The Korellian Odyssey: Requiem (2 page)

The beneficence surrounding their younger brother reflected a darkness as of flint in the minds of Doran, Martus, and Tireon, older siblings who allowed these attentions to fertilize the seed of an envy that grew into a flowering weed, sprouting with cruel, black, barbed thorns that yearned for the disappearance of their little brother. They told themselves that theirs was the labor of strength, the spoils theirs for the taking, gains not in all fairness to be given in ill-deserved charity to the weak. The thorns eventually transformed themselves from barbs of envy to claws of betrayal as the brothers hatched a plan to, at the very least, teach young Korel appropriate deference to his betters.

The next selling season came in the fall of the year, Korel having just turned seventeen and eager to test the market with his newest creations. Seventeen was an important landmark, as Korel could keep half of all the profits on wares he made and sold himself, this being law in Westoreth. As the day progressed, he sold more and made more than all his brothers combined. And so the tipping point had been reached, as a little brother's coddled defiance could no longer be suffered.

The brothers set their plan in motion. Doran yelled, "Thief! This tapestry is mine and this coin chest has markings identical to my own. You've cheated me and our family of the spoils our sweat rightfully claims as ours!" Korel silently noted the irony of his brother's protest, trying in vain to recall a time when sweat could be found on Doran's brow . . . although there did appear to be a small trickle now.

Martus and Tireon held Korel fast while Doran ran to the market warden. When the warden arrived he rapidly assessed the situation, looked toward Korel, and began, "This man tells me you, though his brother, have taken goods and money belonging to him. This is a strange way to treat a brotherhood. What have you to say against such accusations?"

Korel answered, "I make no defense to you except to say that my brothers know to whom these things belong, and the true thieves are as known to them as they are to me. I stand not accused before mine own conscience."

He fell silent and would say no more. But in his silence his brothers sang in unison a chorus of false witness, accusing him of the crime in continuous and repetitious verse. Finally the warden answered in a resigned voice, "This crime seems strange to me, as there is little chance that such a theft could be done successfully. Whatever the small gains, they would in no way balance the destruction of filial bonds, to say nothing of the dissolution of a now unsalvageable partnership that, before today, bred great success. Treachery would need to take early root within this man for him to commit such a crime. Have none of you any other word to say on the matter?"

But the brothers kept their silence. And in this silence Korel was led toward a new fate filled with prison bars and the sounds of keys turning the tumblers of locks, his brothers watching from a distance behind . . .

Suddenly, Korel came awake. The valley was absolutely quiet, absent of voices or breeze, the wane light of the cold, distant stars showing only vague shadows barely discernable on the edge of sight.

There was a sudden movement in the sand beneath him. He felt the sand shift again as the earth began to fall, a small part of the hillside giving way to form an underground hollow. Immediately the sandy earth fell in torrents as Korel grabbed the leather cords binding the meat in its shallow grave and started to run. But the grave did not wish to yield up its prize, and as Korel pulled with all his might, a vortex opened to form a silicon whirlpool that inhaled dust, rocks, and the precious meat itself into its black, hungry center. Korel gave a mighty pull upon the leather, putting all the strength of his hands into the effort. The leather cords frayed with the strain, a sound like popping ligaments thrumming from their length, as the meat suddenly came free. Then he ran, bursting from the boulder field in a blind panic, keeping a blistering pace until his adrenaline-fueled flight began to sputter, replaced by an acidic ache that descended over his entire body. Stopping upon a small ridge, he looked back. Several of the boulders near his sleeping place had disappeared as the currents of sand still shifted back and forth along the far hillside searching for that which would appease their terrible appetites. At length the currents stopped, the earth finding nothing more than rock-sand flesh, returning to a watchful waiting, a perpetual silence that would last until another taste of innocence stirred its hunger once again.

Korel held the bundles of meat up before his eyes, their leaf-wrapped weight swinging from their leather cords, and saw that one bundle had been lost, leaving only a bare femur bone dangling limply from its tattered thong. The earth had been hungry indeed, and he knew he had been extremely lucky. But whether there was a curse upon the ground itself or another being of extreme malice or avarice bending the valley to its will, he could not guess. Though spent, he took up a slow walk, heading eastward as the sun rose before him. The underlying and ever-present appetite of the valley, always restless and seeking, now seemed quiet, soothed somewhat by the coming of the light.

As he traveled east, Korel could see the mountains gradually drawing nearer, the sand giving way to more barren, hard pack. Dust devils danced ahead, purposeless yet frantic in their meandering. As he walked, he began to lapse into a kind of ruthless fatigue defined by a punishing, pitiless insistence that drove him to a low-grade exhaustion, pushing in slow, ceaseless pulses that allowed for only brief stops at night to rest and eat. Then he would rise again to trudge through the apathy that filled the dim dusk and rode the currents of the cool, dusty winds as they blew in vapid perpetuity. On the afternoon of his third day across the plain, he began to near the foot of the mountains. He would be there before nightfall.

The low-hanging sun began to set behind him as Korel neared the mountain foot, winds rising in the ritual chaos of night, gusting frantically and driven by relentless voices that renewed their call, howling on the edge of hearing, their song touched with a biting sense of urgency. The need within them rose higher and higher with a mindless agitation that threatened to flow out across the plain and consume everything in it—mountain, sky, and even the plain itself. At the peak of this frenzy, the world fractured, a crystal goblet shattering into a million pieces, as a deafening silence suddenly reigned, the wind dying instantly, the sun touching the rim of the world, pausing to hold its breath as Korel walked to the end of all wastes.

As he neared the first foot of the mountain, Korel saw a small church just to his left lit by the ashes of the setting sun. The church seemed plain enough, made from whitewashed wood and surrounded by a white picket fence. The roof was made with wooden shingles, and upon this rested a small green bell tower with a green steeple that ended in a gold-crested tip. Each wall of the chapel had small but beautiful stained glass windows that reflected the light from the fire setting in the west, breaking into warm colors and spilling them upon the ground within and without the chapel confines.

The chapel, as quaint and beautiful as it was, seemed out of place, a forlorn counterpoint to the barren terrain extending for miles, broken only by the rugged mountains and their razor-sharp passes, the brutal landscape all but uninhabitable. But as Korel pondered, the chapel bell rang out once, emitting a lonely, shrill note that was quickly swallowed in the dead quiet of the plain. At the sound of the bell, people began to emerge from the chapel, men, women, and children, all of whom were plainly dressed in cotton shirts, pants, and skirts in browns and whites—but they had a regal baring, faces of old nobility, and many appeared strong with a lightness of foot that suggested experience molded in the forge of battle. Many gave dark looks of pride and noble position, lending an impression of long-established power and the entitlement of generations.

Then the children ran to Korel and bid him follow them into the chapel, taking his hands and gently drawing him forth as the thongs of leaf-covered meat swung gently over his shoulder. Voices of a divine choir rose inside the chapel, swelling inside his mind. Men and women gave welcoming smiles, a few bestowing expressions of mild forbearance. Gradually, he came to float on a current of urging, ethereal music and mind-numbing need. There was something here, something important up ahead, something inside that he needed to see, needed to do . . . needed to have? He couldn't remember. He couldn't think. Who were these people? But as he entered the picket fence and climbed the short steps to the threshold, he realized he didn't care.

As he passed through the white double doors of the chapel, the choir music swelled as a host of singers in white stood facing the congregation, standing on either side of the room near the main dais. The chapel was simple but enormous on the inside, with stained glass mounted in every wall, their alabaster surfaces reaching toward the ceiling for what seemed twenty feet. Light flooded through the windows, erupting up through the choir. The music rose ever higher, compelling Korel forward. Ahead lay an alter heaped with gold, jewels, crowns of dominion, goblets, and pearls, the wealth from all the ages of man and his rulers, all those things that adorn regal might, all that makes a king a king. And still the music rose ever higher as he walked past the polished wooden pews filled with a noble congregation composed of men, women, and children, all possessed of a great heritage, who, with tears in their eyes, looked to him as he passed.

As he neared the holy alter, Korel looked up and saw the priest, resplendent in white robes, blessing the treasures placed thereon, power and splendor surrounding him and a crown upon his brow. Korel stood before the alter and saw the scepter of power, the staff of authority among the living, placed at the highest point atop the gifts of kings; this scepter was taken up by the priest and proffered Korel, whiteness and light streaming from it. The music seemed to enter his mind as he reached to take this holy gift, rising and bursting through his skull, urgency, need, and hunger driving his outstretched hand, choir and congregation surrounding and crowding ever nearer.

But the urgency was too great, the need too desperate, the hunger too empty, and as Korel touched the scepter he paused and drew back his hand. Yet at his touch the scepter fell, hitting the ground and shattering to pieces, painlessly taking with it a small piece of his index finger where he had touched it. As the scepter broke, the music halted, the light became dim, and the holy priest began to darken, his hair blackening and turning to ash, skin cracking and peeling to the floor, flesh falling in pieces and hanging in fetid ruin upon his skull and bones. Indeed, all those congregated seemed to become corpses of decomposed lineages of men, the flesh and greed of former glory hanging from them in tatters. Each had fire in his eyes and ash and lava tumbling from his mouth, and all came crowding nearer as the building began a ponderous crumbling within its brown and shabby walls.

The priest spoke aloud through his scorched tongue and jaw, "You have touched that which is the pinnacle of the world and your blood is now ours. This you have earned. Enjoy it well!" The priest then removed a flaming coal from inside his mouth and pressed it to Korel's wounded finger as pain seared through his hand and wrist. In his agony, the priest placed the coal to Korel's mouth with new pain bursting afresh in gouts of spectacular agony. Somehow he spit the coal out of his mouth and stood tall before the crowd that reached toward him, a host of lust and hunger. With the breaking of the scepter his mind had begun to clear. Taking a half step forward, he said in a forceful voice, "I have touched that which is yours but was never mine. Though given, it was not received. I am not blind to your desire. Therefore, if blood and meat you crave, then blood and meat you shall have!" With that he drew the thongs of meat from his shoulder and threw them into the throng. A fetid riot of decaying bodies erupted, becoming a savage meat-seeking scrum as Korel broke into a run, vaulting from a wooden pew, arcing over the choir, and shattering through a stained glass window. As he looked back, the entire church fell in upon itself and slowly began to fade, leaving only the traces of a weathered stone foundation and a few scattered old bones.

Korel watched for a while as the evidence of his encounter blended with the earth, making it nearly invisible. He turned toward the mountain but felt a small remnant of the coal passing down his throat. He had swallowed a tiny piece and it left a dull aching burn through the entire course of its passage from his throat, to his chest, and into his stomach. There the burn lodged itself, easing somewhat but taking up a persistent vigil of worm-like pain. As he continued up through the foothills with the sun rapidly sinking behind, a small, furtive movement occurred beneath the sand, the same ground where a small piece of index finger, lost upon contact with the scepter, had come to rest. The movements continued, becoming larger and scattering dust. But Korel did not notice. Having come face to face with the remnant priesthood of the Felorian and having lived, he climbed out and away from the plain of Decaneth, up into the hills at the foot of the eastern mountains.

T
he eastern mountains of Nonym raised themselves up at the edge of the known realms of men. Korel had seen these mountains only on maps within the drafting rooms of the royal cartographers, and their histories and dimensions dwelt in obscurity. Some histories of the previous ages spoke of a time when a sea covered the plain of Decaneth, with a city by the water built by a proud race of men who peopled its shores. They were known as lords, a people with great lore and knowledge, men whose influence was powerful and their accomplishments in government, conquest, and architecture unmatched in all the known world. They built mausoleums under the earth and plumbed the secrets of decay, striving for dominion over the earth forever. But they dug too deep and plumbed too far, the lake filling their caverns of the dead, and in a great slide the mountain city fell into the sea never to rise again. Some said that the arrogance of their building caused the city's demise, but there were whispers of something having been awakened in the depths of avarice, something whose appetite could not be sated.