The Unbeating Heart of the Land

Note: This is an unfinished work.

link to the google doc here

by Noah Pendly

Chapter 1.1:

Soooooooooooooooo yes-... just kidding the answer is no, whatever you are trying to sell me the answer is no. I wish you guys would get the point, stop following me around everywhere, close up your stall, AND GO CRAWL DOWN A WELL -_-

But really tho, I didn’t expect it to work- it never does… so I guess I will try to ignore you following me around everywhere and get on with my life. AND MY LIFE IS BORING YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO SPEND YOUR TIME HERE-...

Okay- so I live in a hole off Westminster street, if you ever want to come and see me just jump in and we can have a chat while I laugh at you for falling for this and jumping in a random pit-...

ALRIGHT FINE-... this time it will really be about me- but it’s part of me- I just like to be extremely deathly sarcastic about life- otherwise it’s a pretty rotten place to be…

Chapter 1.2: (Chapter 1: For Real)

I live- well kinda in the village of Mortow, it lies by a large, fairly shallow lake. The majority of the land all around is dark sand, the only alteration being the altogether darker bog, where, supposedly, the witch doctor of ancient Morcataw lives. The village is small, and its biggest attraction is the market- which is also my least favorite place in the land…. The people there are always haggling, and no one ever gets the price they want buying or selling anything. Thievery is abundant- or was- until insane safety measures made it dangerous to have anything that mightn’t be yours in the eyes of the guards.

I do make use of the market walls though, in fact, I live in a small hollow in the wall where the stone collapsed… So that’s my home for you- but I don’t exactly have room- so please don’t try to visit-... I generally live off of my crab pots and a series of traps I set up in the lake- but some days that isn’t enough- and I, like many others, am forced to resort to searching for anything edible at all… Unfortunately there are almost more people doing the same than not, and things will only get worse.

Thankfully though most of us don’t go hungry as the brush and trees provide food for a number of us. Pomegranates grow plentifully in the forest, and it’s not hard to find them, for now, but as the season changes the population will drop- and there is nothing we can do... But as seasons change we’ll adapt. There is, however, some good news, harvest season starts next month, and for a while everyone will be better off.

My most valuable possession is a blue-metalic charm I found one day when the biggest storm I ever saw broke and faded behind a blinding light from the sky… I don’t get it but I believe it has a message even if I can’t read it yet. Aside from that and a few scraps of cloth my only other possession is a staff and the deed to a small patch of land large enough to die and be buried on-. So that’s great- at least I die with enough land to feed the man who finds my body for a day or two while my body rots in the street.

But until then this patch of land is going to be my tertiary food source- I can’t really grow much there, but I grow as much as I can, and I haven’t died yet, so for now I’m gonna live on and work hard.

On my way to check my traps I saw Gill- the local loco- walking the other way toward the town square, and I also noted the storm growing and increased my pace hoping to stay as dry as possible… which I instantly realized was dumb as I was about to wade into a lake, but I did what I did, and I do what I do, so I just went on with it hoping no one noticed the density of my skull in that moment. Though I guess Gill was the only one I saw and he wouldn’t get it anyway….

Unfortunately I didn’t catch much, and the only result was me standing wet and soaked with three crabs, and lightning all around... needless to say it was dangerous. Lightning and the lake combined was not a good idea... in fact, all it took was one mighty blast, and I was knocked out….

Chapter 2.1:

I woke up with Gill standing over me, his lip was bleeding, and he looked no less crazy than usual. His staff seemed the only thing holding his ragged frame up as he bent over me.

He asked me if I was okay, straightened out and reached his hand down to help me up.

I took his hand and got up… very much perturbed- “what happened to you…?”

Gill didn’t say anything except that he would be back in a couple days- then he walked off into the rain and out of sight- leaving me half standing by the shore of the lake to figure out how I got there… and why he looked so, very, tired…. I dragged myself back to my hole in the wall- then remembered my crabs… and promptly fell asleep- it was a tiring day.

I woke up a couple hours later, I was energized- but also a little hungry. I didn’t have much I could do about the hunger but I decided to get up and see if I could find out anything about Gill’s injury.

The first place I went was the city square to ask one of my few friends, Ollie, if he had seen or heard anything while he worked that day. It seemed I might have picked the right- and wrong- place to go when I saw the unusually large crowd in the square, it seemed that Gill had indeed come there- and set everyone muttering and musing…. It wasn’t made better by the mayor’s immediate response in which he called people to gather- but didn’t really know what to say-... thus only heightening the suspense in the crowd as the rumors redoubled.

I know I should have tried to figure it out- but I really wasn’t in the mood for a large crowd- so I headed off to find a tavern for some solitude and a place I might still learn something of use- as it is the right kind of place outside of the streets.

I sat down, but suddenly felt tired again- I guess a nap isn’t really enough to recover from being struck by lightning…. And pretty soon I fell asleep on my table-.

A few hours later the innkeeper came over and roused me as I hadn’t stirred in so long. When he finally roused me, he asked, “why your head lookin’ so heavy… you got it on straight or what-?”

Here I immediately flashed back to my earlier embarrassment over the density of my head- sadly this time… everyone saw it- and watched me conked out on a bench for hours…. Very embarrassing- and worse- I still hadn’t responded. “Oh uhhhhh- my head is- okay- I just got-...” At this point I realized no one would believe me if I told them I got struck by lightning earlier… so I decided to go with the truth- but leave that out…. “Umm… sorry- just tired….”

Thankfully he didn’t kick me out directly- but he did ask me if I wanted a drink or something to eat- and I didn’t really have much to pay with… so I ended up just leaving after a while. I did, however, ask if he could use any crab- which he said yes to but I am sure it was only a kindness as anyone would try to sell him crab if he would buy it.

I went back home, this time not stopping for anything, even though I knew I still hadn’t completely achieved my goal, to find out what Gill was up to. I did however make a detour at my doorstep to answer my stomach’s cry for food. Thankfully it didn’t take long to find a flowering tree with a- well I can’t exactly say it was juicy or plump- but it was a pomegranate- and then it was my dinner.

When I did get back I checked my charm to see if today was the day- like every other night- and again, like every other night, it wasn’t. The panel was completely blank… It did seem to have a strangely more reddish sheen to it, but that could have been the lighting… or my intense need for sleep…. Soon after that I fell asleep to the noises of the quieting market, shops closing, and the few people up and walking about. The last thing I heard was a donkey braying in a nearby stall- then I was out of it.

Chapter 2.2 (continued in dream): (What Happened at the Square with Gill):

I know I just went to bed- but suddenly visions clouded my head- I see time passing- and dawn coming- but before that- time picks a normal pace-...

At about four this morning Gill was carried to the city square to the public announcement, and torture, block. Here an intense argument was carried out between him and a number of cloaked figures. Almost nobody noticed- and those who did turned away, and pretended not to…. Nobody wants to be dragged into that, or caught staring… it’s just logic, any group who taking away crazy men- you don’t want them to take you too, and there is no good reason for it.

At some point he was left there, tied up, when authorities arrived later all he said was that trouble was brewing- and we were going to suffer for it….

Authorities don’t respond well to being told that their people are going to suffer hard times- especially when it comes from a crazy man tied up in their market square…. After they beat him they released him, and I saw him walking toward the lake as the dream faded.

Chapter 3:

I woke up to the new day after one of the oddest dreams of my life… and even more oddly… I woke up from it three times…. The first time I sat up seemingly seconds after I’d dropped off; I’d sat up… looked around… and settled back down for a long night. Then again I woke up from the same dream a few hours later at the full moon’s zenith, I sat up, and found my blue charm floating in a beam of moonlight… and for the first time saw something in it… it read “this is no ordinary dream…” Instantly I fell back to sleep- living the dream once more.

When I finally woke up the midday sun beat down on me. I walked out onto the burning black sands of the desert… and there a blue stone surfaced  from the sand under my feet… the same color as my charm…. And inscribed on its surface were the words “What you seek has been granted.” The only thing I could make of it was that it was somehow connected to my dream last night….

I also noticed that despite having slept till midday, and having eaten almost nothing the day before… I awakened feeling no hunger…. It was an oddity- and irregular, but I still chose to seek food thinking I would snap out of it, and see my need was there. It didn’t awaken though as I wandered the scorching sand, or when I walked to the lake for water. Even as a crab walked by my foot I felt no hunger- or indeed need to spear it… however… I did it anyways, and almost instantly hunger came over me, even more surprisingly-... a fire appeared nearby…. I don’t know if it had been there before or not, but I took up the speared crab and roasted it over the fire.

By the time it finished I was hungry, and ready to eat it, though still mystified about the events around it. But on the dream, which I still wondered faintly, I made up my mind, it told what happened, and I needn’t look to learn from the lip and tongue of man, what I heard from my own heart already. So that afternoon carried on and I went up from the beach to rest under the fragmented foliage of a nearby tree. I napped out there the rest of the afternoon.

I awakened in darkness, to see a light, and a passage into the ground at my feet…. The light was seeping out of the passage… and then it was emerging in the form of two massive eyes, crab eyes, which illuminated the rest of its body- razor sharp claws, spearlike appendages, and a head like the plated armor of the knights of the order- like… the ones that kill dragons on their day’s off for the pleasure - that kind of knight…. I scrambled backwards till I felt the tree at my back, then turned and ran…. The crab followed endlessly till I tripped, stumbled, collapsed-... and dozed off into the horrible, restless, oblivion of fear and terror.

Hours later I awakened to find I was still by the tree, and there was no stone passage into the ground, but I did however find claw marks, and gashes torn out of the tree all around where I had lain, though there was not a mark on me, I still shivered. Then as I got up to leave, I saw the shape of a claw had been carved into the tree… directly above my head.

I left that place, and clasped my charm, and staff tightly as I walked back away from there into the chill early morning. Then… on a sudden impulse I looked down at the charm in my hand… after a couple seconds of staring the red sheen grew, and a new message appeared in blood red, “All the power of the living world won’t stop your death, we still hunt you.” Immediately the blue sheen returned and it once again was blank…. But what was clear was the powerful forces at work behind my dreams, and the charm I held, maybe even the world, but that was beside the point. The point was-... I was never going to feel safe looking into the eyes of a crab ever again- which was bad news for me….

Chapter 4.1: (Btw you should skip over this section, it’s all fake):

Somehow though, I did bear the weight of the eyes on me as I pulled crab pots from the lake…. And somehow the most disturbing part was… that they were all full… like all of them had a crab, if not more than one, trapped inside…. I couldn’t think how two, let alone three would manage to get caught in a single cage… but they did, and it terrified me…. But starvation and riches can be greater than fear, and I pulled in forty two massive crabs, which crushed my previous record-... of twelve… and the city wide record of thirty four…. It was much more than should be possible, but I would only wish it didn’t mean eighty four dead eyes staring into the depths of my soul.

When I finally finished gutting more crabs than I ever wished to see again, I poured the guts into my bait jar, which I sold once a month to local fishermen, though it seemed that would change this month. I hauled the crab pile to my hole in the wall… but as I walked by every single person I passed stared…. And I now realize I should have foreseen the results of this… but all in due time.

As soon as I set up shop with a pile of crabs, I was set up to fail. As all the other trappers came back from their traps… with empty arms, I was dead for all they cared. I was reported for stealing the traps of every single man in the village…. I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently- but I was dragged to the Arbitrators- named for their job- their job- to punish, or be punished for the crimes of others….

It’s a terrible job where debts can be repaid through torturing, and being tortured…. My crime would be resolved, or they would be punished for it, and either way I would wish I had never touched a crab net - or indeed any net - in my life.

I won’t burden you with the details, but I came out with a scorching brand on my wrist, as well as a number of lashes on my name. But, the important part, I lived, and was released days later when I no longer bled freely. I certainly did not come out with forty eight crabs… but I value my life and sanity above them, so it was relatively good.

Now if I could get this crab claw brand off my wrist that would be just great…. The mark they placed on my wrist was that of the claw on the tree where I dreamt of the tunnel and crab, on the night that lead to the day that began my torture. There wasn’t any chance of it coming off, but I could hope… that maybe it would fade? Or that I could somehow scar the rest of it… and hide the mark…. I honestly don’t know, but until then… all my fear and pain only reminds me of that night… and that is not a good memory in any book. I guess this is a book though… so, if you want to stop reading you could just drop it right now, and I’ll even write a happy ending in here for you.

Chapter 4.2: (What  r e a l l y  happened):

So you remember when I said I would wish I had never touched a crab? I was wrong!!! They were like, so friendly, they returned all 48 crabs, apologized, and released me with the award for most crabs caught in a day. It was literally the greatest day ever for me!!

I sold a bunch of the crabs, made it rich, and completely forgot about my nightmare and the crab. I bought a house, sold my crab traps, and lived happily ever after off my newly acquired riches and fame. The world was such a happy place… In fact… it is so nice that I don’t even care about this old thing anymore, byeeeee.

THE END

Chapter 4.3: (Continued… in reality once more…):

I guess you didn’t go for that stuff… so I might as well wrap it up…. I needed to clean my wounds, and I wanted to feel the coolness of the ocean, but it was not forthcoming. I did not have the energy, nor willpower to overcome the pain and tiredness that held me to the ground where I was unceremoniously dumped, but I did have enough to drag myself from the middle of the street, that I may not be trampled and be able to seize the life I had left the next day.

So there I lay on the rock strewn dark and dusty street, cold, alone, and mostly unconscious through the night. I occasionally heard footsteps, horses, wagons, and voices rattling, clattering, clip clap chattering, all about me as the day grew lighter, but I moved not an inch. And only when the sweltering heat of the black sand under me turned me out did my mind begin to process the beginning, of the end, of my insane internal torture. Through the night I had intermittently relived my torture, but now, I began to recover.

My confidence did not, however, return instantly, and only much later would I once more feel safe, whether walking, lying, sitting, sleeping, or generally dying. I had no peace, but that the end would at least end this in between state.

Chapter 5: Rest, Healing, and Minor -(major)- Annoyances… Like losing the first two words from this title, and replacing them with sheer terror…

So I wanted to write more about my almost dying and stuff… but I almost died… and my body rebelled. Instead I… got bored, and little, lot, loony, and wrote this:

Pain

Mental Brain Drain

From Refrain to iNSAne

I have lain,

Here in my pain,

Like growing grain…

No gain.

Mental grate,

Not so great

Broken fate

Not much ate

Much less sate

Gonna berate

All who bait

Lines with dates

Only to force down hate…

How do you rate

My poems of late?

Okay, your right, that was…

Lame…

But I am not to blame

I’m no distressed dame

I’ll save my name

I don’t aim, or claim

To tame and light the flame,

It won’t bring me fame

But it’s all a game

Don’t feel the same?

Well I am half

Dead…

So excuse my lazy head

I may have read

What you said

Without dread

Been led

Tortured, thrown out, unfed…

Need bread…

I crawled for the nearest door where I felt like vermin - like a flea ridden cat - scratching at a door for scraps of food…. And yet, even thinking this, I could not keep myself from tapping at the door, knowing I was in worse condition than any cat I’d previously imagined.

BAM The door swung open cracking me on the head, and arms grabbed me and dragged me into the room… While I was relatively aware… mostly of the pain in my head, I didn’t have the strength or mind to struggle as I was pulled into the building… blinded of my surroundings by the new tears springing to my eyes.

The blinding cataract of light, noise, and saltwater greeting my eyes from a number of voices, people, bruises, and a large fire left me at a loss… completely. I was thrown on the ground, barely aware there was a ground before I hit it, then again knocked almost unconscious with the snap of my head on the ground… Needless to say I lay there for a while as the room began to grow quiet, everyone waiting to see who I was, why I was there, and what would happen to me. I for one didn’t want any of these but the second to be delt with… I definitely could go for their supplying what I wanted. Other than that, I was good if they never learned my face, and all the better if they didn’t further brutalize me.

A chair fell, and through watery eyes I looked up to see the biggest bulk of a brute’s shadow step up… then my eyes focused and I saw he was about four feet tall.

The man drew a knife, “what do you want about here kid? You don’t got no parents to keep you out of our business?” He glanced around the room and every last one of them roared into raucous laughter. He then threw the knife to land quivering in the door across the room.

The room went silent again as he once more spoke, “If you answer our questions we’ll be lenient, and only drop you down the well, otherwise, your fate will be in the hands of the very devil. And if you think me to be playing stories, think again.” He then signaled to the rest of the men in the room and with a three beat pause, drums and chanting broke out. And seeing more clearly now, the presumed men, looked worse than ever, as I watched they seemed to become more and more like monsters, chanting and pounding the ground, the room itself seemed to bulge and grow with each pound, and most of all, the fire erupted to greater heights with every word or strike of heel and staff.

The fair sized bar became a cavern of monsters, and then, from the now fifty foot fire, a creature began to emerge. Just before it came into view, all noise and light in the room was vanquished. Just like that absolute silence, and a darkness like I had never known. Then a great whispering hiss arose from all around the room, and eyes all around me glowed red, purple, and, in one fast approaching pair, bright blue.

The person with the bright blue eyes grabbed me, whispered something about getting out of there in a gruff voice, and we rushed off, them mostly pulling me along as we whipped through the cavern and all the many hosts of other eyes. Eventually I could make out the edge of the cavern, and against it, another blue eyed person, this one more clearly a girl, holding up a lantern, with a candle, and a blue flame in it, which provided just enough light to make out a small door in the rock wall… which definitely hadn’t been part of the original bar….

Meeting her eyes I heard her whisper “Quick,” and yet at the same time I knew she hadn’t spoken aloud. Then she continued in my mind, “they could notice your absence any second now- even if they are the dumbest creatures in the darkened world- Let’s go” With my heart in my throat, and my intense desire to be out of that room, I didn’t take the time to question it, and pretty soon I and the two blue eyed strangers where through the door. A couple seconds later the hissing stopped, and a great voice bellowed in the other room, “WWWHHHEEEEEERRREEE HAAASSS HHEEE GOONNNE,” “YOU LET THE SMALL ONE ESCAPPE”

Fire must have erupted in the room for a bright red light streamed through the cracks under the door, and the temperature rose about thirty degrees… In the new light I saw that the first blue eyed person was Gill, but, as I started to question him, he grabbed my wrist, and we were off into the tunnel.

Chapter 6.1: Confusion- and following a strange lady through a darkened town…

As we ran through the tunnel flames began to flicker on the walls, emanating from where we entered, rippling with each crescendo in the room behind us. Pretty soon we reached another door- through which nothing could be seen… and even more oddly- when we walked through it we came out on the doorstep of the tavern I’d originally entered- despite our going through a secret tunnel….

Gill turned and told us, me and the woman with the lantern, and instructed us to hasten to the bog on the near side of the lake, then whispered something unintelligible to the woman before he began to rush off in the other direction.

I called out, “Where are you going- and what are we going to do in the middle of a swamp….”

But he didn’t stop, and the woman, who I could see more clearly now to be quite pale, raised an opalescent finger to her lips without a sound, and began walking toward the bog.

Seeing no better choice, I followed as she wandered through the darkness, blue eyes piercing through the darkness.

Chapter 6.2: The Speechless Mystic’s Message:

She led me down a series of side streets, through someone's living room, where she left the lantern, and across the bridge out of town. Past creaking boughs, through shifting shadows, and into darker ones we walked. The light only grew dimmer as she led the way into the forest, until a single patch of moonlight showed through and shone on a dull stone hut.

She led the way through a door decorated with carvings of bones, skulls, and flowers, into the hut which consisted entirely of an open atrium. There was a opening in the roof and from it moonlight spilled out on a pool of water in the center of the room. The sides were lined with shelves, and the shelves festooned with bones and jars, and odd stones, often with writing chiseled out on them.

She gestured for me to wait at the edge of the pool and she walked around to the far end. There she took a candle from atop a stack of pages and walked to the opposite end of the pool. There, illuminated by the shaft of moonlight on the pool, she opened her mouth.

“The world is big”

(Out of the pool of mist and water a roaming vista of the world comes into focus)

“Yet it all comes to one life, and one death.”

(The world begins to crumble and fall apart, and the misty pool swallows it up again)

“But even so life can cling fast as the flame to the wick of the candle.

(A match is struck and a small candle illuminates her hands and face from across the pool)

“So cling fast to your fire, for all else may drift away”

(Complete darkness swallows all but the candlelight)

“And if you do not cling to your fire, your life too will drift away”

(The candle goes out and light returns to the room as the smoke drifts away)

(As the voice ecos and fades, one last whispery message is heard)

“Cling fast for all the world”

And with that the woman clapped her hands and gestured me over. She lead me to a dusty shelf, where a suitcase lay. Inside the suitcase was a stack of papers, all dusty and ancient. She took one out, and began writing on it.

“The key to your fire is already in your possession, but only the third time is the charm.”

She handed me the paper, and lead me to the door, where she left me on the doorstep in the cool night air.

Chapter 6.3: (Scene closure):

I walked off in a daze, though I did remember to avoid the tavern I had gotten messed up in earlier. Eventually I found myself in my nook of the wall, and promptly collapsed for the night. I would worry about all that had happened later, for the time being I wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter 7:

I woke up a good deal later, the sun was well up in the sky, and the new day was on me. I had read the paper a couple times the night before, as I stumbled around, but I had no clearer an idea of what it meant today than the night before. So instead I tried to get stuck in menial tasks, like I had more than just staying alive to do in my everyday life.

I decided not to risk nearing the lake, and the still irate men there. Instead I walked off into the straggly forest of desert trees. Pretty soon I found what I was looking for, a pomegranate tree, as much as the short scraggly trees of the desert can be called trees. And, after a couple minutes of deliberation I picked one and set off.

As I reached the edge of the forest I found a large rock to crack it opened on. I sat down and began cracking the pomegranate’s hard shell against the side of the rock. A couple minutes later and I sat atop the rock with my breakfast- and maybe lunch too. And finally got my chance to ponder what the paper meant, and how I could use this “key to my fire” I apparently had in my possession.

Honestly though, I didn’t “possess” very much and it surely couldn’t be that hard to figure it out…aside from one minor (major) problem… how do I know if it is the “key”? I don’t know how to test it, and it seems it might take three tries even when I do get to the right item….

And so I finished my brunch, and returned to my hole in the wall. I dug out my bag of random items I had collected over the years, inside lay all my worldly treasures, and, hopefully, the “possession” I sought.

I carefully spread the items out across the floor; the bag contained a ball of string, rusty nails, a blue scarab beetle, a rotten apple I should’ve thrown it out sooner, and a wooden box, which was empty. I took off my charm and added it to the pile- and picked up the apple. I did set it briefly on the paper- but nothing happened so I threw it out.

One down- four, and about a dozen nails, to go.

I set the string and nails in the box and put it on the paper maybe I can get a three for one deal…. It did nothing. I lowered the charm onto the paper and as it touched the paper the light caught the charm, which was currently blue and now read “head west”. At the same time a map spread across the paper displaying a deep canyon and the terraces and trenches leading down it, all in a solid blue. It was labeled The Canyon of Torch and Flame.

I put the charm back on, stuffed the box and paper in the bag, and stepped out of the wall and into the light. The charm flashed again, and the reflection caught a torch on the wall. I looked down to see that the charm now read “take the torch.” I pulled the torch from its sconce and glanced around and back at the charm- which once more read “head west.”

I took off into the desert, without a clue what I was doing, though it could be summarized in two words. I was heading west.

Chapter 8.1: Leaving home:

As I left my only home, I glanced back over my shoulder and realized the plain and simple truth. It was no longer the home I’d had for years. This was not the place I had wandered around and had fun doing what I pleased. Morrow had changed since then, and I was glad to leave this new place behind. I didn’t look back even once more, nothing but sand and sky to the horizon, and that’s all I needed.

Chapter 8.2:

I walked- and I walked- and I continued to do so for about three hours before I realized I was wrong. I was wrong that “sand and sky to the horizon” was all I needed. I needed water. And the longer I went without it the more likely it seemed that I would not only never make it where I was going, but also that I would die a shriveled prune of skin without a drop of water to be found within me.

Yet I walked on. There was nothing better to do. To the north and to the south lay the same endless sands. And behind me lay several hours worth of footprints. There was nothing but to keep on and hope that I would find water, or at least find my destination before I died the death of a shriveled fruit.

At some point I collapsed to the ground. Never to rise again. Okay, actually I did manage to get up, at which point I was greeted with the most beautiful sight ever. Or at least that’s how it seemed in the moment.

I had found water, and the descent of the sun, and with it the end of its burning rays. I instantly fell to the ground again, this time again hoping never to rise again. I never wanted to leave the water’s edge again.

After thoroughly gorging myself on water, and making my stomach slosh and myself sick… I dozed off with the cool water at my fingertips, the warm sand under me, and the cool night breeze across the desert riding over me. I was almost to heaven. Half dead and enjoying great comfort.

With that final thought my subconscious took over. And, if I had known then that the night would soon grow colder, I would’ve done exactly the same thing.

Chapter 9: Blood in the Waters:

As I slept my mind brought me back to Mortow, and like before it was the city square. Gill was there too, again, he lay at the mercy of the authorities, who’s faces had twisted into permanent scowls and anger since I’d last seen them. They’d been angry before, but now I couldn’t imagine them smiling ever again, their faces were so contorted.

They seemed to be debating how to kill him. They’d brought a noose, there was the chopping block and guillotine, as well as a cage to watch him starve in, and the burning stake. I don’t know how, but I knew they’d burn him alive- and I didn’t want to see it.

The dream shifted as I had this thought, and I found myself walking by the lake, on the shore opposite the city with the city square barely intelligible in the distance. As I looked out a faint stream of smoke rose to the sky. And as it did a storm began to grow behind me.

I turned around realizing I’d never been this far north, and as I did time and space warped and I saw the great northern kingdom of Qwintops, from the courtyard at the center of the kingdom. I knew this moment was important, and I knew it wasn’t in the present day.

Then suddenly I left my body once more, I could see the platform atop the wall around the courtyard. A wild man I sensed was the king stood in a disheveled state, with a sword in hand and a wild look in his eyes. An open grave stood behind him, empty, and on the opposite ends of the wall stood his two sons.

On the left stood the younger, he and his guards in red, complimenting his black hair and dark eyes. Those eyes though, they flitted here and there, occasionally resting on something or someone who always looked away as soon as he did. He seemed to have inherited some of his traits from his father.

On the right end of the platform the elder son stood, in blue, complementing his blond hair and matching his blue eyes, which steadily met what he faced with respect and strength. His guards too wore blue, though they had a much better look about them than his brother’s. I somehow knew, without knowing how, that his traits came from his grandfather.

Here too, like where I’d left by the lake, a storm was growing. As the storm grew the king raised his sword, was struck by lightning and fell into the coffin.

The lid fell shut and the coffin sank into the ground. And instantly the elder son drew his sword and rushed to the opposite end of the wall. He slew two of the guards as he rushed his brother.

“Brother, father is no longer here to protect you, and I will not suffer you’re schemes and evil, father may not have been the best, but you are the worst,” he said as he stepped closer, “I will not, however stand for your underhanded ruling.” His brother smiled and grinned as the sword came up to meet him, “You may not stand for it, but feel free to try it and fall to my underhanded reign.”

The elder brother slashed his head off as the final word came out. As the younger brother’s head fell to the ground it shriveled, hair curled, skin pulled back, teeth grew sharper, gums grew thin, and his eyes sunk in. The body too decayed, though less noticeable under the armor and cloak, his hands shriveled and his nails grew out. Yet he did not collapse, the head on the floor rolled up the body, his sword came out, and the eldest brother fell at the hands of his brother, whose head he’d just slashed off....

The dream shifted back to the present, but now I came with a new piece of knowledge. This young man, likely undead, was the king of Qwinton, and that his influence had finally reached Mortow, and along with whatever made the young king that way, was the cause of the trouble there.

The storm overhead had grown, and I watched as lightning struck across the lake as the smoke and fire rose all the higher. And as the thunder reached me another lightning bolt fell. It landed on the lake, and in its recession I saw a figure standing there on the water, and the water began to boil. I knew the figure was Gill, and then I knew he was gone, maybe not forever, but he was gone for now. The boiling water began to glow, fire exploded from the water, and as the mist rolled out the water turned to blood. All of the water.

Chapter 10.1: Awakening to the Change

I woke up with blood on my hands. Literally. I hadn’t killed anyone in my lifetime, as far as I knew, but I awakened to find bloodstained fingers. I rubbed my eyes- and looked into the water to see that, firstly I’d just streaked blood across my face, and secondly, where the blood came from. It wasn’t water that I now looked into, it too, like the lake in my dream, had turned to blood.

It wasn’t like normal blood though, I’ve seen blood, I’ve had bloody noses, cuts, and scrapes. This blood was darker, thicker, shinier, more metallic, and much more disturbing. I immediately wished I could wash it off, off my hands and off my face. Yet the only water I’d seen since I left Mortow lay before me, turned to blood.

Chapter 10.2: Getting Picked Up

Eventually I got up, I didn’t see much point to it, but I got up because I had nothing better to do. I wasn’t about to drink the blood, as thick and dark as it was, and I didn’t see any sense in sticking around it anyway, it’s not like waiting will make it magically turn back to clear water… as far as I know…. So I propped myself up and began sorting through my belongings.

The charm was a dark purple, both blue and red, warring for control, I don’t know how, but I know it to be a war. The paper too seemed conflicted, the blue ink it had been written in fought red stained blood like that of the pool. With no help there- I picked up where it had previously instructed, I walked west, with the rising sun on my back.

A little later I checked the charm again, and this time, while tinged purple on the edges, it was mostly blue and held another message, “They are coming, ready yourself and hide your arm.”

Looking down at my arm the crab shaped scar from when I had been branded stood out, the only possible explanation for what there was to hide on my arms. Now thinking about it, and looking at the scar I was glad to cover it up, it was a part of me that represented a day I wanted to forget. And so I ripped off the end of my pantleg, and tied it onto my arm, aligning it to cover the scar.

With that done I felt a great deal better- though I have no clue why, and looking down at the charm again I saw it was completely blue, and now read, “They are here.”

I looked up and saw nothing.

Then from nowhere three horses and three riders rode out of the sand, the lead rider with a blue torch held aloft, reigning in beside me. They all wore dusty cloth and rags wrapped around the entirety of their bodies. Their cloth and the horses were either the color of the sand, or just so covered in it that no other color was distinguishable. The two without the torch dismounted and approached me, they then lifted me off my feet, quickly searched me, and threw me over the back of one of the horses. They tied me down, and remounted their horses.

With a bundle of me in tow they continued on their eastward path, towards the pool of blood. They never said anything- and I didn’t have the power, or voice to raise a finger or word against their action. So I rode- or flopped, along back to the pool.

When the pool came into view they foremost rider, no longer the one with the torch, screeched and came to a halt falling off it’s mount. The one in front of me on the horse began to twitch, and the rider with the torch galloped forwards. And as I watched he brandished the torch into the congealed blood, and it burned up like oil.

When the smoke and fire faded the water was back to it’s previous state, clear and apparently pure. With this done the raider in front of me ceased to twitch, along with the other on the ground who, still shuddering, propped himself up.

The torch bearer circled the pool and came back to us, with a gesture he communicated to them that they were to return. The raider on the ground struggled to his feet and mounted his horse. We all headed back toward where they’d found me, and presumably where they came from, westward once more.