregor's side in the same energetic fashion. Holder and Gertha both started to speak in panicked voices that drowned each other out. Gertha shot Holder a look of disapproval and he went quiet.
Gertha spoke in a voice just loud enough so that Laryn could hear. "There is a man coming towards the village. He is dressed in black and is armed. He looks just like the man you warned us about. I'm afraid it's -"
"Lotherun." Gregor said in a whisper the silenced everything else in the room. Suddenly, Gregor erupted into fervent movements as he walked into the only other room in the house. Holder and Gertha stood in the doorway, looking nervously at Gregor. Moments later, Gregor burst from the room and into Mer, tears beginning to stream from her face.
"Where is my hammer." He said, looking deep into her.
"Don't go! Please!" She said in a quick and panicked voice.
"I told you not to touch it Mer. I know you don't want me to go, I don't want to face him, but I have to."
"Falthren don't! You cannot! Hide with me, with Laryn, just like we planned!" She said, beating her hands and head on his massive chest.
"My hammer." He said blankly. Ignoring her desperate punched, he leaned down to touch the wooden floorboards, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Suddenly his eyes opened and he moved to a spot on the ground just next to Laryn's crib. Laryn could only hear a sharp splinter of wood, then Gregor rose with a large wooden handle attached to a square piece of metal the size of an anvil. It was a hammer. Gregor held up the face of the Warhammer to his own and looked at pensively. Laryn could see runes and patterns woven into the metal, all surrounding a tree as if in worship.
"If you're going then I am too." Mer said as she started moving towards the same room Gregor had gone into.
"No." Gregor said, voice reached a depth and tone that Laryn didn't know it could. It boomed through the wooden house, shaking any dust that had settled. "This is my fight. He is my family. I have to try to bring him back, Mer!" He said, but Mer froze in her place. Gregor walked towards the door where Holder and Gertha stood unready. Gregor nodded towards them. "Thank you Gertha, Holder."
"You're welc-" Holder began until Gertha cut him off.
"Is there anything we can do? Surely we can help in some way." She said, looking behind Gregor to Laryn in his crib and back.
"You can keep Mer company. Reassure her that I will be back." Gregor said as he turned to face Mer. She stared hard into him, avoiding his eyes, holding sadness in her face. Gregor put his hammer down against the doorway and placed a hand almost the size of her head on her back, pulling her into him tightly. Laryn heard soft sobs, muffled by Gregor's chest.
"Come back."
"I will Mer. I always have and I won't stop now."
"I love you."
"I love you too." Gregor said looking into Mer's eyes. He let go of her and walked over to Laryn's crib. "I love you boy." He said with a smile that quickly. He put his fingers onto Laryn's forehead and rubbed his small head gently, almost consuming Laryn in his huge grip. With that, he turned and, without stopping, grabbed his hammer and walked out the door, closing it with a shuddering slam.
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