Into a Dark Realm (21 page)

At times he wondered at his own cryptic style, the lack of information beyond a simple injunction or instruction. He knew he would think he had a good reason in the future to be cryptic, even if it frus
trated him now…He felt the urge to groan aloud. Time paradoxes made his head swim.

He lay abed until dawn, wrestling with a hundred doubts, and a hundred more demons of the mind.

Valko awoke instantly. Someone was speaking. The voice was soft and unthreatening. He turned, to discover it was Naila. She had not left his side but had talked with him, then lain next to him as he drifted off into slumber, holding him as his mother had held him when he was a child. He had found the experience surprisingly pleasant and reassuring. “Your father summons you,” she said quietly.

He donned his robe and followed her, until she paused outside the door that led to his father’s private chamber. She knocked once then, without seeking Valko’s permission, she hurried away, as if she had been instructed to do so.

The door opened, but instead of his father, another man waited there. Valko’s hand went to his waist reflexively, but his armor and arms were bedecking a mannequin in his quarters: he was dead should this man prove to be an enemy.

But the man at the door made no threatening gestures. He merely waved Valko in, saying, “Your father awaits.”

Valko knew he had no choice but to enter. If it was destined that he would die here and now, he was helpless to postpone the inevitable.

Inside the room, four chairs had been arrayed in a semicircle facing a single chair. Three of the chairs were in use, Aruke occupying the one directly opposite the solitary chair. Next to him sat a man in the garb of a Deathpriest. From the markings Valko assumed him to be of high rank. On the other side of Valko’s father sat Hirea, who ventured the slightest of smiles as Valko’s face betrayed his surprise. The man at the door was unknown to him, but dressed as a warrior, like his father, in armor and carrying a sword.

“Sit,” commanded his father, indicating the empty chair opposite him.

Valko did as instructed, and remained silent. The other warrior
took the remaining seat, and Aruke finally spoke. “You are at a crossroads, my son.” Slowly, he drew out his sword and placed it on his knees. “One of us will die tonight.”

Valko jumped out of the chair and picked it up, ready to use the clumsy weapon as a last resort. The Deathpriest waved his hand, and suddenly Valko felt his body’s strength begin to leach away. In a few seconds, he could not hold up the chair and it fell from his hands. The Deathpriest gestured and the boy’s strength started to return.

“You cannot withstand us should we wish you dead, young warrior. But know it is our sincerest wish you stay alive.”

“How can that be?” asked Valko, leaning on the back of the dropped chair as he waited for his full strength to return. “My father says one of us will die tonight. He cannot mean he feels his age and wishes an honorable death so soon.”

“He means exactly that,” said the Deathpriest.

Aruke again waved Valko to take his seat, and reluctantly the young fighter sat down. “What you will hear tonight began centuries ago,” he started. “On a day not unlike this, one of my many great-grandfathers was brought before his father in this very room, where four men sat, much as you see now. He was told things which he could barely credit, yet when the night turned to dawn, he was still alive and fully believed everything he had been taught. So it has gone for generations, for deep within the history of the Camareen lies a secret. It is a secret you will either keep within you for years to come, or take to your grave this night.

“I sat where you sit now, many years ago, as my father and his father before had done. We sat, we listened, we could not believe what was said, but when all was said and done, we came to understand. And when we understood, our lives were forever changed.

“Moreover, each of us has taken a pledge and embarked on a journey, from that ancestor to myself. My journey still takes place this day.”

“Journey?” asked Valko. “To where?”

“To a place within the soul,” said the Deathpriest.

Valko’s mind immediately turned calculating. His mother had warned him against listening to the Deathpriests, for they were highest in the regard of the Dark One, after the TeKarana. As such, they could decree that any deviation from accepted behavior could be labeled blasphemy and bring instant destruction; although his mother had cautioned him that as often as not such accusations had more to do with property, rank, an old blood feud, or over a female advantageous to an alliance, and little to do with doctrine.

The Deathpriest read something in Valko’s expression, for he said, “I know your mother warned you against listening to those of us in the Brotherhood. But put aside what you think you know, and learn.”

“How do you know what my mother warned me of?” asked Valko, alarmed.

Aruke laughed. “Because your mother is one of us, and if she could be, she would be sitting in the fifth chair. She is with us in spirit, if not in mind and body.”

Valko didn’t understand, but he knew down to his marrow that for the next few minutes his life would be in the balance.

Aruke looked first to one side, then to the other, and the three men with him all nodded. “My son, since long before you were conceived, plans were in place that required one such as yourself to be created.”

Valko wondered at the choice of the word “created,” but chose to remain silent.

“Like my father before me, I was raised with a single purpose, a purpose which I hope will be fulfilled this night.” He fell silent, either waiting to see if his son had a comment or question, or simply to gather his thoughts. “You will either understand this or not and upon your understanding both our futures rest.

“Everything you know about our people, the Dasati, is false.”

Now Valko could not resist the urge to speak. “False? What do you mean? In what way?”

“In every way,” said his father.

The Deathpriest spoke next. “I am Father Juwon. As a child I
knew I had a calling beyond that of being a warrior. When I returned to my father’s estate and bested everyone he sent against me to test me and won, I left, seeking the nearest abbey.

“There I trained until I was elevated to the rank of lector, and then to deacon. At last I reached ordination as a priest, and am now High Priest of the Western Lands.

“But even from the first I knew my calling came not from the Dark One, but from somewhere else.”

The hair on the back of Valko’s neck rose, for surely this highly placed Deathpriest could never utter such blasphemy? There was no other source for a calling, save the Dark One. That is what everyone he had ever known had said…everyone but his mother.

Valko said nothing.

The armored man said, “I am Denob, of the Jadmundier. I trained with your father, alongside Hirea. The three of us were chosen by fate to become as brothers, though this was not obvious to us at first.” He looked at Hirea.

“I have seen into you, young Valko,” said the old training instructor, “deeper than you think. I have also spoken to your mother, and she told me what to seek within you.

“I have not found you wanting.”

“When we fought, and I bested you with my bare hands, why the deception?” cried Valko. “Why did you act as if you didn’t know my mother, and then tell me she was a Bloodwitch?”

Hirea smiled. “Have you thought upon what I said?”

“Yes,” said Valko. “I have.”

“And your conclusion?” asked the Deathpriest.

Valko was silent for a moment. Then, in a low voice, he said, “I believe my mother is a Bloodwitch.”

“Then you’ve taken your first step,” said his father. “When your mother and I coupled, it had been decided long before we had met that we should conceive a special child. Generations of Dasati were coupled and their offspring united in turn, in order that one day you would sit in that chair.”

“Auguries and portents had set us all on this path years ago,” said Father Juwon. He leaned forward and looked Valko directly in the eyes, a challenge in any other circumstance. “You are that special child, and the prophecy has begun.”

“What prophecy?” Valko asked.

The Deathpriest sat back and began speaking, as if reciting a familiar old liturgy. “In the beginning there was a balance, and within that balance all things resided. There was pleasure and pain, hope and despair, victory and defeat, the beginning and the end, and between them all things lived, bred, and died, and the order of things progressed as they should.

“But one day a struggle began and after epic battles and horrible sacrifice, the balance was destroyed.”

“I don’t understand,” said Valko. “What balance are you speaking of?”

“The balance between evil and good,” said the Deathpriest.

Valko blinked. “I don’t understand those words.”

“The words are lost because the basic concepts were lost,” said Aruke. “Why do you think Attenders take up healing?”

Valko shrugged. “They are weak. They are…” He let the thought trail off, for in truth, he had no understanding of why Attenders chose the lives they did.

“Why would any sane being choose a life of being despised by those they serve?” asked Hirea. “They could just as easily be Mongers, Facilitators, or Effectors. But instead they pick a trade that, while useful, earns them continuous contempt. Why?”

Again, Valko could not express a reason. He just had a deep feeling that something was wrong.

“They endure what they endure, because they are good men and women,” said Father Juwon. “They are good because they elect to help others, just for the satisfaction of healing, of helping, or repairing damage, of putting the needs of others ahead of their own.”

“I don’t understand,” said Valko, but instead of a defiant tone, his tone was quietly reflective, as if he really did wish to comprehend
what was being said to him. Deep within, he knew he was beginning to understand.

“In ancient days,” said the Deathpriest, “there were two driving impulses within every man, woman, and child: the impulse to take what you wished, regardless of cost to others, to see and grab, to want and to kill, to live without regard for others. To live this life, there could be no progress, no growth, nothing but endless bloodshed and strife.”

“But that’s how it has always been,” said Valko.

“No!” said Aruke to his son. “The four of us here are living proof it is not always that way. Each of us would willingly lay down his life for the others.”

“But why?” asked Valko. “He is a Jadmundier”—pointing to Denob. “Hirea is of the Scourge, and he”—indicating Father Juwon—“is a Deathpriest. You have no bond or loyalty to one another, no social alliances, no pacts or obligations.”

“Not true,” answered his father. “Though Scourge might fight alongside Sadharin, or against Jadmundier, we three are as brothers.”

Father Juwon said, “This is the other driving impulse: the drive to band together, to share burdens, and to help one another; it’s the very thing we now hold in contempt, yet some of us still feel it, or no one would ever become an Attender or Facilitator. Why choose a life that heaps scorn and hatred upon you?”

Valko now looked defeated. “I don’t understand.”

Aruke said, “It’s called ‘enlightened self-interest,’ my son. It’s why warriors can put aside differences and aid one another, because it is to our mutual benefit. And we four, here in this room, are but a few of many who have come to understand that our people have become lost without the second impulse, the impulse to care for others. The only place in our people where that impulse is still pure is with a mother and her child. Think of your mother caring for you all those years in the Hiding, and wonder why that is the only time we Dasati exhibit that trait.”

Valko said, “But you four have found it?”

“We have a higher calling,” said Aruke. “We serve a different master than the Dark One.”

“Who?” cried Valko, now sitting forward on his seat.

Aruke said, “We serve the White.”

Valko was stunned. The White was a tale told by mothers to frighten their young. Yet four men—three warriors and a Deathpriest—sat before him telling him they served a myth.

Silence dragged on, then Aruke said, “You say nothing.”

Valko chose his words carefully. “What I have been taught, above all else by my mother, is to question everything.” He shifted his weight in his chair, as if trying to make himself more comfortable as he wrestled with such difficult concepts. “Until this moment, had you asked, I would have said what I assume every warrior of the Dasati would say: the White is a myth. It’s a tale concocted by Deathpriests to keep the faithful in their place, or a fable created by the TeKarana’s ancestors to give weight to the claim that his line was chosen by the Dark One to protect His Darkness’s people from the harshest of light. Or perhaps simply a tale handed down from our ancestors that means nothing.

“It is said that the White is a being who lures the unfaithful into insanity and makes the weak perform irrational acts that mark them so that all Dasati can see their contamination. It is said that even to think overly long upon the White is dangerous. For me, the White always signified madness.

“Until tonight, I would not have believed such a thing as the White truly existed. Yet here you sit thus avowing, so I should assume that the four of you are mad, claiming as you do to be in the service of something that does not exist outside of myth. However, nothing I’ve seen in Hirea indicates irrationality, nor in you, my father.

“So I am forced to assume that the White is real and that the world is not what I have been told it is.”

Aruke sat back positively beaming with pride. He glanced at Father Juwon who said, “You reasoned that well, young Valko. Assume the White is real. What do you suppose it is?”

Valko shook his head. “I doubt I can even guess.”

“Guess,” commanded his father.

“The White is not a being,” Valko began slowly. “Or there would have been more…believable stories. Witnesses, testimonies, and the like. It would have to be immortal, for the legend has existed for centuries. I have never once heard of anyone who even knew anyone who had seen a manifestation of the White, so it cannot be a person or a being.”