Echoes of Aramasa

Alaila

I can’t believe it.  I would never even have guessed it if I wasn’t seeing it with my own two eyes.  I haven’t been back here since the day the mob drove us from our home, but I would never have expected…

The palace is gone.  The Carlion mobs that forced us to hide in the walls’ secret passages—the men who killed my father—must have burned down our home as well.  How spiteful can these revolutionaries get?

But no, not even a charred husk stands on the place where the Baron’s Palace, the Palace of Rhinion, once stood.  Not a brick remains.  The ground has been cleared and a new structure stands on the spot, a colossal structure, grandiose and elegant, towering higher than any building in the city.  It’s a feat of masonry, towers and battlements sculpted into shapes of waves or flames, while the walls themselves are hewn from stone smoother than glass.  The whole castle looks as if it were called from the earth by magic.

And it probably was.  Such a monstrous palace could only have one master: the one who tried and failed to possess my older brother before finally taking control of his double.  The one who raised the dome of dark magic over the city, trapping every citizen and plunging my home into eternal night.  The one called by some the Father of Lies, by some the First Demon.  The one whose true name is never spoken, the Demon of the Night.

He has desecrated or destroyed everything I held dear.  My brother, my beloved city, the home where I grew up, all defiled by this monster.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Carlion mob who murdered my father was by the Demon’s doing as well.

Dilyla claims that she can get us out of the city.  She claims she can make a hole in the dark barrier just long enough for herself, Kurt, Raven, Valcirdan, the servant boy and me to slip out.

I don’t want to leave.  But Raven is dangerous, even with that elemental demon finally banished from her body.  And Kurt is not safe.  My brother is not safe.  The Demon of the Night still wants him dead, or wants to claim him for his own.  As if that weren’t enough, the Manice, Lilana, and extremist Carlion factions alike want him dead.  He is Rhinion’s legitimate heir, after all.

I will leave for now.  I’ll do anything to keep my brother safe.  But I’ll be back.  When we have even the slightest edge, the slightest advantage over the accursed Demon, I’ll be back.  And there will be a reckoning.

*****

Kyan

I think I’m Kyan.

To be quite honest I’m not really sure just who I am anymore.  A lot of things have happened.  A lot of things I don’t remember, or I sort of remember, or I feel like I’m not supposed to remember but do, or I feel like I’m supposed to remember but don’t.

I remember doing things that I couldn’t possibly have done, because I couldn’t possibly be able to do them.  I don’t remember doing things that Kali told me I did.  I have a lot of holes in my memories from my teenage years.  Sometimes it feels like I wasn’t ever a teenager at all.

I remember Kali, though.  It seems like only yesterday I first saw her, freaked out, and tried to kill her.  At the same time it seems like she’s always been there, by my side, or following me.

She follows me.  A lot.

She still confuses me, even though I’m pretty much used to how weird she looks.  It’s odd how I could be used to that.  I mean, how often do you run into a green-skinned Fae with wild hair that looks more like a plant than a head of hair? (The crown of leaves she always seems to wear doesn’t help either.)  Not often.  Or pretty often, actually, if you hang out with that sort of crowd.

What confuses me is the things she says.  And the way she looks at me; that’s pretty confusing too.  One minute she’ll be giving me this studying, kind of faraway look, and the next she’ll look at me like I killed her puppy, and the next she’ll look at me like I sprouted a second head.  Maybe that’s just the gaps in my memory going haywire again, but it’s pretty confusing.  I’m not really sure what I do to make her look at me that way.  Maybe she’s just weird.

The pixie says we have to head north.  Kali seems rather terrified of the notion, but I can’t figure what’s so scary about a bunch of elves.  Maybe the elves killed her puppy?

Kali says I’m Tae’lor reborn.

I try not to think about that.

*****

Apavata

I’m sick of this life.  Nothing makes sense anymore.

At least back home I had a purpose and a structure.  I had a way of ordering things.  I knew what would happen from day to day, and even if something out of the ordinary was due, I could more or less predict how events would pan out.  Till the fields.  Fish the river.  Rebuild the town.  Hate the Krelsh.

But ever since that space rift dropped me in the middle of that Krelsh tunnel, nothing has, or ever will be, the same.  I can never go back home, that much is certain.  And I’m chained to the whims and wanderings of a braindead half-demon and his posse.

Seshouro never ceases to annoy me.  It’s like the man was created by the Divine Hand to grate on my every nerve.  He’s rash, impulsive, headstrong, stubborn, and manipulative.  He has no respect for anyone or anything, not even his own kind, and especially not women.

Then there’s Sai, Dawning, and Anme.  Sai is almost as annoying as Seshouro.  Occasionally the woman has spurts of rationality and calm, and those are the moments in which we share commonalities, but most of the time she lets her emotions get the better of her.  Her incessant glowering agitates me.  Dawning and Anme have my pity, Dawning especially.  We essentially kidnapped her from Poik, and even though that little village wasn’t her hometown, she was forced to leave her brother behind.  Anme, too, seems like an innocent, but the more her assertiveness grows, the more I have to wonder about her.  And I still don’t fully understand how she could be blood related to Seshouro.  The girl doesn’t have a drop of demon blood in her, and seems to come from a perfectly respectable family if her mannerisms are any indicator.

Anme can go home whenever she wants, but Sai, Dawning and I are stuck indefinitely with Seshouro.  His advances grow more and more pestilent every day and I continually wonder how Sai managed to deal with him for so long without losing her mind.  I wonder how much more I can take before I snap and slit his throat with my spear.

But I could never do that, of course.  If I kill him, I’ll die as well, along with Sai and Dawning.  Every cut, every bump and bruise…every emotion, every thought, is shared between the three of us.

We’re joined at the soul.  Sai’s soul and mine were linked to the half-demon’s by Dacheti, when that thrice-damned Krelsh mage healed Seshouro of grievous wounds.  Dawning’s soul was linked by the backlash of that bizarre pocket dimension.  And now we’re stuck together for the rest of our lives, unless we can find a way to reverse the magic.

The other day, I kissed him.  Damn that demon.  Being linked to him for so long, seeing his thoughts, his dreams, his hopes…damn him.  Sai can have him.  She’s in love with him, after all; what right do I have to interfere with that?  It’s not like I have a right to my own happiness or anything.

None of this would have happened if Seshouro hadn’t been so reckless.  If he hadn’t gotten himself hurt.  If he wasn’t so driven, so determined, so selfless.

Damn him.

*****

Kyelli

I never thought I’d be here.

Well, not just here physically—I mean, who expects to be riding a giant flying goat hundreds of feet up off the ground, clinging to its mane for dear life with your fiancé seated just behind you?  Not me, that’s for certain.  But being engaged to Tervin Arkell—Light, being anywhere in the general proximity of Tervin—means that one has to accept the world being turned on its head.  Tervin is just that kind of guy.

But what I mean is, I never thought I’d be in this kind of situation, or anywhere remotely near it.  I was just an ordinary woman, trying to make her way in an unforgiving world.

Okay, maybe I’m not ordinary, per se.  I was only born with one arm, after all.  But I wouldn’t say that makes me extra-ordinary.  Not at all.

But the moment I met Tervin, the universe, the world, and everything in it went topsy-turvy.  I went from a life of traveling, a wandering, meager existence, to a life of…well…insanity, for lack of a better term.

Tervin all but kidnapped me when he first saw me.  No; he really did kidnap me, didn’t he?  I suppose that’s what one should call it, being swept off one’s feet (literally) and tossed into a carriage, then onto a man’s lap.  He was smitten with me the moment he laid eyes on me.  Which of course is the reason why I didn’t run him through on first contact.  I was flabbergasted.  I was floored.  I was completely baffled.  Why, I wondered, and how?  How could someone find me beautiful?  How could someone fall in love with me?  And after nothing more than a glance, no less?

But that’s Tervin.  That’s the way he is and the way he’s always been:  half genius, half madman, and no one can really tell which one is in control at the time…or whether he’s simply all mad. Or all genius, for that matter.

But this madman, this genius, this fiancé of mine, somehow became wrapped up in lofty matters…very lofty matters.  Like the fate of the world lofty.  Tervin has single-handedly mustered the greatest army Aramasa has ever seen for the purpose of combating the Demon of the Night.  He orchestrated the construction of a city as large as Becag, a city that sprung up in less than a week.

But Becag is beset by war, picking up the pieces after the siege of the demon Aoyyey, and even with Aoyyey defeated, Becag is crippled.  Fenlay was half-destroyed by the demon Sarsherath, who after the battle has yet to show himself.  Xe, the Sensor capitol, has been emptied, abandoned.  Gebies has fallen, cutting off the flow of ore to Rhinion.  Neves has fallen, though the Kolholm continue to send crops along Kyrst’s rivers.  Kyleres is as useless as ever.  And Rhinion is besieged from within by the Demon of the Night himself.

Alexandria is Aramasa’s last hope.  Tervin is Aramasa’s last hope.  My husband-to-be has shouldered the fate of the world.

So when he asked me to fly on the back of a giant goat to a floating city in order to retrieve a demon-killing sword, I hesitated, I complained, but I agreed.  After all, I do love him.

I never thought I’d get married.  I never thought I’d help save the world.  But here I am, about to do both, and I must admit…as strange as this all is, I’m happy for it.

But I never thought I’d be chased by flying monkeys either, and personally, I’d rather leave them out when all is said and done.  I just hope Tervin knows how to maneuver a goat well enough to escape a horde of monkeys.