Secrets of Arkana Fortress (12 page)

              There was a sharp intake of breath as Ilsa grabbed her husband’s shirt, hugging her body against his. ‘O… Olen?’

              He whipped his head round and looked at his wife’s panic-stricken face. ‘What is…?’ Quickly looking up to follow her gaze, he saw a small boy, no older than four or five, standing not far from them gently rocking from side to side hugging a small, rusted knife. ‘Oh no; I hate it when I see kids end up like this.’

              ‘Do a lot of children end up plagued?’ Byde asked with a blank expression, his gloved fingers interlocking in front of his waist. He seemed surprisingly calm at the sight of this madness stricken child compared to Olen and Ilsa, who stood next to him with their eyes fixated on the small kid as if they were in a trance of terror.

Underneath Byde’s cool demeanour his heart pounded, and his mouth was as dry as a desert that had not seen a rainfall for many years. After swallowing hard he moved towards the boy.

              ‘Byde, what the heck are you doing?’ exclaimed Ilsa in a shaky whisper, the fright evident in her voice.

              He held up a hand to her as if to say it was alright. With each step he took the rain got harder and harder, pelting him with millions of stone-like drops. His head locked in with his gaze, his body moving ever so slightly forward making him seem like a statue trying to get used to not being static for the first time.

              ‘Byde, he could hurt you with that knife.’ Olen hugged Ilsa as her body shook from the cold fright of the rain.

              He kneeled down as he reached the child who was now starting to sway and stagger; the blade cutting into his hands, blood trickling down his chubby digits like little streams of terror. An ungodly and crazed look inhabited the innocent’s eyes, rendering him as nothing more than another irrational psychotic.

              Suddenly the knife thrust forward, aiming firmly and decisively for Byde’s neck. He leaned to one side, narrowly avoiding the crusted blade by a few centimetres. A swift yet powerful hand batted the knife out of the child’s shaking grip.

              ‘My knife!’ he yelled at Byde, his oversized pupils focusing on the man’s face. His body batted around as his short arms were grabbed forcefully.

              ‘Be calm, little one,’ Byde uttered softly.

              ‘No, no, no, no,’ the little voice screamed. The young boy wriggled with all of his juvenile strength to get away, but found he was trapped in too strong a hold.

              One of Byde’s hands washed over the boy’s forehead gently, the muddied complexion now a picture of something angry and feral.

              The gloves glowed; a bright blue diamond pattern ebbing into a deep green as Byde’s hand moved slowly across the youngster’s hairline. ‘Essence of evil begone from this young mind. Protect him from corruption.’ His words flowed like a lullaby, soothing the tormented urchin and sending his head lolling to one side.

              ‘Is he… dead?’ Ilsa asked in a hush tone. ‘What the hell have you done, Byde?’

              He held up his hand to silence her, his manner turning into a side that the couple had never witnessed before. His expression darkened as he beheld the inanimate child in his arms. Was he dead?

              A sharp twitch proved their fears wrong. The little figure turned his head, and his eyes blinked open slowly. The once widened pupils were now narrow, the irises of his eyes glinting with a refreshed green – knowing and aware. ‘Where… am I? Who are you?’ His voice was trembling with a vulnerability that had not been heard on the streets for years.

              ‘It’s OK, little guy, you’re safe now,’ Byde cooed paternally.

              ‘What the hell did you just do?’ Olen blurted out as he stepped forward, leaving Ilsa leant against the wall with a similar expression.

              The caster arose with the child in his arms, a pulsing vein in his neck glowing slightly before vanishing. ‘We need to go back to the inn, this boy needs some rest.’

              As he walked past Olen with a burning look of concern, Ilsa pushed her hands against his stomach to stop him. ‘What about the Psyloss in this little boy’s mind?’

              Byde looked down at her, and then blinked longingly with a smile. ‘The Psyloss is gone from this youth,’ he replied thankfully.

‘What? Are you telling us that he’s cured?’ She moved towards her husband and held his hand firmly.

Byde stopped and looked up at the drenched, grey sky. ‘That is exactly what I mean.’

***

It had not eased off, the rain; instead it had grown more hellish in its relentless onslaught on the city. Through a window, Byde watched cobbled rivers whoosh their way with the gradient of the streets, making pathways to unknown mysteries. In the alcove of a house opposite, two children were splashing their way through a large puddle that had formed from a leak in the roof. It was hard to imagine that Salarias was riddled with plague when sights like this were present.

              ‘So who, or what, are you exactly, Byde?’ Olen asked sternly as he nursed a jug of ale in his freshly dried hands.

              Byde stood silently watching the children at play across the street. It was like watching an echo of the past. His head shifted to one side and glanced at the young boy who was now sleeping peacefully on the bed in their inn room. It was probably the first night’s sleep the boy had had that was not tormented by visions of madness-inducing evil.

              ‘This is a mistake,’ he uttered abruptly, his gaze following the children in the street again.

              Ilsa stood up from one of the other beds, and folded a blanket underneath her slender arm. She walked over to the dozing boy and caringly draped it over his resting body. Glancing over him slowly she couldn’t help shaking a little, shedding a tear. ‘You’re damn right this is a mistake, Byde,’ she grumbled as she wiped her eyes with the back of her dirty-white coloured dress. ‘Look at him; this little kid is so weak and helpless. His parents are both probably dead as well.’

              ‘There was dried blood on that knife he was clutching,’ remarked Olen, ‘so you never know what might have happened.’ He sipped his drink half-heartedly.

              Ilsa grimaced and perched herself on the end of the bed. ‘Byde… for the love of the gods what is all this? How can the plague be gone from this child so easily?’

              Byde turned sharply and swept his arm sideways as if to silence them both. ‘This is no plague.’ His eyes flickered with unwavering concern. ‘This is far worse than a plague – this is the act of very dangerous magic.’

              The couple stared at him, and then at each other, their mouths wide with disbelief.

              ‘What? What the hell d’ya mean magic?’ exclaimed Olen after he set his ale down on the bedside table.

              Byde huffed at himself, and then stepped back, leaning against the wall as he crossed his arms. ‘I don’t know exactly, but this Psyloss, as you call it, is nothing natural. When I walked up to the boy back in that alley I sensed something… out of place as it were; it was evil… pure, unimaginable evil.’

              ‘Evil?’ Ilsa’s hands tensed up and she gripped the edges of her skirt. ‘So… how did you get rid of it from him?’ She pointed to the boy questioningly.

              He held up his gloved hands and stared at her. ‘These gloves.’

              Olen stood hesitantly. ‘What’s so special ‘bout ‘em?’

              Byde lowered his hands and refolded them in front of him. ‘They are gloves of healing. When that boy was close, the imbued magic within them was aroused, telling me that dark magic was present and in need of cleansing. It is tougher to detect when the magic has been individualised on such a scale – each and every sufferer’s magical ailment is different and therefore hard to get rid of, short of cleansing every single person in Salarias one by one.’

              Ilsa darted to her feet and went over to the small table where the ale was, her skirt dragging behind her like a ball and chain. ‘Excuse me, I need this more than you,’ she said to Olen sternly. Her delicate fingers gripped the jug with surprising strength as she downed the remainder of the bitter liquid.

              Olen grabbed her arm and urged her to stop. ‘You can’t handle all that at once, love. Put it down.’

              She stopped, placing the jug back on the table. ‘Fine, I just needed something that’s all,’ she snapped.

              Byde watched them both – it was always intriguing to see couples involved in their own little domestics. His lips parted as he raised a hand. ‘Let us see if you know your history – have you two ever heard of the race of magic wielders known as the casters?’

              They both looked at each other bewildered.

              ‘Well… yeah course we have,’ began Olen. ‘They were declared extinct over half a century ago. I remember learning about them from my grandmother when I was a kid; she said that the last of the caster race died on Xenoc Island, or so the books told us.’

              Byde laughed, genuinely amused by Olen’s sudden sceptical statement. ‘What else did your grandmother tell you? Did she mention the hunt for the casters? Did she mention what was lost with the casters? Or did she tell you about the stolen artefacts?’

              Olen was taken aback at the sudden harshness of Byde’s words. ‘Have I… hit a nerve or something?’ he asked meekly, his dark face a picture of concern.

              Byde breathed out heavily and rubbed his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Olen, I’m just getting worked up about how much hasn’t been told.’ He smoothed out the sleeves of his shirt and pulled up a chair from by the window. ‘Now,’ he started, his eyes glancing between the pair of them as they stared silently at him. ‘Your dear grandmother is indeed correct in what she told you, but I suspect that nobody was told the truth all those years ago.’

He paused for a second and gathered his breath.

‘The island of Xenoc was where one of the most revered casters lived. His name was Kasten. Do you pair know what the job of the casters was?’

‘Didn’t they cast magic into random artefacts and the like?’ asked Ilsa.

Byde hummed and tapped his chin lightly with a forefinger. ‘Sort of… each one of them was charged with protecting certain objects of magically imbued power.’

‘What sort of objects were they?’ Olen interrupted.

‘They could have been anything, anything at all. In Kasten’s case it was a sword that had been forged in the Lupana caves many centuries ago – very strong metal was used, and only a Lupian forge could have moulded it perfectly.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ Ilsa blurted. ‘Lupians? Weren’t they just a myth?’

Olen looked at her. ‘Weren’t they the ones who were said to have been magically partnered with wolves and could use some of the oldest forms of magic?’

Byde nodded to them both and smiled softly. ‘I’m glad you two aren’t completely unschooled. The Lupians were far from a myth; they were once the guardians of Salarias and the lands beyond until their lengthy war with the dark magic weakened them to the point of extinction.’ He clasped his hands in his lap and leaned forward, grabbing the couple’s attentions even further. ‘It was at that point that they took only the most worthy of disciples and granted each of them a part of the ancient ways – casting. They were men and women of all races, and their new found powers gave them longer than normal life spans. Then…’

‘Then what?’ asked Ilsa, noticing how Byde had dropped the sentence.

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I just thought I could… never mind. Anyway, it was then that the Lupians entrusted all of their artefacts of power to the casters. They ordered them all to disappear as best they could and hide each of their given items from the clutches of the enemy. Unfortunately, when their lives were near the end they needed to find someone new to protect the artefact. Their powers would pass on, along with the massive responsibility of hiding the artefacts. Of course, it wasn’t long until the forces hunted them down and stole the items so they could use them.’

Olen paused the history lesson. ‘Hang on… if these things were of such immense power, then why hasn’t anything happened like an army of darkness, or shit like that?’

‘The one main power a caster has is their ability to render the Lupian treasures inert and unusable by anyone other than a Lupian. After a caster has fully casted an item, not even they can use its power, and since there are no Lupians left in this world they are useless to anyone and everyone.’

‘Very interesting,’ Olen said slowly. ‘Why should we believe any of it though?’

Byde shook his head a little, his hair flopping about on the back of his neck. ‘You don’t have to believe it, that’s up to you and you alone.’

Ilsa looked Byde up and down, and then raised a forefinger, pointing it at him. ‘Can I ask you one thing here, Byde?’

‘Be my guest.’

She licked her lips and then coughed. ‘Are you a magic wielder?’

Olen choked as Byde leaned back on the chair. ‘Why would you think that I am?’

There was an air of expectation.

She rolled her eyes around and pursed her thin lips. ‘Well, for one thing, when you used those gloves on the boy I noticed that parts of you were glowing. I mean we’ve heard that the ones who wield magic have the source of their powers located inside certain parts of their bodies, but you seemed to glow all over.’