Fighting the Dark

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Fiction

Fighting the Dark

Fantasy Fiction by

Andrew Hedges

As the crimson ribbons of sunlight chased each other over the back of his
neck, Thade's breath was stealthily stolen away on a sudden gust of the
magical air that enveloped the grove. The very earth seemed to spark with
unnatural energy and he noticed that the serenity of this place pierced any
shadow and drowned out any noise with its silence. Even the dancing ladies
seemed to hold their breath as the Spell-sword made his way across to the
center of his surroundings, to where the stone stood. It towered above him
and he could hear a humming getting louder with each step he made towards
the murderer of his friends...his wife...and his son. The son to which his
whole life was devoted, the son that he himself had bestowed his undying
spirit, the son that had died at the age of 3 the same way that thousands of
others had died before him...his emotions had been poisoned and his heart
crushed by this same matriarch of death.
The tormented warrior could not understand, however, how such a thing so
evil, corrupt, and vile could survive in this cascade of beauty and
love...and then his query was answered. A sudden flash of black lightning
sped forth from the strange runes imbedded into the ground around it, and
the whole place was enveloped in darkness as the sun began to fade and die.
The world around him swirled into a picture not of peace, but of pure
hatred. Everything felt empty and lifeless, even his very life force seemed
to fall away out of reach, close, but always just evading his grasp, yet he
managed to gather himself from the brink of that one emotion he had not felt
for a very long time - fear. Maybe too long...
Suddenly, as if by instinct, he swirled around. Something was there with
him. Something he could not see, something that he could not touch or even
smell, but feel. Wildly in his panic he slashed up and down, putting no
thought to all of the different sword techniques, or Gerutia that he had
acquired over his journeys. He drove all thought and power within him to
kill the unseen enemy as he fought like a madman. Slashing and turning,
wielding his ancient sword with fiery fury like a cornered tiger defends the
one thing left to it...its pride. Little did he know that the enemy he was
fighting could not be conquered or even touched by steel, but by strength of
will. He was fighting with the enemy that he had carried ever since he had
begun his quest, and that was his burden. The burden that had been lying
patiently at rest within him had once again become active now that it could
feel his fear grow as the darkness engulfed him. He became weary, so weary
that he just let his whole body relax, slumping to the floor in a heap,
breathing heavily. Visions began a furious race through his head, all of
them just ahead of interpretation, restlessly moving and racing, racing and
moving, reminding him of all the wrongs yet never the rights he had
committed until in a blur of writhing evil, everything stopped. His spirit
was carried away into forgotten darkness.
Yet he knew where he was. Wandering the world of nial'a'taran with only his
imagination to restrict him. He could dream that he was flying through the
painted sky, clutching to the neck of a phoenix - scorching its trail fiery
red against a dwindling blue, a rude yet beautiful interruption to this
perfect world. He had not expected to end up here. I am supposed to be
dead...yet I enter a world not made for death, but for dreams. He could
change all and anything that existed in there - anything, that is, except to
renew life once it had left its host body.
He had only ever learnt one rule in there, and that never changed,
not for anyone, but then again it had never been challenged or even bent to
find loopholes. He could visit his own imaginary place, sculpted to fit his
idea of perfection or he could visit a place as it was in the real world but
except without any people...ordinary beings did not have the power to dream
their way into nial'a'taran. He could again change whatever he wanted in
there...crumble a building, raise a mountain, put a scratch in someone's
bedpost, and they would have no effect on the real world. But if he
channeled his own power to summon a person to his world and left them there,
or hurt them, or even killed them, that action would not reverse. What
happened to a living thing in nial'a'taran would happen to them in the real
world, meaning he was always wary of dangers in there...evil could sleep too
after all.
It had not been easy, at first, trying to grasp his hold on channeling. As
soon as he became aware that he could do what precious few in the world
could, he had focused all of his simple ways on learning the one thing that
could bring complications beyond his wildest hopes...or nightmares. He found
the process to be a lot like singing, except with many similar differences
and simple complications. "When you sing, boy, you don't need to be
satisfied with the tainted sound that comes from your throat. You must reach
inside to find that elusive beauty of song in its pure form and open
yourself to let it come out unharmed. The same must be done for channeling.
If you concentrate only with your mind, you will corrupt and eventually
destroy yourself with the filth you find so shallow. But if you use your
whole body, being, and spirit as one to find yourself in the cascade of the
power, then you can open yourself to it, embrace it and keep control over
it. Your limits go only as far as you let them boy, remember that." That had
been the voice of his mentor, Kardan, who had spent his whole life searching
for the one who could control the whole power to kill Shai'tan, the dark
one. He had found that one in Thade, but had lived long enough only to teach
him the very basic details of channeling. Thade had killed him.
Thade was going mad and he knew it. He also knew that it had been himself
that had killed Kardan, his friends, his wife, and his son. The dark one had
been trying to reach him for years then, gnawing at his conscience like a
bat drawing blood. But the dark one made me do it! He invaded my dreams and
weakened my will when I was asleep since he could not find me awake.
Attacking me with images of my family seemingly calm, but giving me the
sense to hear their screaming inside. He was killing them as he has been to
me for too long now from the inside. I was putting them out of their
suffering. I showed my strength of will when I slit the throat of my son. I
cannot be weakened yet.
"Did you kill them to stop their suffering, or did you do it to stop yours?"
The voice was everywhere. "You murdered your family. YOU murdered your
beloved wife. YOU murdered your adoring son! And by doing that you have
murdered yourself, you will waste away, a mere sack of walking flesh, unable
to think of anything else but murder!"
"No! If you had left me alone to be as I will they would be alive now! I
killed them to save them from a worse fate than death. I killed them because
I loved them. I killed them so that you could not rot their souls as you are
mine."
"Murdered. You say you killed them because you loved them? Tell me, if you
really had loved them then you would have stopped this by now. It was your
own weakness that sees them dead. You were the only thing on this world that
could have stopped me, the only one with the power, but you are so full of
the weakness of mortals that now you cannot touch me. You fill yourself with
love, caring, sensitivity, justice, and all of the other emotional termites
that chew at the door to men's will, filling it with holes for me to look
through, and now that you have enveloped yourself in guilt, that door is
open and you will wither when I enter!"
"No! My door may be open, but I invite you through it to your finish! The
suffering you have put me through has strengthened me in ways even you could
not control, Dark One. Step through my door and see what a mere mortal can
accomplish! See the fury that you have bestowed upon me! Come! Come and
fight me! I wait with open arms and a clear mind for you!"
"I am here."

Andrew Hedges, Age 15, contact: short_fart_2000@hotmail.com
Copyright 2002 Andrew Hedges
Reviews and comments requested
Posted 09/08/2002