Current word count 7173, words needed to be on pace 10,000
Chapter 2 Part 1
In Which Things are Clearly Not Explained
Seok came awake slowly. He squinted as his eyes
adjusted to the bright light flooding into the room from the open shutters on
the small window. His groan alerted Larkin, who was sitting in a chair across
the room reading, to his awakening. “You finally came to?” he asked. Seok only
groaned again in reply, and covered his face with his hands. After a minute or
two of Larkin watching him with suspicion, he suddenly bolted upright in bed,
on full alert, “What happened to the loai?” his head was back in his hands
again instantly, “And why am I hung over?”
“You
really don’t remember?” Larkin asked. Seok shook his head. “The loai attacked
the town and burned almost half of it down on the way to the inn. I guess it
was their target. You got hit on the head by that loai that was talking to us
here in our room and have been out of it for two days.”
“He
knocked me out? Seok looked up at Larkin in anger. “Really? That’s so lame. I
can’t believe I got knocked out that easily. I didn’t even get to fight!”
“Are
you hurt?” Larkin asked, but instead of listening to the youth’s complaints
about his head, he was thinking back to what Cain had told him and Zija the day
before.
After
the fighting had ended people from the town had been too busy trying to put out
the fires to notice much of the fighting that had happened at the inn. Luckily
the structure had escaped damage, save for the hole in the wall on the second
floor and the bullet hole in the kitchen wall on the first floor. That
particular wound would go unnoticed for months until the innkeeper’s wife would
find a nice cool breeze coming into the kitchens one day when she was baking.
Around dawn the townspeople began gathering in the common room of the inn to mourn
loved ones lost in the fires, compare injuries, and speculate on what had
happened to the loai whos corpses had been found in the courtyard. It was not
long before the tragic murder scenes in the sleeping rooms on the first and
second floors were revealed.
Zija
had regained consciousness and the doctor of the town who had miraculously
survived the fire that destroyed his home was called to treat the injuries of
those who were injured while fighting the loai, or running from them, and the
masses of people burned in the fires. Larkin had stared at Cain with ice in his
gaze, demanding answers, the whole time the doctor spent wrapping his, Cain’s
and Zija’s bruised and broken ribs. After the doctor finished the three men
left the room, Zija with his arm in a sling, and the questions had started.
“What the hell happened back there? What in the names of The Three is he and
why’d he go berserk like that?
They
went back to their room on the second floor where Shula had dumped Seok’s body
on the bed after the fight with the words, “Take care of this dead weight for a
little longer. I’ll be back soon,” and left with no explanations.
“I
may not know much about seals,” Zija continued, “but they don’t go making
people act like that!”
Cain
smacked his hand on the small table for silence. “How the hell am I gonna
explain shit to you if you won’t close that shitty mouth of yours long enough
for me to get a word in edgewise?” the priest growled. Zija raised his hands I surrender.
He knew better than to keep going when Cain got annoyed or he would have
whatever was near at hand flying toward his head. Zija was sure Cain would not
be able to pick up the table with his two broken ribs, the man could barely
walk a straight line, but he was not going to risk it.
“I
found Seok about five years ago when I went up Shinsei-yama.”
“I
thought that whoever went up there died. Isn’t that mountain like super sacred
to The Three?”
“Yes,
well, I was kind of pissed at them just then and thought that climbing their
mountain might make them mad.”
“You
weren’t worried at all that they’d strike you down with lightening or something?”
Cain gave him a blank look, as if the answer should be obvious. “Right, being high
priest and all puts you so far above the rest of us that you’re immune to
death.”
Larkin
smirked at that. “I think it probably had more to do with the fact that he was
angry and didn’t even think of that possibility.” Zija barked a laugh and Larkin
returned them to the original topic of the conversation by prompting, “About
finding Seok?”
“Shinsei-yama
isn’t exactly tall or rough, but the forest makes it hard to climb, I was
pretty far up it when it started raining. There just happened to be a cave
nearby that I noticed, but when I went inside I noticed something was off. First
it wasn’t even damp from the humidity in the air, and it was bright. Like the
rocks were glowing, but I couldn’t tell because of the light coming in from outside.
“I
heard something inside,”
“And
went to see what it was no doubt, what if it had been a bear?” Zija
interrupted.
“Do
you want to hear this or not?” Zija rolled his eyes and leaned back against the
wall, winced and stood up straight again as his shoulder touched the wood.
Larkin and Cain had seated themselves on the floor next to the table and were
both leaning their elbows on it. Cain continued. “If I’d have thought it might
be an animal I wouldn’t have gone farther in the cave, but the whole place was strange
to begin with and I don’t think that any animals would have gone inside.”
“That
makes them smarter than you.”
Cain
ignored that comment. “There was a shrine gate set up in the cave.” On seeing
the gate he had stopped short. Even those who did not adhere to temple customs
knew it was not smart to go stepping through strange shrine gates, as the older
ones could be dangerous doors into the spirit realm. This gate had been so old
that the rope hanging from it was almost rotted out completely and the paint was
gone. A boy who looked about sixteen or seventeen had been leaning against the
cave wall just beyond it. He was just sitting there staring at nothing, banging
his head on the rock behind him. He did not seem to notice Cain was there, even
though he was standing right in front of him. Then Cain spoke and asked him what
he was doing there. Did he know that this was a sacred place? Who was he?
The
boy’s eyes seemed to clear and they focused on Cain standing on the other side
of the gate. It was minutes before he spoke, and Cain stood transfixed looking
at the boy. He noticed for the first time the matted brown hair that hung down
the boy’s back and pooled on the floor beside where he sat. He was thin to the
point of emaciation, and his hands were encased in silver cuffs connected to
chains that disappeared into the mat of hair and merged with the wall behind
him.
Finally
he spoke. His voice was rough with disuse. “Who are you?” Cain replied with the
same question and the boy, in his present state of mind seemed more than just
confused, but distraught. Looking up at Cain through eyes that brimmed with
tears he murmured, “I don’t know.” Cain made up his mind then and stepped
through the portal, for that is what the gate clearly was. His sense of human decency,
such as it was, was prompting him on. He did not stop to consider who or what
this chained spirit might be, or what it could be capable of. The boy looked
close to be on death’s doorstep and was chained to the wall, he would not hurt
the only person who though to come close. The boy had not taken his eyes off
Cain since he had noticed him, and he watched the priest coming closer without
a hint of either fear or aggression. His expression was that of a child, full
of a mixture of perplexity and wonder.
Cain
stepped forward and knelt beside the boy. Taking the boy’s hands in his own he
had meant to examine the engraving on the silver cuffs encircling the boy’s
wrists, but as soon as the skin of their hands made contact the cuffs disappeared.
With a slight clinking rattle, a quiet sound, even in the silence of the cave,
the chains connected to the cuffs disappeared one by one until all that was
left was the boy sitting there and the smooth stone wall behind him.
The
boy’s eyes fell to his freed hands which he spread in front of him, reaching
toward Cain. Just as the man was about to move back out of reach the boy flung
his hands up in the air above his head and a smile broke out on his face,
showing such unadulterated joy that Cain could not help but be glad of his
choice to free the boy. From his looks it might be only hours until he died.
Cain reasoned that he would not pass on so easily if he were some kind of
spirit or god but the bonds that had held him could just as easily have been
keeping him from dying, despite the shape his body was in.
No comments:
Post a Comment