Bound to the Abyss (28 page)

Those thoughts blanketed his mind, to the point that he had no idea how long they had walked when he first felt a tug inside of him. He stumbled a bit as a sudden fear gripped him. Had he grabbed the power without realizing it? He took a moment to steady himself and quickly realized it wasn’t that.

Bran and Jaslen had stopped. Bran seemed ready to draw his sword and Jaslen had her bow off her back. They were both staring at him intently. Had the fear been easy to see in his face? Giving an embarrassed laugh, he raised both of his hands apologetically.

“Sorry, must have tripped over a rock or something in the road. No need to worry.” The tug was probably just Zin getting close, but best to be sure. Could he tell the difference between the feelings he got near Zin and a Scar? He tried to make himself relax as he stood up straight. It must have worked because both Jaslen and Bran seemed to relax as well. “I guess I was thinking a bit too much. What time of day is it anyway?”

 
“Probably about midday,” Bran said. “You seem a little dazed. Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Jaslen narrowed her eyes in concern.

“I’m sure.”

 
“You’ve been gloomy all morning. Between Bran yesterday and you today, I would almost believe that you snuck some Burnbeer last night and had a little too much.” She gave Bran a warm smile. “Although Bran did look a bit more pained.” That got a small chuckle out of the other boy.

 
“I swear I’m alright. I was just thinking about those Soulbearers.” Well he had, very briefly, in between brooding over his dream. “I just find it extremely strange they would be banned from our home.”
 

Ean’s real concern, though, was the tug he had felt. When Zin was nearby, he could feel the life of the little imp, like a small flame. This new feeling was different; it was more like a pulsing or a throbbing. Curiosity began to override all of the doubts and fears he had been feeling all day. If it didn’t feel like a living creature, the only thing Ean could come up with was that he was feeling the Scar. Even if it wasn’t the Scar that they were looking for, it had to be something from the Abyss.

“… mentioned something about not being allowed into Rottwealth as well.” Bran’s voice cut through his thoughts. Had he been speaking the whole time? “It’s very strange that we have talked to two people now that have said they were barred from coming to our village. Who is making these rules, and why do they want our home cut off from everyone else? And what about The Merchant that comes every year or the Heroes that started showing up?”

All good questions, and another time Ean would want to try and figure them out as well. The tugging at his body, though, had a tight hold on his attention No point in beating around the bush.

“I feel a strong power off the road,” he said, pointing off to the left of the road and into the woods. “It’s hard to describe, but it definitely has a connection to the Abyss. If it’s the Scar we heard about, it means we’re close.” He wasn’t exactly sure about that last part. There was no way to judge distance from the feelings, but they didn’t need to know that.

Bran looked skeptical, but Jaslen’s face lit up with excitement. “Wonderful! From what that Soulbearer had said, I thought it was much further up the road.” Grabbing Bran by the arm, she began to drag him in the direction Ean had pointed. “Come on, Bran! Just think, we’re about to see a direct connection to the Abyss.”

Dragging Bran along, Jaslen began to hum happily as she started off the road. Bran looked skeptical, casting questioning glances back at Ean while he tried to keep up. “I think we should be a bit more careful in approaching this,” his voice cut off with a grunt as he kicked a rock he hadn’t seen on the ground.

Ean caught up quickly and placed a hand on Jaslen’s shoulder. “He’s right. We don’t know if the Seekers are there, or some kind of mutated animal like that troll, or even something dangerous from the Abyss itself.” Zin’s warning about the Nar’Grim flashed through his mind and was gone. “Best if we approach it slowly and try to keep quiet as we do so.”

Jaslen nodded, her smile diminished. “Fine, we’ll take it slow, and from now on we won’t talk. But if nothing is around when we get there, I’m not making any promises that I’ll remain calm.”
 

She gave a self-satisfied nod then stared directly at Ean. After a moment of no one moving, she grunted and raised her hands. “Well? If you can feel this thing, then you should take the lead. Let’s go already.”

He couldn’t argue with that. Stepping around the two of them, Ean began to walk off in what he thought was the direction of the Scar. Or at least the direction of whatever was causing the tugging at the back of his mind. Glancing back, he caught Jaslen just as she was snatching Bran’s hand up into her own.

Ean picked up his pace. The further away from the road they got, the thicker the forest grew. Thorny plants grabbed at his boots or hid logs or rocks for him to trip over. Here, where trees and vines grew uninterrupted, a beam of sunlight was rare.

The closer they got to whatever it was that was causing the sensation, the more defined the throbbing in his head became. He almost tripped twice in a matter of a few paces apart because of it.
 

Finally, when the pounding in his head was almost unbearable, they circled around a huge tree, and found it.
 

The Scar.

Hovering about fifty or so paces from where he was standing, the purple outline of an oval floated in the air a pace or two above the ground. Triple the height of the average man and twice the width, it sucked up the light around it, creating a black void at its center. Small streaks of dark blue energy shot off of it at random, creating jagged bolts that cut through the air. It really did look like a scar in the world.

A gasp behind him let him know the other two had caught up, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the floating mass of energy. The area around it looked as if an enormous force had pushed out from the Scar in every direction. Trees were either leaning away from the Scar or had snapped as if from some great pressure. The devastation reached about halfway between where Ean was standing and where the Scar was hovering.

“It’s beautiful,” he heard Jaslen whisper. “Let’s go closer.”
 

Even though Ean could hear the desire to do so in her voice, she didn’t move.

“Is it safe to move any closer?” Bran’s voice was so low that Ean could barely hear it over the throbbing in his head.

“I’m … not sure.”
 

A large part of him wanted to go running up to it, touch it, feel its power. But the image of the bandit, mutated and deformed, made him stop.
 

“I think getting too close could be dangerous. I wouldn’t want any of us ending up deformed like that troll we came across.”
 

“True,” was Bran’s only reply.
 

So the three of them stood there, looking at a doorway to another world. The realm of Ze’an, a place of strange creatures and unnamed horrors. How easy would it be to walk up and touch it? Ean knew deep down they were dangerous thoughts.

Dragging his gaze away from the Scar, Ean took another look at his companions. Bran was still watching the Scar with a grim determination. His body seemed tensed and he was making no move to get closer. Jaslen was a different story. She was leaning forward as if even the slightest word would have her heading towards the Scar. The only thing that was keeping her in place was Bran’s hand holding firmly onto her own.

Zin had said Ean’s tattoos would protect him from being affected by the energy of the Abyss, but they offered no protection to those around him. If Ean went, he was sure the girl would follow. So no, it was best to just observe the Scar for a time and then leave.

The dimming of the light in the forest only seemed to make the Scar grow brighter. The usual sounds of a forest thriving with animals were gone, replaced by silence and the occasional crackle of energy from the Scar itself.
 

Until a loud pop made them all jump. Bran’s sword came out. Jaslen’s bow was drawn. Heads swiveled anxiously about until they realized it had just been a twig snapped by Bran shifting his weight. The three laughed a bit sheepishly at each other, blushes filling their faces in unison. Ean thought that if they were this jumpy, maybe it was time for them to get going. He was just about to say as much when a man’s scream echoed through the forest.

“Noooo, pleeeaaase!”

Ean dropped down without thinking. Bran and Jaslen had crouched down as well, although both had moved closer to him and the large tree.
 

“Please let me go! Let me go!”

The yells were coming from ahead of them. Either straight ahead or to the right, it was hard to judge the direction of sound in the forest. It had sounded like an older man, a mixture of hoarseness and a quavering fear.

“No, I didn’t go anywhere near it! Please don’t hurt me!”

The voice was getting closer. Was it a Nar’Grim? Should they run, or should they try and hide? Thoughts were almost impossible to hold onto with the Scar so close.

“No, no, no! We can’t be this close to it, it’s too danger … mph …”

The man’s voice cut off after Ean heard a loud thud followed by whimpering. He glanced back at his companions, who returned his look with blank stares. Did they really expect him to decide what to do? So be it. He motioned them with his hand to get lower and move more behind the tree. Getting into a prone position, he lay there and watched.

The whimpering grew louder and louder, but it wasn’t an old man that came into view first. The complete opposite actually. The man that came into view maybe a dozen or so paces from the Scar was young, although he looked like he had a number of years on Ean. Standing at a height halfway from the ground to the Scar, the giant of a man was covered from shoulder to toe in white leather armor that gave the illusion that he had been chiseled from marble. He had a shaved head and a square jaw that jutted out over his chest. His nose was thin and pointed, and his deep-set eyes looked like pools of black ink.
 

The giant man walked straight towards the Scar, stopping only a few paces from it. His right hand dropped to his side, coming to rest on the hilt of a sheathed dagger. He stood there examining the Scar, seemingly unafraid of the pulsating energy shooting off the hole to the Abyss. Motionless, he stared at the Scar, his face growing darker with each passing second.
 

While the man was huge and imposing, the woman that joined him was much shorter, similar in size to Jaslen, and yet still walked with an air of confidence. Sleek, white armor covered her torso and limbs. A sword swung from her waist, the scabbard plain. She had a slim face, a small, upturned nose and slanted dark-green eyes. Her face was framed with black hair that was cut short to the bottom of her ears. A thick, blood-red strand trailed down the right side, a sharp contrast to her serious demeanor.

The woman stood next to the man for a time, her mouth moving as she addressed him. Unfortunately, she was speaking too quietly for Ean to hear from his position. He could tell though from her expressions that she was unhappy about something. At one point she placed both hands on her hips and Ean could just make out what she was saying.
 

“…have to do something about EliZane. He is getting worse.”
 

When she only received a curt nod in reply from the man, she grimaced and shook her head, then sat down heavily on an old log.

The giant pulled out a dagger unlike anything Ean had ever seen. The hilt was nothing like metal, wood, or leather, but white and smooth as glass. There was no hand guard to protect its owner from the wickedly curved blade. Ean struggled to make out the etchings along its edge, but it was too far away. A round blue gem decorated the blade’s base, the Scar’s lightning bolts reflecting on its surface, making it sparkle.

Holding the dagger out like a shield, the imposing man moved closer to the Scar. As he approached the glowing tear in the world, the light coming off the escaping bolts of energy seemed to reflect more and more off the dagger’s gem. The white-armored giant reached the Scar, the light shining off the gem in every direction, so bright now that Ean had to shield his eyes slightly even from his spot.

The large man thrust his blade straight into the Scar. A blaze of light erupted from the portal to the Abyss that made Ean, Bran and Jaslen throw their arms up to shield their eyes. An incredible force nearly bowled Ean over, knocking the breath right out of him. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the blazing light vanished.

Ean’s eyes swam with dark colors as he tried to catch his breath. The throbbing in the back of his skull was completely gone. When his eyes cleared, it was exactly as he had thought. The large man stood there, either already recovered from the dazzling lights and force or unaffected by them. The dagger still rested in his hand, the gem sparkling even now. Brushing leaves and twigs from her armor, the woman wore an annoyed expression but seemed unaffected as well. The Scar however was gone, which meant only one thing.

A chill ran down Ean’s back, a cold sensation like dunking your head in a bog in the middle of the Chill season. Only one group was capable of seeking out Scars and closing them.

Seekers.

Ean began crawling backward. He only got a short distance before he ran into Bran and Jaslen. Why weren’t they moving? Jaslen was pointing back at where the Scar had been, which caused Ean to swing his head back around in panic.

Two people had joined the Seekers. The first was a man of average height, dressed in the same white armor as the other two Seekers, except it seemed to hang awkwardly on his much thinner frame. He had short brown hair that was long enough to hang in front of his eyes, hiding a good portion of his face. His mouth was visible, giving such a humorless grin that even from as far away as Ean was it gave him the chills. A variety of different tools hung at his belt, most being wicked-looking knives. Some of the other tools were foreign to him, but a few Ean recognized as tools a trapper would use. In one hand he held a small knife, and in the other he was dragging the fourth person by the shirt.