Flames of Awakening: Faemoch Cycle Book 1 (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Jaxius pushed open the flap of the
medicine man's tent to reveal an ancient and shriveled man sitting next to a
small but fierce fire. He was clothed in nothing more than a loincloth made of
fur.

"Well, come in," the old
man said.

Jaxius did as he was told. He huddled
into the small, warm tent and took a seat at the fire opposite the old man.
Glancing around, he noticed that this tent was outfitted differently from the
rest of the rather spartan military-style tents of the camp. This tent had
small shelves standing against the walls and overflowing satchels scattered
across the rugs piled on the floor of the tent. Dried bunches of fragrant
flowers and leaves, as well as several varieties of braided roots, hung from
the corners of the tent.

"I have come seeking your
assistance."

"Hush, now," the old man
said. "Just breathe."

"Yes, but, the matter that I
came to speak with you about is of grave importance."

"Blast it all to the heavens
boy, I know why you are here. You talk too much to learn anything at all. If
you want to know the reason behind those disturbing dreams of yours or the
dramatic changes you've experienced, you will simply breathe. And hear."

Struck by this sudden inexplicable
knowledge of his plight, Jaxius could do nothing but follow the shaman's
cryptic instructions. He inhaled deeply.

The aged man slowly poured a vibrant
green liquid from a long-necked gourd onto the crackling fire which
subsequently flared a brilliant blue and filled the tent with dense
grayish-green smoke.

Jaxius coughed and inhaled a gasping
breath. As he choked, the old man's arm shot out with such fantastic speed that
even Jaxius' enhanced elven eyes could not follow his movements. The mystic
caught him by the cheeks and pulled him close. Their noses touched, and the old
man stared Jaxius in the eyes. The whole world melted away in that gaze. There
was nothing except the old shaman and Jaxius. Even the elderly magic man slowly
faded, until there was only Jaxius.

"I dreamed of you. I dreamed
that you would come to me seeking answers. I dreamed it a month ago," the
Nordrasian shaman's voice surrounded Jaxius. "Then I started to dream the
dreams that you dream. I dreamed of the battles and of the woman and the
children. You have come to me seeking explanations, but I say to you that the
answers you seek are most assuredly inside of you. Locked away from your
conscious self. Only you have the ability to access them. I can, perhaps, offer
a path to find them, but you must be willing. There is no turning back. Once
you begin that road, the things that you learn cannot be unlearned. Are you
prepared?"

"Yes. I am ready."

"Good," he said.
"Think back to what was said to you in the forest clearing. The child
called you cousin, yes?"

"Yes, but how did you know that?
You said that you shared my dreams. The events in the forest weren't a dream."

"Oh? And you are absolutely
positive of that? What is the difference between life and dreams? Tell me,
master of the elven blade, what's the disparity?"

"Honestly, I don't know anymore.
Nothing has seemed quite real for the past month. Perhaps you are right. Maybe
I am dreaming," Jaxius agreed hesitantly.

"Now, don't misunderstand, young
elf. You are very much awake at this moment. But, when a fae is involved, there
is always some element of dream. And so, I saw your interaction with Chlora as
if I were an active, present participant."

Jaxius drifted through the blackness,
unable to see or hear anything except the wise old man's voice.

"Where is this path that you
speak of? There is only unending darkness."

"Patience. Look. See. You will
find it. Turn your attention inward."

Jaxius considered the ideas the old
man presented. The answers were inside himself. Something akin to memories? He
picked at that idea, following the sentiment further, chasing it through his
inner self. Not to figure out what was happening, but to remember.
That's
right
, he thought. That's what Chlora had told him.

"That's right, cousin,
remember," Chlora's voice cut through the blackness.

Remembering hearing her encouraging
voice in the tower, Jaxius was transported there through the inky dark. He
watched and saw himself dodging Fylzia's magical barrage. He remembered the
exact moment that time began to slow. From outside of his remembered body he
could see his skin start to shimmer and his eyes shift to the vibrant emerald
green. He saw his hair grow wild and raise into the air. He also observed the
shadowy figure in the mirror in the room's hidden corner. The figure  that was
not staring at the witch as he had once thought. The hooded man gazed at him,
intent on his every move.

"Remember more. Recall the way
things used to be. Before. Ages ago," the old man's voice cut through.

Jaxius thought back and tried to
recollect everything that had ever occurred in his life. He found it amazingly
easy to remember the entirety of his life in vivid detail. He could not,
however, coerce that memory to move beyond anything other than what he had
personally experienced.

"Remember the dreams."

Remember? How could he possibly
forget? The visions haunted him day and night. He conjured an image from his
dream with ease. He stood atop a hill on a drenching night facing an
innumerable horde in pitched battle. He slowed the vision and the image froze.
He stepped closer and looked his dream self in the face. His dreamed self's
eyes were vibrant green. His hair matched the image of his hair from the room
in Fylzia's tower. He could almost remember being on that battlefield. He
peered up into the sky, hoping for some clue to jar his memories into
awakening. As he lowered his gaze back to the battlefield his eyes met the gaze
of a strange man. A bald man with cold steel-blue eyes stared at Jaxius from an
adjacent hilltop.

"No, you don't," he saw the
man say. The figure's arms erupted into flame. Two large jets of fire raced
toward his dream self. Moving impossibly fast, he and his dream self bounded
into the sky and evaded the jets of flame. But this reaction put his dream self
into the direct path of another magical gout of flame. That Jaxius plummeted to
the ground, and then the entire battlefield was engulfed in flames.

Jaxius' vision went brilliantly
white. Then, staggered, he was back in the tent in Nordras with the ancient
mystic.

"Did you find what you were
looking for?" he asked the half-elf.

"No, not yet, but I did see
further. It was as though I was there. Me, but not exactly me." Jaxius was
still reeling from the vision.

"It was you. You just have to
remember."

The tent flap opened and most of the
swirling smoke dissipated into the  cold night air. Tolian stepped through with
Grundar not far behind.

"Oh hello, Bergar," the old
mystic smiled his large toothless smile. "I was just speaking with Jaxius,
the Returned One. This journey of discovery involves you too, son of
Grundar."

"What is he talking about?"
Jaxius' face wrinkled with confusion.

Tolian's eyes widened. In his panic,
he could think of no other course but to tell Jaxius.

Tell him, Bergar agreed.
Just don't
let father know yet.

"Jaxius, friend, we need to
talk," Tolian said and then nodded toward Grundar. "Alone."

Jaxius nodded, turned to the old man,
and said, "I will return later, I promise. It seems that my friend needs
me now."

The wise old mystic snickered
knowingly and waved the two off.

Jaxius followed Tolian a short
distance away from the tent and apart from their large Nordrasian friend. As
Tolian recounted everything that Bergar had shared with him, a look of total
comprehension overtook Jaxius' face. Surprisingly to Tolian, Jaxius smiled.

"This explains much,"
Jaxius says. "I was doubting my own sanity for a while."

"What do you mean?"

"I will just say that Bergar
walks loudly," Jaxius said with a laugh.

I do not.

Tolian couldn't help but smile. "He
disagrees."

"He can hear me?" Jaxius
asked, astounded.

"Yes," Tolian answered.
"He simply has no control over my glorious physique at the moment. Somehow
we swapped command on the trek through the blizzard. A good thing too. Just one
more moment of that... and I ... I would have snapped."

You did.

"It looked like you did my
friend."

See
. Bergar's voice was smugly satisfied and Tolian could
imagine the young barbarian grinning widely.

"Grundar needs to hear of
this," Jaxius added solemnly.

No!
Bergar's smugness faded quickly at the thought of
explaining the whole mess to his father.

"I do not believe that we should
tell him quite yet," Tolian expanded on Bergar's protest. "I rather
fear he isn't prepared for a revelation of this magnitude."

"Perhaps you are right."

Chapter Twenty-two

The pair gathered Grundar from the
shaman's tent and then the three of them returned to the main hall shortly
thereafter. The scene in the hall had evolved from the feast of returned heroes
into a series of cheerful drinking games.

Jaxius and Tolian enjoyed their first
chance at relaxation in more than a month. They each grabbed a hearty drink and
settled near Grundar, hoping to extend their happiness to the grieving
chieftain. But Grundar did not cheer up. If anything, his sorrow only deepened
with the passing minutes.

Intent on cheering his friend, Tolian
sprang from his seat, bowed low to Grundar and said, "Would you allow me
to honor you and the memory of your son with a song?"

What are you doing?
Alarm was evident in Bergar's
question.

Nothing
, Tolian thought.

Ugh. Why must you torment me? Didn’t
the witch do enough?

Grundar nodded his grizzled head and
vaguely motioned his hand in a half-hearted affirmative.

Tolian, ever the showman, leaped atop
the long wooden table and began tapping his foot to set the rhythm of his hymn.
What followed was a rousing and triumphant ballad of the boy's coming of age
and passage into manhood. The song became somber as Tolian detailed Bergar's
slaying at the hands of the foul witch and returned triumphantly as Tolian
described Bergar's ascension to the Wildlands.

His song was met with mixed reactions
as those who were closest to Bergar alternately cheered and wept at the
appropriate moments. However, a small group of young barbarians booed and
hissed as Tolian's ballad continued.

Don't pay them any mind. They wish
they could lead the clan. Jealous, that's all,
Bergar told Tolian.

This spurred Tolian on. He moved
closer to the disgruntled youngsters and his song took on an almost taunting
tone as he pointed out the great loss to Clan Dernegart.

The heckling turned sour and bitter.
Harsh remarks were made, insulting Tolian, calling him a coward, a stealer of
glory, incapable of fighting his own glorious battles. They hurled insult after
insult at the bard who was not phased by this in the least. In fact, he had
encountered the same reception a number of times in many of the taverns
scattered across the land. After half a decade of the same unimaginative
insults, he learned to ignore them or incorporate them into his act.

Bergar, however, did not have the
same thick skin as Tolian.
Why do you let them make fun of you like that?
Stand up for yourself, man!

Tolian, ignoring his second
conscience, pressed on, singing more and more to the crowd of hecklers than to
anyone else.

Finally seeing that they didn't upset
him with their hateful remarks, they turned their insults on Bergar. Their
remarks hinted at failure and extreme cowardice in his final days. One of the
young barbarians, in particular, sought to trounce on the name of the recently
departed son of the clan head.

That is too far!
Bergar roared.

With that mental shout, Tolian leaped
forward, landing fully in the middle of the half drunk barbarian and grabbed
him by the throat. The bard punched the drunkard repeatedly in the jaw and
eyes. When the shocked, young barbarian turned his head to save his nose from
further punishment, Tolian pummeled his ears furiously.

Great
, Tolian thought wryly at the angered
Bergar.
Now you've gone and done it. I no longer control myself.

No reply came from Bergar; he was no
longer thinking. He had been lost to the battle lust for which his people were
best known. He beat and beat his clansman until a couple of the shocked
bystanders pulled him off.

"Now, that's fighting like a
barbarian," one of the onlookers said.

Alright, snap out of it, boy,
commanded Tolian.

"Wha-what happened?" Bergar
asked aloud.
Oh yeah, he made fun of you and then he turned on me. I
remember now.
He mentally answered his own question.

Right,
Tolian thought.
And you almost
outed us right here in front of your father. Do you have any idea how you took
control of the body?

No,
Bergar said.
Not really. I just got mad, and then
was punching him.

That's it!
Tolian almost shouted.
Emotion.
You became angry. You got irritated enough to take the body back. It's
perfectly logical.

It is?
Bergar asked.

Yes. When I took over control of my
body before, it was because I was so angered with your bumbling that I was set
to kill you. It has to be emotion!

That does make sense,
Bergar agreed.
But we can only
swap places when one of us is extremely angry? That isn't very useful.

Tolian explained to his internal
partner,
I don't think the Witch Goddess meant for it to be particularly
helpful. I am also quite sure she meant for it to be an obstacle, yet another
way in which to create confusion and chaos. That is what she does, after all.

Bergar agreed with all the bard had
described. He could not think of any other way to swap places. Both of the
times that they had swapped were under nearly identical circumstances.

"You can let go of me,"
Bergar said, in Tolian's voice again. He shrugged off the two brawny men
holding him back.

Just as his arms broke free of his
restrainers, the assaulted barbarian's fist met Bergar's jaw with a loud thump.
Bergar stumbled backward, landing solidly on the table behind him.

"That's fer hittin' me. You punch
like a sissy. I thought you ought to know what a real man hits like."

Now, with more than his pride hurt,
Bergar thought it a wise course to stay down. However, he noted this particular
boy, and would repay the debt one day.

After we figure out how to get you
out,
Tolian
suggested.

Lot of good that'll do, with no body
of my own.

I know. We'll figure it out. And now
that Jaxius knows, we can work together on it.

I am just glad to finally know his
name. I have known the man for three and a half full cycles of the moon and
have only ever called him 'Stranger',
Bergar admitted.

Yes, names are something he holds
dear. A trait that is definitely growing on me.

***

Jaxius sat listening to his closest
friend sing a heartwarming ballad in honor of a compatriot that he had recently
thought was dearly departed. Jaxius decided that most things were not as they
seemed anymore. Tolian and Bergar were two distinct souls crowded into a single
body and Jaxius, himself, was supposed to recall memories that he didn't
remember making. The whole concept was dizzying. Perhaps, the solitary mug of
ale that he had was overcoming his senses. Either way, to do what the old
mystic suggested, he would have to remember.

He sat and contemplated during the
majority of Tolian's sweeping ballad. When Tolian reached the part about their
rescue attempt for Bergar, he remembered the battle in the tower vividly. But
his mind, after a moment, wandered to a different engagement.

At first, he thought that he
recognized it from his dreams as the fight on the hill, but this one was
different. He looked around and noticed he was atop a horse-like creature that
stood on two legs instead of four and had wings growing from its side. As he
peered down the line of warriors who also sat astride, no face looked
unfamiliar. However, he could not place a single name to any one of them.
Behind him, he heard the call for archers to ready their bows.

The brilliant gold glint of his armor
caught his attention. The perfectly aligned scales shimmered with superior
craftsmanship. He reached backward and unsheathed his weapon. It was a
viortassi
,
although it was not his sword. Its blade had a jade tint and was adorned with words
in a language that teetered at the brink of his memory. The weight and
craftsmanship of his fine weapon subtracted nothing from his ability to ride
atop his bizarre mount. A voice from his side broke into his admiration of his
elegant sword.

"Your majesty," the all too
familiar voice said. "All of the troops are ready to ride. You need only
give the command."

He looked over to see Chlora standing
on the ground beside his steed. She smiled brightly, her eyes beaming
enthusiasm.

"Thank you, Chlora," Jaxius
heard himself say. He was shocked. She had claimed to know him and called him
cousin, but this was beyond his ability to comprehend. "Soldiers, ready?
Advance!"

Jaxius looked out at the sea of an
army that stood in their path and then looked back at Chlora who stood
barefoot, waving at her king marching to war. Jaxius felt his attention linger
on her for just a second longer than he intended. That brought to him the
realization that this was not really happening now, but in a memory or a dream
of some sort. He turned back around to face his onrushing foe.

An army, greater in number than any
he had ever seen, marched against him this night. He looked about at the
hundred or so warriors gathered at his command. He glanced back as his score of
archers let arrow after arrow fly high into the blood red sky. Jaxius followed
their path to see many more soldiers fall than his archers could possibly have
fired upon.

As his cavalry approached their
target, their pace hastened. Each mount perfectly in step with the mount next
to it. The hoofbeats echoed as a single, booming tone.

Jaxius felt himself raise his finely
crafted weapon and howl a wild battle cry. Deep inside himself, he felt a
pulsating power well up and fill his entire being. He felt time slow to a crawl.
Each step of his mighty winged horse encompassed several seconds. He had time
to gaze upon each warrior in his army. His review told him that they, too,
moved with the same dilated pace. He must be in a host of people with abilities
comparable to his. He called upon some magic inherent in his weapon and it
burst into sparkling green and blue heatless flames. Jaxius glanced down at the
blade, not entirely certain of what he was doing. He had heard of enchanted
weapons before, but he was sure he had never held one.

One of his companions let loose an
orb of glowing red energy. It struck the front line of the advancing army and
exploded, creating a hole in the   enemy ranks the size of a small house.
Similar orbs struck the oncoming army at various intervals.

Jaxius raised himself up on the back
of his mount. Knowing, somehow, that he would not lose his balance, he rode
standing on the bare back of his steed and waited to reach his target.

After a few more bolts of magical
energy exploded into his enemy's ranks, Jaxius determined that he was close
enough to launch his own attack.

"Gittup!" he called to his
steed. The great white wings flapped a few quick times, and the king was away,
flying through the air. The oncoming army skidded to a stop as he and a handful
of his soldiers flew overhead. When he was near the center of the opposing army
he slipped backward, off of the flying two-legged horse beast. He rushed toward
the ground. Inside his chest, he knew that this was true freedom. To fly. His
calming descent ended abruptly as he landed, crouching to soften the blow. His
flaming blade swung out in a great arc, slicing apart his foes two and three at
a time. The ones he did not immediately fell with his blade ran screaming. It
was as though his landing created a giant ripple in the army.

Seizing the opportunity granted him
by his flashy arrival, Jaxius sped to the top of the ridge from which his
enemies had marched. Several of the opposing warriors circled him. He fought
brilliantly, his blade moved at an impossibly fast speed in spite of, or
possibly because of, his altered perception of time. Eventually, enough of the
opposition crowded in on him that his heavy blade did little good either in
defense of himself or in attacks on his foes.

Feeling inordinate pressure, Jaxius
thrust his elven blade into the soft ground at his feet. A ring of flame
spurted outward, bowling over the ring of men surrounding him.

Rain began to fall as the silky night
closed in. He gazed around the battlefield, seeing some of his companions
fighting for their lives. This part of the dream memory, Jaxius had seen
before. This, now, was the hilltop battle of his previous dreams.

The visions had started to feel more
like memories than dreams, but Jaxius still questioned what was truly
happening. He was sure that he would learn all of the truth soon. He felt more
confident in that every moment.

Jaxius looked up from his waking
dream to see Tolian being pulled from atop one of the locals. The half-elf
jumped to his feet and rushed to aid the men holding back the furious bard. He
couldn't be sure which of his friends was in control of their shared body at
the moment, but he had an idea.