FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE (73 page)

     Silver had been married for about one and a half years to Radiance Capsen, the beauty queen of his town and his childhood sweetheart. Of the name of this town or its kingdom could no longer be remembered by Lord Deathwings. This was due in part to the bitterness of the related memories and in part to the mild amnesia that had resulted from its conversion to demonkind. But it remembered sufficiently the other details of the life of Silver Grambune, the human being it once was. Back then, he was a spice trader. The economy was booming and his trade in spices brought him great profit. Life was almost perfect, almost ideal, except for a single fact; his cousin, Teak, was twice as rich as he was. That was something his ego could not allow.

     Due to the booming economy at the time, most people were under the impression that the co-ownership market was the best place to make money, and to make it fast. So Silver bought a few co-ownership rights to certain businesses and as soon as the value of these rights increased, he sold them for a significant amount of profit. Encouraged by this easy success, he bought more and more co-ownership rights and sold them all at a profit. Then he made his first real mistake
!
He used up a significant amount of his savings to buy even more co-ownership rights
!
A month later, the economy came crashing down
!
The value of his co-ownership rights dropped to rock bottom values. Some of the businesses involved even went bankrupt. So there he was, business-genius Silver Grambune with nothing but a stack of valueless paper in his hands.

     Then he made his second mistake
!
He thought he could win it all back. So he went to the loan-givers and asked for a loan. Having received the loan, he bought even more co-ownership rights, thinking that at any moment the economic situation would reverse and his rights would increase in value drastically. But no such thing happened, and now he was in debt. His spice business was not doing well and he did not have the money to pay back the loan-givers. The loan-givers confiscated his business, forced their way into his home and ransacked his house for anything of value. They threw him, Radiance and their little baby out onto the streets and claimed the house as total payment for his debt. So now the Grambunes became beggars on the street. Two weeks later, their baby died of malnourishment and disease. As a result, Radiance lost her mind and jumped off a cliff. And with that, Silver had lost everything, everything except his soul.

     Thus came Silver Grambune’s third and final mistake. He had heard rumours of an evil but powerful creature. This creature, Lord Desolater, would devour any human in sight; but there were exceptions. He had heard that if a human was to offer his loyalty and his soul to this creature, then this human would receive great rewards of power and immortality. And Silver had wanted such rewards. With these rewards, he could exact revenge on the loan-givers. He could get back what he had lost. He even thought that he could bring his wife and baby back from the dead.

     So in desperation, Silver set out to find this demon, thus setting himself on the path of eternal damnation. He travelled from town to town, village to village, begging and stealing along the way. Then one day, after many years of searching, he came across an old man who told him a rumour about a certain mountain. The rumour was that those who had climbed this mountain never came back down. The villagers who lived at the foot of the mountain claimed to hear hair-raising screams coming from it in the dead of night. Then one day, the entire village disappeared. Silver afforded a smile, which confused the old man. Sensing that something was wrong with Silver, the old man left him in a hurry. But the damage, although unintentional, was done. So Silver set out to the mountain named in the rumour, Mount Razorpeaks.

     Higher and higher he climbed, the desperate Silver Grambune, until he reached the mouth of a dark cave just before the twin peaks of Mount Razorpeaks. He groped in the dark to feel his way inside the cave and quite expectedly, slipped and fell. He felt his body smash against the rough surfaces and the hard edges of the cave floor. He passed out shortly after.

     Some time later, a flicker of light and a horrible stench of death woke him up. He sat up and looked around. He was now in a giant cave chamber. The illumination came from flames dancing on the surface of a river of hot, molten lava, which flowed and weaved around the hollowed and hole-riddled cave walls. And there, sitting on a crude throne made of rock, was a man. Or was he
?

     Silver picked himself up. He was badly bruised, but otherwise uninjured. As he walked towards the man who sat on the throne, he was slowly able to make out the man’s features; and immediately he realised that this man was not really a man. The ‘man’ who sat on the throne was twice the height of an average man and had a smooth, reddish-pale complexion. His eyes were blood-shot red. There were no irises or pupils in the eyes. They looked like glowing, red oval-shaped gemstones embedded into the eye sockets. There was a black slit on his forehead, straight up above the nose. And when he smiled, Silver could see the two sets of fangs from behind his lips. The man wore what looked to Silver like very elegant clothes made of soft, silk-like fabric. There was a look and feel of elegance to him, this strange man.

     Suddenly, the man’s facial features began to change. Two horns grew out at each top corner of his head and the smooth complexion turned rough. His fangs grew longer and his teeth became jagged like that of a shark. His fingernails transformed into long, deadly claws. But to the man’s surprise and even to Silver himself, Silver showed no signs of fear. He continued to approach the man, prostrated himself and stated his intention.

     The man gave out an evil laugh. He then revealed himself to be Lord Desolator, the Prime Demon. It, Lord Desolater, seemed pleased with Silver’s commitment, although to what Silver had committed himself to, he did not know. There was a great sense of foreboding in his mind, but he had chosen to shut it out. Lord Desolator gave Silver a smile and gestured for him to rise. A deal was struck between the two of them.

     Silver climbed down Mount Razorpeaks with a fearsome determination, not of the down-climb itself, but of the task that he had to perform for his new master. For three days and nights he walked, with the least amount of rest and sleep, until he reached the nearest town. There, he searched for the perfect victim. His master had demanded a young child, preferably a boy below the age of five, to be delivered to its cave. He had no doubt whatsoever of the fate that would befall the boy, and he did not care. He wanted his reward
!
He would bring his master a boy, or two, or ten, or 100, or even 1,000 if he had to. He must have his reward
!

     Silver spotted a potential victim. The boy was playing with some friends in front of a house. The house was small and shabby. His mother was nowhere to be seen. The boy did not seem to have any siblings. The lack of siblings made what he had to do much more ‘neater’. He decided to wait until it was dark. The boy’s father had then come home and the whole family was having dinner. Silver continued to wait. Then it was midnight and the boy and his family were asleep. Silver grabbed a large stone in his hand and shoulder-rammed the house door. With a loud crack, the door flung open. Silver wasted no time. With the stone, he smashed the skull of the boy’s father. The boy’s mother was too shocked to scream. Then it was her turn to die, much the same way as her husband did. Silver then slapped the boy unconscious, grabbed him and vanished into the dark streets outside.

     Three days and nights later, Silver arrived at the cave of Lord Desolator. He flung the boy near his master’ feet and prostrated himself. Lord Desolator let out an evil laugh. With a flick of his finger, an invisible force pulled the boy toward the Prime Demon and suspended him in mid-air, so that he was face to face with it. The split in the Prime Demon’s forehead opened and the boy’s soul drained out from his eyes, nose and ears into it. A few moments later, the boy’s hollowed body was flung through one of the many holes in the cave walls and was consumed by the flow of hot, molten lava.

     Lord Desolator flicked its finger again and Silver found himself suspended in mid air facing his master. Another flick of its finger and Silver yelled out in pain. A deep cut had appeared on his forehead. The split in the Prime Demon’s forehead opened up and dark energy flowed from it into Silver’s wound. Then Silver felt cold. Terrible, mind-numbing coldness consumed his entire body as he passed out. Lord Desolator flicked his finger yet again, and Silver was flung out of the cave onto the valley floor below.

     It was morning when Silver woke up, and immediately he was seized by the feeling of severe pain all over his body. His bones were broken, but to his great surprise, they began to heal quickly. After a while, the pain was gone. Then another feeling came to him. It was an unexpected sensation, the sensation of severe hunger; a hunger so severe and intense that it had lasted until this present day. This hunger was the sensation that Silver Grambune would learn to know very well, the hunger for the soul and flesh of humans
!

     So was born Lord Deathwings, the demonic version of the foolish Silver Grambune. It had received its rewards of power and immortality. It then went on a path of destruction. It hunted down and devoured every single loan-giver that it had ever had any dealings with. Then just out of pure spite, it attacked and devoured Teak and his entire family. It settled into Teak’s blood-stained mansion and called it its own. It feasted its eyes on Teak’s treasures. But something was wrong
!
Something was very wrong
!
It felt not the gratification that it had expected
!
There was no sense of satisfaction, fulfilment or happiness
!
Instead, there was only the feeling of severe hunger
!
Hunger
!
Hunger
!
Hunger
!

     So here it was, Lord Deathwings, 750 years later; with no other feeling or sensation other than that of severe hunger as it approached the town of Southgust. Meanwhile, down below, Ray was awakened by the whizzing sound of the Vanguard Jewel spinning in its frame. His eyes opened wide in shock. He knew what it meant and wasted no time in running out to wake up his Sollenthars. There was dread in his heart, but also a tinge of excitement as well, for this would be the very first time his Sollenthars went face to face with a demon. It presented him with an opportunity to test the pond’s capabilities and find out the true result of five and a half months of hard work.

     Spirit was howling in the heavy rain. The Royal Elementhar Pond had gathered in formation. Spirit barked and howled at the night sky again. Another flash of lightning cut across the night sky and Ray, wondering what it was that Spirit was barking at, looked up and was surprised to see the silhouette of a winged human-like creature flying overhead. It was clear to Ray where it was heading.

     With a shout of commands, Ray deployed his Sollenthars into Southgust Town. Ray led 1
st
River into the middle of the town while Clover and Serene led 2
nd
River and 3
rd
River respectively into its flanks. 4
th
and 5
th
River, under Rod’s command, stayed back at the camp area to act as reserves. Then a worrying thought came to Serene’s mind though she knew it would never worry Ray or Clover. Serene’s Elemental Sorcery element, like the rest of the pond’s, was fire; which would not work too well in the heavy rain. Ray would not be worried, Serene reasoned, because he had mastery of the earth element and as for Clover, she would thrive in the rain. But then the soldier in her took over and she proceeded with the reasoning that what they lacked in quality they made up for it in quantity, namely 314 Sollenthars against one demon. Victory was sure to be theirs, but at what price
?

     Perched on top of a tall building, Lord Deathwings’ eyes glowed red as it scanned the souls of the citizens of Southgust. The souls of all living beings appeared in different colours and shades through its eyes. The demon looked for the bright yellow ones, indicating the ones richest in soul energy. It saw movement on the streets below, but it did not feel concerned. For the 750 years that it had existed as Lord Deathwings, no humans, not even Elementhars, had ever managed to even wound it, let alone kill it
!

     Thick, transparent, mucus-like saliva begins to drip from the side of its mouth. Choices
!
Choices
!
Choices
!
There is the little boy sleeping alone in his room in the northern part of town, or perhaps the little girl sleeping with her elder sister in the eastern part of town is tastier. The local orphanage is a tempting choice as well, as far as Lord Deathwings is concerned. Then a flash of yellow at the corner of its eyes catches its attention, but it is too late as a Heat Burst slams into its ribs, sending it falling onto the ground below. It feels a mild singeing feeling on its ribs and as it stands up, anger and rage consume it. It turns around and for the first time, it encounters the Royal Elementhar Pond.