The Seeker and The Sorceress

To search for truth has always meant to offer up one's own soul as payment, for how else can one expect to reach the sacred stone at the dead center of the hallowed valley. When one refuses to lose themselves, one can never hope to unearth the part of themselves that has always been lost.

Only gods know the cost of such zealously pursued goals, yet only men can be expected to pay that cost. Most men never see the reward that was offered, because most men cannot go far enough beyond the boundary of the great unknown.

x

The sorceress was so unbearably close to the threshold of the vault when they came - mere seconds, two or three steps at most from safety when suddenly they attacked and all became chaos.

Twas ten to noon when those faceless men appeared between heartbeats, as a bolt from the blue, and shattered the peaceful day through unholy screams that stunned all who heard. Then they were upon her, and the very sky went dark under the flood of forms that poured forth to exact payment for many long years lost.

As the frontrunner reached out and touched her, a burst of enormous force flung her student and a half a dozen of the malevolent shades outwards at great speed. The seeker flew towards a shelf of rock, out of reach of the danger that was to follow, the slaughter that bore down on both shade and sorceress.

Frozen flames leapt up around her to create a coccoon, and - dazed and confused - her student could only watch as a torrent of shadows rose up to devour her whole, only barely held at bay by the forked tongues of her ghostly shell.

The student looked away, lost among past moments as he sought the path that brought them here; perhaps to name the wrong turn, that exact step that started them down the path that led them here, to pronounce that movement a false start and a fool's errand - he clung to the last scraps of sense he could, before all went black.

How the seeker came to follow the sorceress around was a secret long forgotten by both. Her follower, student and slave for untold years, the seeker's name had all but faded away on the day our fragment of the story began; no matter.

Where were they headed? A great palace of books, a heavenly place for scholarly types such as themselves, a refuge and sanctuary none could enter unless they were pure of heart. The sorceress strove to uncover the source of these great curses that had begun, to learn more about what they really were so that she would be able to stop them. Each place they marked was forever changed, the land burnt and blackened and the souls of men taken from flesh that yet breathed.

Vacant eyes, empty of colour, grey and cold to the touch. Some sort of foul creatures surely swept through and sucked the essence from all that they passed, but the only accounts were of shadow-men who stared blankly as they faded away. Esmerelda was asked to cleanse the realm, and so together they left that pale tower that was the only home they knew and began a journey across the land to search for clues.

Dark eyes as deep as the ocean penetrated through the surface to grasp at the core, the secret way, but there was so much she couldn't know unless she chose to go out and face the creatures herself. She felt her duty was to cross the barren lands around the queen's tomb for that was the fastest way to the vault of keepers. Was that the wrong turn, or perhaps... maybe doom called before even then, when they had met that beggar all alone on the royal road, and the sorceress had refused to share her bread.

The world danced before the student's eyes as he forced a look at what he could not bear to see. Only her hand could now be seen, clutched around the most valuable tool she possessed, her elderwood wand. Set on the end was a large ruby that glowed as of the breath of a great storm, but she moved not at all, frozen or crushed beneath the burden of an avalanche of dark energy.

Her powers seemed to leak from her body, caught by the breeze and blown slowly away, but all the seeker could do was watch and wonder what had led them here to waste away at the mercy of worms who wore the shapes of men. A ghost of power meandered over towards the boy, wafted by way of purest chance all the way over to where he lay and landed upon a swollen tongue whereupon he suddenly awoke. A word echoed throughout the seeker's body, and he knew then what he must do. He began to drag her fallen body towards where he lay, to call her over by way of the unearthly power that sang of half-forgotten dreams that once belonged to a youth known long ago, before before even began.

Her body was stuck, caught underneath the forces of hell that even now held her down, bound her to the ground and refused to let her go, but the wand began ever-so-slowly to come free of her grasp. The seeker was not even sure what he was up to or why, all he knew was that the taste of that spark had awakened some vague and shapeless cry, a lament for a dream that, mere moments ago, had seemed forever lost.

Now awake once more, the dream roared and bucked to express an unquenched fury over the fact that someone had dared to lock up one of the sacred forms of the energy of Earth for so long. The boy craved vengeance for all that stolen freedom, and as he absorbed the power of the dream, shackles were thrown off a heart stronger than any the gods had ever seen before, for that heart was older than even they. They cowered throughout heaven as the wand broke free and flew towards the seeker, and as they made contact the very earth quaked through every corner and crack. A stormcloud appeared and enveloped the whole sky, droplets of water began to fall and thunder rumbled through Earth's bones.

At the moment of that touch, the whole world changed. My eyes glowed emerald as elemental bands formed, two on each hand. Stone, glass, storm and sea. A melody emerged from my chest:

"I am."

There was a flash, and every sound faded away. Peace settled upon my soul, coupled to the knowledge that all would be well from now on.