Silent Requiem (Tales of Ashkar Book 3) Page 4

  “Thank you,” she replied. She said nothing further, and the kivu went about his way hauling his cargo down the dock. It was then that she truly looked at the countless groups of humans and kivu who were moving about. Each had a goal in mind. Some had hardy, bearded faces. Some had furry tails. None of them seemed to stay still the way that Ciace did. Most of them were much older than she was.

  Am I the only one here who has a hole in their heart? No, I’m not that naïve anymore. Why then am I the only one frozen in time?

  Ciace’s gaze lingered briefly before she turned to face the water again. It was welcoming. She hadn’t been under the sea since she had left to Arcadia, and her body was yearning to return. It was almost like a withdrawal. The oceans were her sanctuary, and her mind desperately yearned to return to a place where she was safe from the pain. The only problem was that she was unsure if that was a reality anymore.

  Her gaze lifted once again to the horizon. Small dots in the sky had appeared that were far, far away. She focused on it for a moment. It appeared to be a large flock of birds headed their way, though to her it was more like a dark swarm that reminded her of an approaching storm. Her eyes stayed fixed on it, but her thoughts wandered. She had been drawn to Dole’oelle for one purpose only, and that purpose seemed to be the only thing moving her legs. She could not let Rhondo’s clan be unaware of his fate. She had to go to them, to his parents. But could she? Could she look at his parents and tell them of Rhondo’s fate?

  She would be a dark messenger of ill tidings.

  Tears swelled up in Ciace’s eyes, and before she could stop them they spilled down her cheeks. She turned to the north, looking up the coastline. For her, reaching Banton Beach would take half the time swimming instead of trekking on land. From there, she could go west to Arcadia.

  Ciace looked one last time to the east and took in a deep breath. She then faced north again, steeled herself, and leapt off of the dock diving head-first into the deep waters below.

  Chapter 3

  206th Dawn of the 5010th Age of Lion

  Quinn watched Tarla intently as she organized a variety of flasks, concoctions, and items of unfamiliarity on top of the table near her cauldron. He had been under her care for what seemed like forever now, performing menial tasks such as gardening in what Tarla assured him was preparation for his upcoming and perilous quest.

  A strange feeling rose inside the pit of his stomach. It was the kind of feeling that he got whenever something new and exciting was about to happen. It was also the kind of feeling that he got when he was apprehensive about something.

  He had spent the morning once again working about the house. Gathering firewood, tending to the crops, and carrying pails of water to and fro the nearest river. By now he was used to it, but as of late he found himself growing anxious. It was as if he had taken too long to pursue his ambitions, and somehow he was too late to reach it. Deep down, he hoped that that wasn’t true. Even though Tarla had made no mention of it, Quinn was sure that today was the day.

  Today was the day that he would take back his friends.

  Tarla meticulously threw a few items into the bubbling cauldron, wary of the amounts of each item. Peering into its depths, Quinn noted that the normally clear liquid was now pitch black. It was so dark that it drew Quinn in, almost threatening to engulf him whole. Satisfied, Tarla took a seat opposite to Quinn.

  “So how’s my garden looking?” she asked, though the way she asked it seemed like she didn’t really care for the answer.

  “Wonderful,” answered Quinn, his eyes darting anxiously between Tarla and the collection of things next to her. He saw a thick cloak, a pair of shoes and gloves, a flask, and an oddly-shaped trinket. “Looks like it’ll be a bountiful harvest.”

  Tarla smiled. “Do you know why I had you do all of this?” This time she was actually interested in Quinn’s response. That much he could tell.

  Quinn wrinkled his forehead. “To prepare me for Hell?”

  Apparently his answer was very amusing, for a cacophony of giggles escaped Tarla’s lips. “What is gardening going to do for you in the fiery pits of Hell?”

  “Don’t tell me that this was all a ruse,” Quinn groaned. “I swear that if you say it was I’m going to—”

  “Don’t be silly, Quinn,” interrupted Tarla, though she was still partially laughing and had to steel herself to contain another outburst. “I might be half-demon but I’m not sadistic, you know.”

  A plume of smoke billowed out from the cauldron’s contents, and Quinn could see it bubbling more and more as the different solutions mixed. It reminded him of Tarla’s origins, of how she appeared human but was only half-human. He hadn’t witnessed her abilities much, but the witch sitting in front of him was a person of not only immense capability but also deft wit. Tarla’s collection of tomes—while off limits for Quinn—seemed as old as Ashkar itself.

  “So if you are half-demon, then why do you appear fully human?” asked Quinn. “That’s not one of your spells, is it?” Before he uttered the last words of the question, he imagined some horrible, monstrous visage revealing itself where Tarla’s youthful complexion had been. Relieved, he saw only another bright smile from the witch.

  “As you already know, demons typically appear quite unsettling to us,” began Tarla, “But I’m not entirely sure if that’s always been the case. That’s a topic for another day, though.”

  “That still doesn’t answer why you look human,” Quinn pressed.

  “The only answer I can come up with is that human traits are dominant,” Tarla answered with a shrug. “Offspring take traits from both parents, but some are stronger than others and end up being the ones that you can clearly tell.” She pointed at her eyes. “For example, let’s say that light eyes are weak, and dark eyes are strong. If both my parents have light eyes, there’s a higher chance of me having light eyes too. If one has dark eyes, chances are I would have dark too.”

  Quinn nodded slowly, trying his best attempt at digesting the explanation, but he had never thought of a person’s qualities in that way.

  “If that makes even a modicum of sense, I’m not really sure,” Tarla continued. “Again, a topic for another day.”

  “Well, did you know your parents?” asked Quinn.

  Tarla’s eyes flickered. She looked up at the ceiling and quieted. The silence lasted for quite some time, and Quinn wondered whether he had crossed some sort of line. He had not seen his own parents since they had sent him to the School of Eight, and that was more than a decade ago. At first it had been a hard realization that they didn’t ever want to see him again. At first he couldn’t understand why, and not even Wu would tell him.

  Everyone probably thought that not being bonded with an elemental also made a person daft, or some uneducated assumption along those lines. Either way, there came a point when he stopped caring to see them again. Stopped caring about anyone else’s opinion aside from Wu’s. That turning point might have been the day that he had summoned the three demons, but he couldn’t recall.

  “My mother was around when I was very young,” Tarla said, breaking the long silence that had endured. “She died from disease. No one would help her, not even a medicine man. Somehow, word got out that she was tainted or corrupted or whatever you want to call it. I was the product of that corruption. She had to flee just to avoid being killed. And so, the sickness slowly took her. I was too young to know how to help.”

  “I see,” Quinn said. “And your father?”

  Tarla shook her head. “Every time I try to remember him, I draw a blank. All I know of him are the things my mother told me.”

  “What kinds of things?” Quinn continued.

  The witch tapped her index finger against her chin. She looked away in recollection for a moment, then turned back to Quinn. “She told me that he was the best of them. She told me that they weren’t always that way, and that it wasn’t them who we should be worried about. To this day I wonder if all the hardship made her turn to
insanity. Maybe it was just a coping mechanism.”

  “What could she possibly mean by all that?” he asked. “I mean, even if you say that she was insane, there had to be something behind that.”

  “I really don’t know,” Tarla admitted. “She would never tell me why he wasn’t around or where he went. Maybe it’s for the better. Maybe he’s dead, maybe he’s not.”

  Quinn nodded thoughtfully. There were still questions that he wanted to ask, but he sensed that she was growing weary of forlorn recollection. For the first time, the witch seemed lost within herself. “So, what did you make me do all of those chores for?”

  “So you do want to know?” Tarla answered sheepishly. She gestured toward the collection of items situated upon the desk as if presenting them. “It’s not easy for a human to be walking around in Hell, you know. It took me a while to gather everything that you’ll need, and someone has to do the chores. Besides, I don’t help just any human who wants to go on a suicide mission into Hell.”

  Quinn scratched the side of his head. “Have you done this with anyone but me?”

  “That’s beside the point,” Tarla answered simply.

  “Fair enough,” said Quinn as he surveyed the variety of items again. He pointed at the cauldron. “So what did you toss in there?”

  “Oh, the concoction?” blurted Tarla, suddenly perking up from the change in subject. She reached for an old, leathery tome, opened it, and flipped through the pages. She stopped at one in particular, and showed it to Quinn. “So, we have some sanara herb, molasses from the trees of Cursewood, and demon’s blood. Oh, and a few pieces of tilil fruit. For flavor, of course.”

  Quinn furrowed his brows. “Did… did you say demon’s blood? What are we going to do with a solution like that?”

  “Drink it, silly,” said Tarla.

  “You can’t be serious,” Quinn gaped. “For what reason am I going to do that?”

  The witch grabbed an empty flask, dipped it into the cauldron, and withdrew it. She then handed it to Quinn, and waited expectantly for him to imbibe it.

  Quinn swallowed hard. He looked down at the black potion that he held in his hand, eyeing it suspiciously for a few moments. He then looked up at Tarla and eyed her suspiciously as well.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the witch countered, but Quinn held his gaze. Another few moments passed. Tarla rolled her eyes and held up the open tome again. “Do you distrust me so? Drinking demon’s blood alone would kill you, that part is true. But… take a look and see for yourself. The liquid in your hands is perfectly safe.”

  “Okay, okay,” yielded Quinn without even bothering to read the page, and Tarla set it down again. He looked down at the potion once more and took a deep breath. “So tell me what this is supposed to do.”

  Tarla brought her left hand close to her face, and placed the index and middle fingers of her right hand on top of the table. She moved each finger forward one after another across the table as if her hand was someone walking. “Let’s say that this is you, walking nonchalantly across the fiery surface of Hell.” Her eyes then darted to Quinn. “Let’s say that this is you without drinking that. The second you step foot down there, you will alert every demon in a radius of fifty miles to your presence. Can you guess what happens next?”

  Quinn shook his head slowly, and before he even finished Tarla took her left hand and smashed it into her right. She then raised her right hand into the air, mimicking a limp body. With her right, she pretended to throw something at her left and made a sound of an explosion with her mouth. It appeared that she wasn’t finished, however, and she took her right hand—

  “I got it!” interrupted Quinn louder than even he intended, and Tarla stopped her motions abruptly. “So this makes me invisible, right?”

  “No, you’ll still be completely visible, but it will mask your scent,” answered Tarla. She gestured at the other items on the table, particularly the cloak. “That’s where this stuff comes in.”

  “So the cloak makes me invisible?” asked Quinn.

  “No,” Tarla said plainly.

  “The shoes,” he continued. “I knew that it was the shoes.”

  “No,” she denied again.

  Quinn pointed at the trinket. “That weird… thing? Then that makes me invisible… right?”

  Tarla folded her arms across her chest. “No.”

  “Then what’s going to make me invisible?” he pressed with a look of disbelief. “Super gloves of invisibility? Special flask of don’t see me?”

  “You’re not going invisible,” the witch stated.

  Quinn brought the flask to his lips and drank the potion in one gulp. The potion burned his throat as it went down, like an alcoholic beverage but worse. It also left a deeply bitter aftertaste in his mouth which the tilil fruit was supposed to offset but failed horribly. With a pinch of annoyance he shook the now empty flash at Tarla. “See? I drank the damn thing. Now tell me what you have that’s going to make me invisible.”

  Tarla scoffed. “Do you really think that I am that childish?” She took the cloak and the pair of shoes and gloves, raising them up for Quinn to examine. “These are enchanted with a very old spell and are going to protect you from the blaze.” She then put down the pair of shoes, gloves, and the cloak. She then picked up the flask. “You’ll need this for water.” Lastly, she picked up the trinket and waved it in the air. “And this is your key to get back. That’s all you’re getting.”

  “It’s not like I’m an elementalist or anything,” said Quinn cynically, but his comment only garnered a chuckle from the witch.

  “Elementalists have no power in Hell,” she explained. “You can try to go there as one, but you’ll just end up leaving your weapon and your abilities behind.”

  “Why?” asked Quinn.

  Tarla dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “Why are you asking so many questions? Are you scared or something?”

  Quinn looked down at the floor, and noticed for the first time that his foot was tapping wildly on the wood. He stopped his foot, and took a deep breath. “I just want to be able to do something for once. First elementalists opposed me, and now I’m about to do something that might as well be suicide.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you at all,” said the witch, though she sounded much closer than she was a moment ago. “Do you need me to come with you?”

  Quinn looked back up to regard Tarla, and his eyes fell upon not her eyes but her covered midsection. He moved his eyes further up to hers, and found that she was not looking down at him with pity but rather cheerfulness. His gaze lingered for a moment, then moved back down to the floor. He smiled at himself. Whatever apprehension his heart held was instantly washed away, and he was irked that he had let himself fall prey to self-woe—even if it was for just a moment. “No, I can do it by myself.”

  “Tell me something, Quinn,” Tarla said.

  “What’s that?” he replied.

  Tarla turned away and walked toward the window, stopping to gaze out at the fields outside. “Out of all the people who you could have befriended, why choose demons?”

  Quinn thought long and hard for an answer. “Couldn’t I ask the same as you? Why demon dog instead of dog dog? You don’t need them for protection, or Fanny, for that matter.”

  “You and I don’t have a place in this elementalist-dominated world,” Tarla muttered absentmindedly, her thoughts somewhere else. “Do you want to know the funny part? I was around when both elementalist and witch were regarded as the same thing.” She turned back to Quinn. “We don’t have a place here, and so we look to others who don’t belong either.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn said in agreement.

  “Are you ready to go?” Tarla asked.

  Quinn didn’t hesitate to nod. “Let’s do it.”

  Just wait for me guys, I’m coming.

  _ _ _

  It was just another day subjected to the prison that was Hell.

  Gilbel looked up at a dark, bleak sky. Off in th
e distance he watched as angry clouds rained down fire at the accursed land. There was nothing except for lifeless, scorched ground, volcanoes spewing ash and flame, and pools of lava dispersed about for miles in every direction. Luckily, he had evaded the bloodthirsty eyes of his demonic kin so far, and now it was time for him to take a hot bath.

  He kneeled in front of one such pool, reaching down with rough, blackened hands and scooping a handful of the fiery lava. He splashed it against his face, and the burning hot liquid made its way down the front of his torso. Hell itself was an inferno, as hot as can be. Even the lava was cooler by comparison, and therefore refreshing to the touch.

  Gilbel surveyed the area around him for anything that might give him a reason not to stay. Satisfied, he plopped down into the pool, which was several times his size in both length and width. The resulting splash sent lava flying in every direction, and Gilbel felt himself be encapsulated in its soothing embrace.

  The demon placed both hands behind his head and remained completely horizontal, looking up at the blasted skies. He let the comfort take him, and he slipped in-and-out of consciousness several times until a very uncommon spectacle roused him from his cozy slumber.

  Up above a hill not too far away a rift opened, and Gilbel watched in awe as a figure appeared out of nowhere. That figure was completely covered from head-to-toe with naught the form of any demon who he had ever seen, which meant only one thing.

  At last the dawn of our triumph is upon us.

  _ _ _

  Upon entering the accursed realm, the first thing that Quinn noticed was the difference in gravity. He felt much heavier, though he had no idea why. His thoughts then focused on his surroundings, and he crouched and looked around ready to act if he was attacked. To his surprise, he was all alone. For miles and miles in every direction his eyes found only the desecrated land that was Hell.

  Quinn searched around within his thick and heavy garment, ensuring that all of his items were accounted for. And by items he really just meant the flask and oddly-shaped trinket that would be his exit back to Ashkar. The flask was special in that it was his supply of water—something that, upon surveying the land, Quinn was grateful for. Hell seemed completely devoid of any water. The only limit to the flask was that it held a finite amount of water, and when that supply was exhausted Quinn had to wait for it to collect the moisture in the air in order to drink again. He would have to use the flask sparingly.