Chapter 1

  In the small town of Hunter’s Rest, an unusual occurrence had roughly awoken the townspeople. Hunter’s Rest, being located along the main road going from the western coast to the capital towards the east, was visited often by weary travellers and tradesmen. This specific visitor however, was a strange one.

  He came from the southern road, alone and without a horse to ride on, clad in shining golden armour with an enormous sword by his side. This man looked like foreign royalty, yet spoke without an accent. He first visited the town doctor, Mart, and spoke with him in private. After leaving Mart, he started roaming around the village looking for something – or someone. People were peeking through their windows, looking at the man stalking around town. Their attention drawn by the mysterious man, no one noticed where Mart was going.

  His pockets heavy with gold which he had been forced to accept, Mart fled his clinic through the backdoor and made his way over to the hunting lodge on the edge of town. He knew he would be able to find him – the boy – there.

  ???

  Elion investigated the forest in front of him, trying to find any sign of a beast worth the hunt. It was autumn, which meant the animals were starting to bulk up in preparation for winter. The ideal time to hunt a large animal in order to bulk up their own food storage. As the town’s designated hunter – a position he had been given by mere coincidence more than anything – it was his job to make sure they had enough meat to go around. Finally he saw something move in the distance. He had made sure that he was down the wind, so his target would be unable to smell him. Still, an unexpected noise could alert the animal.

  It may have been the single biggest deer Elion had ever seen. A true beauty. He decided to try and shoot the animal from where he was standing instead of risking detection by moving closer for an easier shot.

  Elion nocked the arrow, drawing back the bowstring after aiming as he had taught himself to do, and prepared to fire an arrow straight into the animal’s heart. He could feel his own beating in his chest, his focus slowly diminishing. He hesitated, for some reason reluctant to release the arrow as the deer continued to look around it for any signs of a threat.

  Unfortunately, Elion waited too long. From behind him, the sounds of someone clumsily running through the woods alerted the animals, and it bolted. Too bad, Elion thought to himself as he put the arrow back into his quiver. Soon after, he realised that whoever was running towards him, was calling his name as well.

  “Elion!” the voice echoed. It was a very familiar one. Mart, the town physician, came running towards him stumbling over every fallen log and piece of unsteady ground he could find.

  “What is it Mart?” he asked, still disappointed the deer got away.

  Out of breath and his face red, Mart arrived at the little hide-out Elion had made for himself. He collapsed onto the ground, desperately gasping for air.

  “For the love of the gods Mart, how long have you been running?” Elion asked, offering the man a sip of water.

  Mart eagerly accepted the waterskin, drinking whole-heartedly for a solid three seconds. After his breathing calmed down, he finally managed to form words again.

  “I ran all the way from town, someone’s looking for you,” he said, taking another sip from the waterskin. “It’s not good news I’m afraid. He seemed like a good man at first, but then he started threatening me for information.”

  “Hold on,” Elion started, confused. “Why do you think he’s looking for me?”

  “Well he didn’t ask for you specifically I suppose. Then again, how many young adults do you know that have two differently coloured eyes. He mentioned something about seeking the ‘descendant’, who could apparently be recognised by his one purple eye. You fit the description, but as I mentioned – he was threatening me, so I didn’t send him your way - I knew you’d be here,” Mart rambled.

  “If you didn’t send him towards me, then where did you send him Mart?” Mart hesitated for a second before realising what he had actually done.

  “I sent him towards your parents’ house, gave him a vague description and completely wrong directions, but he might eventually find it anyway. You better get going kid, someone should warn your parents. I’ll be following, just gotta catch my breath real quick,” Mart said as he plopped down on the ground and closed his eyes. Elion sighed, resisting the urge to kick Mart in the leg. He was a good man, Mart, but an incredibly stupid one when it came to planning ahead.

  Elion took his bow and started running in the direction of town. If Mart had left immediately after being interrogated by this mysterious man he mentioned, there might still be a chance Elion could reach his home before he found it.

  Elion ran through the trees, jumping over fallen logs and dodging sharp pieces of lumber blocking his path. Years of experience allowed him to rely purely on instinct when making his way through the thick forests surrounding Hunter’s Rest. He started running faster when he smelled the stinging odour of something burning. He was afraid for what he could find, but more afraid of being too late to help. Just as he was about to reach the edge of the forest, a bloodcurdling scream pinned his feet to the ground. His ears felt like they were about to explode and he fell to the ground.

  From the other side of the treeline Elion heard a slapping sound, followed by a warning; “Don’t you ever do that again!” the mysterious man yelled at his mother. “Next time you try using any of your tricks I’m decapitating the mortal, do you understand?”

  Elion could see the situation at hand, both his mother and his father on the ground, their hands bound tightly. The third figure was one he hadn’t seen before. Clad in shining armour with a bright-orange cloak hanging from his shoulders he was pointing a large two-handed sword towards Elion’s father. The sword looked strange, almost like its very core was on fire, yet it did not appear to burn the man who wielded it. The sword was gigantic, yet this man held it in only one hand with apparent ease.

  “We don’t know who you’re talking about,” Elion’s father mumbled, his face pressed into the half-dried mud of their courtyard.

  If anything, this comment appeared to annoy their assailant.

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” he said. “I was told that the person I’m looking for is your son, you lost any kind of plausible deniability as soon as your lovely darling wife here attempted to get out by using something as basic as a Banshee’s scream. Frankly, I feel insulted by the mere fact that you’re still trying to get out of this. Now tell me where your son is, or I start separating limbs from torsos.”

  It was at this point that Elion noticed the house was burning, slowly collapsing in on itself as the structure weakened. He was also surprised by the mention of a Banshee – also known as the Wailing Woman, yet he never suspected his mother to be one. That scream from before sure felt like it could have come from a Banshee however.

  “We don’t know… who you’re talking about,” his father insisted once again. Elion watched fearfully as the mysterious man lifted his sword high above his head, and threatened to swing it down onto his father’s neck. He was still unable to move his limbs, the echoes of that horrible scream still resonating within his mind. It is said that the scream of a banshee is so powerful that it can command anyone to do anything. Perhaps his mother never meant to target their attacker at all.

  Just as the sword started coming down, a loud cracking sound alerted the mysterious man to another onlooker. Mart came stumbling out of the forest, brushing some twigs and dirt off of his doctor’s uniform. It took a moment for him to realise the severity of the situation he had found himself in, yet he fell to his knees as well as soon as he recognised the man’s face as the one who had tortured him earlier that very same day.

  “Why in the name of my Father are you here?” sighed the mysterious man, lowering his sword.

  Elion could almost hear the gears in Mart’s head turning, his brain struggling to come up with an answer that wouldn’t get him killed.

  “Well you see, Sir Artir, I was looking to aid you in… this…” he said, motioning to the situation at hand.

  Elion still struggled to move, his fingers not even able to form a fist much less grab his bow and fire off an arrow. Through the trees he made eye contact with his father, who was still on the ground and struggling to stay conscious – a large gaping wound in his stomach oozing blood with every movement he made. Elion tried desperately to move his lips, trying to convey any kind of message, any at all. However, his father beat him to it. Silently, he mouthed the words “stay back,” before allowing himself to collapse.

  Elion stopped struggling against his mother’s incantation, hoping desperately that his parents knew what they were doing. Meanwhile, this man apparently named Artir was growing visibly more frustrated with Mart with every word that came out of the poor man’s mouth. Eventually, after about the fifth iteration of “I am here to help you in any way I can, master”, Artir turned around and screamed in anger.

  “Alright! That’s it! If I’m not finding that brat any time soon, I suppose he might as well come and try to find me.” Artir took his sword and started making some markings in the sand before turning back to Elion’s parents.

  “Of course, I’ll need some bait to lure my prey.” He took a moment to tie the both of them up together before grabbing onto them and – seemingly – getting ready to leave. It was at this moment that Mart decided to interject.

  “What about me, Sir?” he asked hesitantly.

  Artir sighed once more, looking rather defeated.

  “Well, my dearest doctor, I was going to let you go with a warning, but I simply don’t like you that much. Therefore, with the power invested in me by my father – Alen, Lord of Life and Light and everything else that’s even remotely salvageable from this world – I sentence you to death.” And just like that, with a swift slash of his sword, Artir cleaved Mart in half diagonally. There was no blood because the sword’s fire immediately seared the wounds shut, but as Mart’s upper half fell to the ground Artir still felt the need to clean his sword. Elion could do nothing but watch as all of this went down. He was barely even surprised when two fiery wings sprouted from Artir’s back and he soared off into the sky, both of his parents in tow.

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  A few seconds after they left, Elion could feel the life return to his limbs, and he slowly stumbled over to the words Artir had etched into the ground. Groggily he read them, barely able to interpret the words.

  “Come find me at the altar in the south. I hope to see you soon, dear cousin…”

  ???

  Elion wandered through the burned-down remains of his house. Sure, he might have been living in the hunter’s lodge for a few weeks now, but he still considered this place home. He used to at least.

  The fire had burned incredibly quickly. It had taken Artir’s flames barely five minutes to devour the entire structure. Soon after the place collapsed, the fire died from a lack of oxygen – or perhaps Artir had gone too far away to sustain the magical flames. Elion had been staring at the words Artir had written in the dirt, trying to figure out what they meant. The sentence sounded straightforward enough, but it still managed to confuse him.

  “Elion?” a voice came from behind. Aly – a good friend of Elion’s and the local bartender – stood in what used to be the house’s doorpost. “What happened?” she stammered, her usual calm demeanour nowhere to be found.

  “To be honest? No clue. Your guess is honestly as good as mine, and I was here for most of it. It just doesn’t make any sense…” Elion’s mind wandered off into nothingness again.

  “The body outside, was that Mart?” Aly asked. Elion simply nodded in response.

  “Too bad,” Aly giggled, “that’s a huge loss for the taverns in the area.” Elion glared over at her, ready to lash out at anyone nearby over the smallest thing. However, Aly quickly recovered.

  “My bad,” she said. “Not the time for jokes, I get it. So where’s your parents?” Elion shrugged.

  “By the gods Elion, were they in the house?” Aly yelped as she walked over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Elion hadn’t expected her strength, although it barely registered to him at the moment.

  “No, they were taken.”

  “Taken by whom?”

  “Some guy, don’t know where. Apparently some altar in the south, don’t know which one though.” Aly appeared to think about it for a moment.

  “I know,” she said after a while. “It’s the Altar of Light. Not many religious places officially get to refer to themselves as capital-A Altars. The Altar of Light is the only one to the south for as far as I know,” Aly explained.

  “How do you know that?” Elion asked. Aly’s smile faded and Elion noticed a strange greyish hue crossed over her face, almost as if her skin changed colours for a split-second. Before it could really sink in however, she was back to normal.

  “I just do, trust me. For now, I think you need a safe place to stay, to eat, and to rest.” Elion tried to interject, but Aly shushed him and argued against the argument he wasn’t even allowed to make. “The hunter’s lodge does not count, yours doesn’t at least. I really don’t think you should be alone right now Elion, I can see it in your eyes – you’re thinking of doing something stupid. If you’re going to do something stupid, let’s at least talk about it in the morning. I’ll gladly join you if I have to,” Aly said with that kind smile that always made Elion feel comforted. Ever since she came to town – nearly a decade ago now – she had been like an older sister to Elion. For as far as he knew she had been an adult from the moment they met, but she never seemed to age. Then again, for most species in Traisil a decade goes by in a blink of an eye.

  Without further ado, Aly swung a thick coat over Elion’s shoulders and guided him along the path further into town – towards the aptly named Hunter’s Lodge tavern.

  As they crossed town, Elion noticed people were staring. They had all heard the explosion, perhaps even seen Artir fly away. They probably expected Elion had something to do with it. Some people looked at him with pity, while others glared suspiciously. Nothing ever happened in Hunter’s Rest, and once they found Mart’s body Elion would be an easy one to blame. It didn’t matter if they believed he was capable of doing something like that, the townspeople didn’t trust his family in the first place. It would be a story the town would tell for generations; a young boy from a troubled family burns down his house and kills physician.

  Granted, Elion’s father was mostly to blame for the town’s general distrust towards them. He was overly protective of his family and his privacy. Even Elion never figured out the true reason as to why. All he knew was that it had something to do with his father’s research, which he conducted in the basement laboratory – in private.

  After a while they finally arrived at the Hunter’s Lodge. Aly kicked the door open, rudely announced their arrival by shouting something to whoever was running the kitchen, and guided Elion upstairs. She shoved him into what appeared to be a bedroom – the tavern didn’t double as an inn, so it was probably her own room. Elion had visited Aly when she was at work before, but never had he been invited upstairs. She preferred to keep that floor off-limits for customers and visitors.

  “Here, rest,” she said, pointing to the bed. “Take off your clothes first though – they’re all dirty. I’ll try to find some clean ones that are your size and put them by the door. Don’t come back downstairs before you’re fully rested. I’ll make sure to have dinner ready for you when you come down.” On that note, Aly left Elion alone with his thoughts again. He struggled to take off his hunter’s attire, his muscles stiff and sore. Finally he got into the bed and dozed off almost immediately.

  In his dreams, he found himself walking across a solid lake, pure black all the way down into a bottomless abyss. Above and around him was nothing but darkness. Yet, despite his worrisome surroundings, he felt comfortable. It was as if the black was where he belonged. He felt confident, consoled by the lack of anything around him. Finally, a voice came from behind him.

  “Welcome, grandson, to your well of power.” Elion turned around and found himself face-to-face with a tall figure cloaked in a thick woollen garment. He wore a hood covering his face, but the man’s beard reached down to halfway across his chest, a surefire sign of age. Besides his beard and posture, Elion noticed his eyes – bright purple, both of them, nearly identical to his own purple eye.

  “Who are you?” Elion asked the man. In return, the man laughed wholeheartedly – although Elion did notice a certain strangeness about the man’s demeanour. It almost felt too kind and jovial.

  “I am Artoris, your mother’s father – and therefore your grandfather.”

  “He died before I was born. Why should I believe you?” For a moment the man’s smile faded before returning twice as intense as before.

  “Why would I lie? It is true that your grandfather passed away a long time ago. I am what remains of him – his soul, as it were. A very long time ago my brother sealed me away. It took me centuries to gather enough strength to possess a human body. I did it all to create you, my boy… To create a son, one powerful enough to inherit my most valuable power.”

  Elion wanted to trust this man, but something withheld him from doing so. His mother had told him stories of her father. Apparently he was a great man, a social wonder. He could force anyone to do anything, which made him a great businessman – not much of a husband or father apparently. According to her, her father had always wanted a son – not a daughter. Sometimes she had heard him mumbling about timing, or prophecy. If her stories were to be trusted, his grandfather was eventually executed for his insanity.

  “Most valuable power? And what might that be?” Elion asked. Artoris smirked.

  “Do you know who I am, boy?” he said, the threatening undertone now slightly more obvious. His charade was starting to fail. “I am Artoris, the Lord of Death and Darkness – not my personal choice of title. My powers are known across worlds, my might feared by all. I am the Conqueror of Dreams, Artoris the Mindreader… do you think I can’t see inside of that head of yours?” Elion was flustered.

  “My apologies, grandfather,” Elion apologised. Somehow, he didn’t believe the man who stood in front of him could actually read his mind. His reaction didn’t fit the question Elion asked, nor the thoughts in his head. There was something not quite right about it.

  “You seek power, I know that much, I am willing to give it to you – in fact, I already have. This mindscape of yours, it symbolises your power. As you can see, it is quite literally limitless. I can teach you to harness it, if you accept my offer.”

  Elion didn’t hesitate this time. He figured that if he simply acted like he was completely on board with whatever Artoris would offer him, there was no way Artoris would guess otherwise.

  Artoris grinned, satisfied by his apparent victory. “In exchange for my lessons, you must become my servant in Traisil. Certain things are afoot, and I need someone to be my knight in order for me to come out on top.” Elion nodded. Artoris’ grin grew wider. Now Elion knew for sure that he was full of shit, there was no way Artoris thought things were going according to his plan based on Elion’s thoughts.

  “I accept your offer. I mean, if you can teach me to use all of this…I can’t wait,” Elion made sure to emphasise his expressions and tone of voice to the extreme. His mother had told him how her father could always be pleased by feeding his ego. He expected his grandfather’s soul was no different.

  At this point Elion realised how weird the whole thing was. He remembered he was still in a dream, and that he was talking to the remnants of his grandfather who claimed to be a god – and not just any god, the banished Lord of Death and Darkness. The sheer absurdity of it all caused him to wake up immediately.