Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2) (14 page)

              “Excellent, she will be a very important tool for our Master's plans. Send out all the Dracairei we have available when they hit land from the Sea of Turmoil. Have two of them escort the Shifter and the Princess here, and have the rest dissuade any pursuit.” The smile never touched his lips, but the mad gleam in Yandarian's eyes told Temendri that his teacher was indeed pleased and already planning his next move. “Now, as to our other news of indeterminate negativity?”

              “I have received the weekly report from the guards at the mine where the boy is being held. They have been following your orders to the letter, neither being vicious nor soft towards the lad. He receives the same rations as the other slaves, and sleeps in the same cell as his work crew. The boy has been quiet and withdrawn ever since we put him there, quietly doing the work without complaint. He has never interacted with the other slaves, and has shown neither the desire for freedom nor the crushing defeat that usually accompanies such servitude.” Temendri took a deep breath before continuing.

              “During the last week, however, something has changed. He has become more introspective, and can often be seen drawing or writing in the dust in his corner of the cell. He occasionally mutters to himself, but no one has yet to catch anything he says. The other slaves have begun to unconsciously give the boy more space, and he nearly has half of the cell to himself now, though the guards do not think that he has noticed this change yet. His productivity has elevated, and he seems to be letting out some unknown frustrations on the walls of the mine. Even some of the guards seem to be giving the boy a little more distance than they had before. I do not know what to make of these reports, but I thought that you might.”

              “Interesting indeed, this could be a good sign. If he is starting to lose control of his sanity, then maybe he can still become malleable enough for me to work with him. The Master knows how horribly the first attempt failed. If not, the Princess should help to bring him around...” Yandarian did grin this time, and it was not a friendly expression, “...one way or another.”

              Temendri shuddered inwardly, knowing first hand some of the other ways in which his teacher might put the Princess to use. He hadn't gotten the same impression from the message from the mine as Yandarian seemed to, but he hoped that his teacher was right, otherwise it could spell disaster. If Yandarian was wrong, it might mean that the creature inside the boy was awakening again, and if it could awaken even while the boy was wearing the manacles, there was nothing they could do to control what was to come.

Chapter 7

Shaken, Not Stirred

              15 Years BGD

South Harbor

              “Greatest Grandmother!” Dalton Alexander Theromvore said as Tyrdra came into view. Even at fifteen he still felt like a little kid every time she came into view. It was no wonder; she was the second oldest person he knew, the first being Elyas.

              “Dalton, I'm glad to see you are hard at work training. What are you working on today?”

              As she moved closer, Dalton noticed that Tyrdra was dressed for battle. This was the first time he had ever seen her outfitted for battle, and the feelings that she evoked in him were a confusing mix to the teenager. Even though she had been around for over seven hundred years, she looked like she was in her mid-twenties, despite worry lines had begun to appear on her forehead. She moved with a grace that he had only seen before in dancers and acrobats, and she was supremely confident in each and every movement. Her red hair that normally flowed down around her shoulders was pulled back into a tight braid. Her armor had obviously been designed to restrain her curves, but it wasn't enough to stop the eye from being drawn to her form. Part of him was sickened by his reaction since she was still in his family tree, but the other part reminded him that that was well over twenty generations ago.

              “The Knight Commander said that I favor my right hand, so I am supposed to do left handed sword drills until I am equally proficient with both hands.”

              “And how do you feel about that?” Tyrdra said, noticing Dalton's less than enthusiastic demeanor.

              “I know she has a reason for making me do it, but I feel as if I'm wasting my time practicing something I'll most likely never need.”

              “A lot can happen in a battle; it is very easy for a hand to get injured, and being able to use your remaining hand could mean the difference between life and death. It may never happen, but being prepared for such an eventuality is wise.” Tyrdra put her arm around Dalton's shoulders, guiding him towards the command building. She noted that he was almost as tall as she was now. “I thought that maybe you and I could head to the border and see if we could find ourselves some trouble; we can put some of this training into practical field testing.”

              Dalton looked at Tyrdra to make sure she wasn't messing with him, and then almost ran off without her to ask permission before he noticed that they were already heading in the correct direction. Trying to reassert control over his emotions, he cleared his throat before speaking. “I think that would be a great idea. I hope the Knight Commander agrees.”

              “I think we can get her to come around,” Tyrdra said, not missing the excitement that was coursing through the young man. He was maintaining control through it, however, which reassured her that he was indeed ready for some fieldwork.

              It didn't take them long to reach the office of the Knight Commander, the officer in control of the Knight's training facilities for the Protectorate. Walking into the outer office, a bored looking Corporal looked up from behind a well-worn desk. It took him a moment to register that the people walking in the room were actually important, and when he finally realized it, he shot to his feet and threw his fist over his heart.

              “Lady Dalton, we were not informed of your visit. Knight Commander Theromvore is currently in a meeting, but I could tell her that you are here.”

              “Is the meeting going to take long?”

              “I don't believe so, ma'am, but one can never tell about these things.”

              “We'll just wait out in the hall, then. Please inform the Knight Commander that we are here when it is prudent.” Tyrdra reaffirmed her statement by turning around and heading back into the hall they had come from.

              Dalton chuckled quietly a moment later when he joined her. “The way people treat you is amazing. I hope that I can command even half that level of respect before I die.”

              “It is nice, on occasion, but it is a double-edged sword. When people begin to look at you as if you are something beyond them, it creates a barrier that can be hard to breach. Rarely am I engaged in meaningless conversation anymore. I miss the days when people would talk with me about the weather, or how well their gardens were growing. I have become a symbol to the people of this city.”

              As she spoke, Dalton realized for the first time how very lonely it must be to have outlived generation after generation of your progeny. With each generation her legend grew, and the gap between her and them became even greater. She no longer had anyone she could confide in, or laugh and cry with. To show them such a weakness as tears might make them see her as something less than indestructible, and shake the very foundation of their worlds. Not knowing why, he reached out and tugged gently on one of her earlobes.

              The look of shock that crossed her face momentarily almost made him regret his impulse, but a moment later she grabbed his hand and kissed the back of it. “Dear child, you are so much like him, it is no wonder that you were able to pull that memory up. He used to do that when I was getting too introspective, worrying about things that I couldn't do anything to stop.”

              It was that moment that the Knight Commander came into the hall alongside a young Mage. The pair stopped when they saw Dalton and Tyrdra standing in such an intimate exchange. Knight Commander Theromvore tilted her head slightly, a small grin showing on her features before she turned to the young man next to her.

              “Mage Skyhammer, I will look over your proposal for these new Battlesorcerers and tell you what I think in the morning.”

              Understanding that he was being dismissed, Leodric Skyhammer nodded. “Thank you, Knight Commander Theromvore. I hope we can work together on this in the future.”

              As the Mage walked down the corridor, the Knight Commander gestured towards the door of her office. Tyrdra squeezed Dalton's hand softly before letting go and gliding past the Knight Commander. As Tyrdra entered the room, the Knight Commander raised an eyebrow at her son.

              “You two are getting chummy.”

              “It's not like...” Dalton began to say as his mother's eyebrow rose to greater heights. “One of
his
memories came up and I did something that reminded her of him, it wasn't a big deal.”

              Nodding, Knight Commander Theromvore told her son, “It is okay, I understand. I've been through more than one awkward moment because of something I knew that I shouldn't. Just be careful, okay? She's not as strong as she pretends, and if you let too many of those memories free it could be bad for everyone involved.” She placed a reassuring hand onto his shoulder as he entered the outer office. He knew that the action was tantamount to a hug from most mothers, so he appreciated it for what it was. She had worked hard for her position, and as one of the first women to assume the role of Knight Commander, she couldn't afford to do anything that might be misconstrued as weakness to the officers above her. “So, what does your venerable great, great, great, et cetera, grandmother want today?”

              “Oh! She wants to take me out on a border patrol.”

Year: 3045 AGD

Month: New Year

First Eighthday

Continent of Terroval

Mine

              He awoke from this latest dream moments before the Goblin's foot hit his midsection.

              “Time for another day of work, Tunnel Rat.”

             
Tunnel Rat.
For as long as he could remember, that is what he was called, and he had been okay with it. Somewhere during the last Eightday, however, it had turned into a vile term. Something about these people that he kept seeing in his dreams made him want to fight back against the term Tunnel Rat.               The problem was that he didn't know what exactly it was that he was supposed to be called. Every time he was called Tunnel Rat, it drove the fact that he didn't know his own name deeper into his psyche. Over the last few days, he had tried out some of the names in his head that he had heard during his dreams, but none of them felt right. Even though the view through which he saw his dreams could be male or female, he was fairly certain that he could rule out most of the names of the females from his dreams. That left him with a lot of names still, and over the last Eightday he had done several things to try to narrow down his list.

              First, he would draw the name in question in the dirt, trying to feel how naturally the letters came to him. Depending on his success or failure doing that, he would then move on to saying the name quietly to himself. Some of the names felt familiar to him, but he didn't think that any of them were
his name.
He didn't feel like a Dalton, Ranadin, or Lagelion. In fact, the only names that had any resonance at all within him were Theromvore and Daystar, but he knew from his dreams that those were last names, and he couldn't be both,
could he?

             
As he trudged into the end of the line of Goblin-kin leaving his cell, he muttered the names to himself. He didn't miss the look from the Goblin in front of him, nor had he missed many of the looks that the others had been giving him lately, either. They thought he was crazy, and they were giving him space until they figured out just how crazy he was.

              The first night that he found his half of the cell more empty than usual he had hurt. He didn't want to be isolated from everyone else; he just wanted to know who he was. As the dreams continued to intensify, however, he was glad for the distance that the others were giving him. Some of the dreams were so intense that he was sure he must be moving or speaking during them. During the last Eightday, he had been in more battles than he could count. He had attended a half dozen lectures ranging from mathematics to battlefield tactics.

              When the dreams had simply been short flashes or sensations it had been much easier to ignore them. Now that they had become so long and vivid, he was having trouble telling what was real and what wasn't. There was so much detail and sensation in the dreams that he was beginning to wonder if they were something else entirely. In this latest dream, Dalton had eluded to possessing memories from someone long dead, and if that was what was going on, it was happening on a much larger scale than it had happened to that young man.

              If they were indeed memories from his ancestors, perhaps he could get an idea of who he was through figuring out who they had been. That was no simple task, however, because each person he had been watching the memories of thought in different ways. Sometimes the differences were subtle, but occasionally the manner in which they perceived the world was vastly different.  It wasn't as simple as how differently Humans and Elves see the world, for each Human and each Elf saw things slightly differently than others of their own race. The differences seemed to be greater along the racial divide, but not always in the ways that one might expect.

              Of the three Elves that he had dreamed of being, two of them had held very rigid mindsets. Once they came to a conclusion on something, it became very difficult to change their minds. The third Elf had taught him to question many of the things that his people held as fact, and found that there was a lot of room for debate amongst these beliefs. Knowing how his people felt he had kept those thoughts mostly to himself.