Pagewalker (34 page)

“Listen to me, You are beaten. I have your
life in my hands, I chose in these next few moments what to do
with, or to you.” I stopped to let that sink in for a moment, I
could see he was weighing his options up quickly but before he made
any move his eyes flickered and rolled back in his head. He had
passed out once more .

“What are you going to do babe?” Sarah asked,
still keeping her eyes on the Brute bellow us.

“I dono love, I mean your correct, as usual.
I have no right to take his life. Who am I to judge?” I said to
her. She had that 'I told you so' Smile going on. I hate that
smile, I mean I love her and all, but I hate that smile. Before we
said any more the sound of Bells were ringing in the distance.
Looking at each other we both knew what we had to do. We wrapped
Brutes hands behind his back and lifted him over our shoulders.
Making our way to the town square again was embarrassing to say the
least. People were fixing stalls in the streets, picking up broken
wares, salvaging what was still saleable and lifting potted plants
and hanging baskets at the front of their houses as we passed.
Sarah and I dragged the giant brute up through the town until we
made it to the square, where waiting for us was a perplexed looking
Oisin and another smaller, older looking man beside him.

“ah there they are!” Oisin sighed, “What took
you so long?” He asked.

Sarah raised one eyebrow, looked at the brute
we were carrying, looked back at Oisin and pursed her lips in an
unimpressed manor only Belfast girls can seem to do.

“Ah..” He simply replied. “I see.”

The small man with Oisin walked over towards
me. Like a child walking towards a new favourite toy, a castaway
walking towards drinkable water, or a late night drunk walking
towards a burger stand. He walked that way up to me, ignoring
everything else around me and placed his hands on my shoulders. I
slumped the Brute to the ground and took a step away from the
little creep.

“Uh, that’s close enough mate, you want a
picture or something? It would probably last longer!” I pushed his
hands from my shoulders and began walking to Oisin. “Sorry Oisin,
we got a bit sidetracked.” I explained with a breathless sigh.

“Well a bit more than that to be honest.”
Sarah interested kicking the fallen brute with the side of her foot
as he lay, passed out, by our feet.

Oisin's companion still stood open mouthed
looking at us, a large smile spread over his face as the
realisation of who we were dawned on him.

“The pro...pr...Proff...Proff...Prophets?” is
all he could stutter out from trembling lips.

“The what now?” Sarah's eyebrows were higher
than most peoples hairlines as she tilted her head down and forward
in an inquisitive way.

Oisin blustered past us and began struggling
to lift the arm of the brute and help him to his feet. “Yes yes,
God, creator of Northland, his wife the prophet and the dog, all
very special, now come on and give me a hand with this…..thing!”
Oisin spluttered out like a tour guide leading the last expedition
of the week and five minutes over his shift. Shooing on onlookers,
as they gaze at the many wonders before them that he had seen
again, a thousand times this week already. Without a word we all
grabbed what we could of the man and half dragged, half carried him
to the house of the Old man.

On the way I had discovered that this was in
fact the Bard of Aondor. The very man Oisin was coming to see. He
had the fragments that Oisin needed. The ones from the story
earlier and was not wasting any time in getting us on our way.

We explained what had just transpired to
Oisin and the Bard on our way to the house. We managed to get the
brute settled on the long bench in the front room, by the fire.
Sarah lit the fire while I checked over the body for any weapons or
anything of use. No, I wasn’t robbing him, flip sake what do you
think I am? Some kind of thief, hardly a looter as he wasn’t dead,
but come on, you should know me better than that by now. I know you
were thinking it!

We spent the next while recanting our adventures to
both the Storyteller and his wife who had fretted and cleaned from
the moment we darkened her doorstep. She was sitting now, hand in
hand with her husband listening to our tales, he however was
struggling to hold a quill in the spare hand while trying to steady
the parchment with his elbow, with great difficulty, as he tried to
scribe the stories we were telling.

After a long while of tales and conversation,
the chatter had drawn to an end. The sun was setting and the fire
was fading to embers, Sarah kept it topped up but the turf did not
burn brightly, instead it just glowed with a warming, soft heat. I
had bound the hands of the brute who still lay motionless. I did
not know if he was truly passed out or simply playing that way as
he listened to the story and calculated his next move. I sat next
to his head. Not moving my eyes from him. Earlier in the day when I
held his life at the end of a blade I had those visions. Visions
that truly stopped my heart, ripping it out, dipped it in a thick
coating of compassion, softened it and stitched it back into my
chest. I had seen life from his viewpoint and the viewpoint of many
others. You often hear people telling you have a little compassion,
or especially if your from northern Ireland you hear people talking
about 'seeing it from their side' when talking about religious and
political viewpoints, but to really see it from someone else's
eyes, that is truly moving.

Oisin moved and sat beside me. Sarah and Tessa were
falling asleep in the big armchair in front of the embers. He leant
close and spoke to me in a way of a whisper. “Why did you not kill
him?” He asked.

“I don't really know Oisin, I had the blade
to his throat, I wanted to spill his blood all over the ground but
on the moment before I pierced his skin, I had a vision.” Oisin sat
back in shock of my statement,

“A vision?” he asked

“A vision you say?” Came a voice from behind
Oisin. The bard stood only two feet from where we were. He was
listening intently.

“Yea, I mean I had these flashes of different
people, different scenarios, I saw through the eyes of the kid who
tormented me in school, I saw the reason the old man near us was
always angry. That's when I saw through his eyes.” I gestured to
the sleeping man beside me, “I saw his childhood, his upbringing,
his family struggling, I saw how close he was to his brother, I saw
me killing his brother in front of him. Not just saw it Oisin, I
felt
it, my heart broke for him then. In his eyes I am the
villain. I mean I am in this scenario. How could I take his life. I
am just as bad, if not worse Oisin!” Tears welled in my face as I
re-lived what I had seen once more. I continued, interrupting Oisin
before he even spoke, “I Did not want to kill him, my heart
changed, I feel like it's the first time I have ever truly
understood and believed forgiveness, I used to talk about it in
church, or pretend when shouted at by my mother, but it is the most
powerful thing I have ever felt. I needed it from him. If I killed
him I would never be able to explain about his brother.” Wiping the
tears away I put my hand on his shoulder. His massive, skull
crushing, Ironwood snapping shoulder. “I need him to know I never
meant to hurt or let alone kill his brother. I was aught up in the
tussle. The staff was caught, I didn’t even know there was a blade
inside it. I was trying to pull it free when I fell back and
pierced his brother. It was all bad luck and circumstance. I want
him to see my heart, to know that I will never forget. It will be a
burden I have to carry for the rest of my life, however long it
lasts, A constant stain on my soul. I need him to Know Oisin. I
need forgiveness, I need him to see through my eyes.”

My eyes were blurry as hell though, swimming
behind tears. The bard was kneeling down beside me now. He was
muttering to himself and holding something covered in what looked
like a potato sack. Well, at least that sort of material, itchy as
Sarah would call it.

“The visions, they ain’t just visions” He
muttered softly.

“Sorry?” I questioned.

“They are truth.” She said softly again.

“Truth?”

“Yes, you see its to do with prophecy, divine
destiny, magic and provisional enchantment!” He said excitedly
before laying into a monologue of large words no one could
understand, like a doctor explaining the symptoms like rhinovirus
or coronavirus as a viral infection attacking respiratory systems
and affecting a c02 count in the blood, when in fact all they had
to do was tell you that it was just a common cold. I put my hand up
in front of his face and made the slow down gesture until he
finally stopped.

“You are going to have to dumb it down a bit
there mate, you've lost me.” I said

“Well ok,” He spoke slower, like a teacher
explaining the concept of multiplication for a three year old. “You
see, when you wrote Dertrid's Deed and subsequently created
Northland you had written a pure truth. Not a depiction of the
truth but actual fact. So when the book was brought here the very
first time it was in fact gospel. Pages of pure truth. Known
commonly as magic. The thing is, those pages are in fact magic in
its purest form. When you come in contact and get closer to the
magic it is like an animal that was torn apart but still survives,
getting close to the other part of its body. It grows stronger.
Gains abilities is never knew it had. As you get closer to the
pages in which you first wrote of Northland, you are gaining
abilities and powers you had never dreamt of. So those are not mere
visions, but you are seeing truth. You are creating truth and
magic.”

We were all silent for what seemed like the
longest time as this sank in.

“but, you said I was getting closer to the
original pages? How? They were gone, stolen by Abe and taken here?”
I asked.

“Yes, that is true, in my many years sitting
in the court of King Dertrid I have heard many stories and seen the
effects of many battles and wars fought over those pages. Abe used
them, lost them and sold them over years. The remaining pages were
put into collections by both the dwarves and the Dark elves.” The
bard continued, it all started to click with me then, like the last
few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the larger picture was coming
together.

“That is what you and Oisin had gathered when
you travelled together to the dwarf city and Xill?” I blurted out,
like a child at the front of class after just realising the answer
and wanting recognition for his quick intellect.

“Precisely!” Oisin and the bard replied in
unison. Oisin sat back grinning with a closed mouth and a raised
eyebrow. He reclined like a chess master after deciding the final
three moves in every scenario, securing his victory before the
realisation of his opponent. He had seen this coming for a while
and orchestrated it into fruition.

“You cleaver bastard.” is all I could say to
him. “Wait though, you say I am seeing truth. So you mean
everything I saw through his eyes was real? Is it because I touched
him?” I asked.

“Well, yes, obviously,” The bard dismissed in
an over exaggerated manor. As though agreeing to the time.

“So when I held his head I saw through his
eyes? I know now what he saw, I did not need convinced, or to
trust, I know? So if I were to try again I could make him see what
I have seen so he may know?” I asked again.

The bard's face turned in on its self, his
arms folded at the same time as Oisin both, like twins were leaning
forward now from their respective positions. Both rubbing their
chins like ancient elders in a council meeting.

They both agreed as to why there is no reason
it
couldn’t
happen. Oisin's question was,
should
it
happen? We thought on this for a while, I wanted, in my impatient
and impulsive nature just wanted to show him now and be done with
it, but the better minds around me talked me down. Of course, Sarah
had the answer, as usual. I didn’t even know she was awake. She has
a habit of doing that.

“Love, if what I am hearing is true, you have
been saying that truth is the purest form of magic. You have been
talking about how forgiveness is the strongest form of power. I
think that may be true. If you have the power to forgive someone
you are a stronger person, right?” She said. We all agreed, she
went on. “You forgave this brute, thing, man, because you knew what
he had seen. Imagine if forgiveness was accomplished and given
through trust. By not seeing the truth but by simply believing
it?”

Our mouths hit the floor. Like,
literally.

“Wait, What?” I managed to splutter out.

“Well he has the power to overcome his sins,
and his past, by forgiving what, or who, is in front of him. He can
change his path by choosing what to believe, rather than the truth
choosing it for him, right?” She said,

“Who are you?” I choked out. “And what have
you done with my wife?”

“Oh shut up, ya big tit!” She said
embarrassed and blushing, her face flushing a light shade of rose.
“You know what I'm trying to say right?”

“Your saying I need to be honest, tell him
the truth and just hope that he sees the truth and forgives me?” I
asked, both eyebrows now up high curling my brow in an unsure
question way.

“Aye, and if that doesn’t work, then do the
whole laying on the hands thing sure?” She turned around in her
chair again, facing the fire, petting Tessa's head on her lap and
closed her eyes again as the heat stroked her smooth, silky
face.

A voice came then that startled us all, not just from
disbelief, but from fear and shock. The brute had opened his eyes
without any of us knowing.

“There is no need for that.” Is all he said,
meanwhile we had all jumped back a few paces. Oisin stood peering
out from behind the doorway into the kitchen, only his hands and
top of his head could be seen, behind him crouched the Bards the
same way, only peering from behind Oisin instead of the doorway.
Sarah was backing slowly backwards from the chair, creeping
backwards towards the stairs at the far side of the room. I had
fallen back and had lifted the stool Oisin was sitting on earlier
above my head like a three legged baton. My eyes darted to his
bindings as he began to sit up. Now, I’m not being cocky when I say
I'm kind of strong. Well I'm really very strong, you would not
think it by looking at me, but believe me when I say, there is no
jar I have come across that I have not been able to open! That very
important fact aside, I can tie a pretty good knot. And with thick
strong leather, I have no idea how the brute was now loosening the
strap from his feet like a bow on a Brazilian’s bikini. He had
already undone the ones from his wrists and was rubbing them now
like an inmate released into the yard from a maximum security
prison. He simply laughed as he saw the state of us.