Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 30 – Veris

Note: I wrote this in four sittings, and struggled in each. One of the sittings I was pretty tired and sort of buzzed. I've tried to catch the typos. I've been stuck at 130 votes for a couple days, hopefully I am not stalling out. I am at 30% still. The other story is at 41% at 107.

Disc 2
Track 8: Wild West Show – Big & Rich

“There won’t be a witness if we both fall”

In the Sorna there were days the wind whipped so hard that fragments of sand could penetrate skin, upturning raw flesh in an instant. You stayed hunkered down in the tower those days, not bothering to keep watch. Not even a demon like Salama ventured out in a sandstorm.

Standing below the black iron arch at the start of the road the boy called “Veris,” Nestor recalled those sandstorms and thought they’d be a welcomed sight to what was before them. The snow was not falling. Instead it was blowing parallel to the ground in a gale that froze spit before it hit the ground. Ahead the path rose sharply for miles unknown till it reached the doors of the old palace called Metahischoo and neither man knew what waited for them there.

Nestor doubted they had to worry about what ghosts haunted yonder palace. If the cold did not do them in through the skins the boy had fashioned for him from the hides of goats killed along the mountain pass, the road, which was badly drifted over and only as wide as a man was tall, would accomplish the task. Off each side, there was nothing but a bank of rocks. As the road rose higher, the slope of the banks grew steeper and the drop longer. The boy thought it’d take three days from the base of Veris to reach Metahischoo, which meant at least two nights sleeping where one slight roll meant oblivion.

“What did you say that word “Veris,” meant?” Nestor asked. He could barely see the boy standing before the arch, his hands shielding his eyes, likely trying to make out the words above. The arch was made of iron, there were five words spelled out in the old language around a triangle with an eye captured in a chamber near the top point depicted at the peak. Nestor did not need to study the arch.

“Edge of bliss, according to the witch,” Oan answered without looking back.

Nestor grunted, finding the irony immediate. The old ones had a sense of humor unlike folks today. Sometimes Nestor enjoyed it, but looking at their destination, he did not find this jest so funny. He scratched under his arm reflexively, stopping before the boy took notice.

Oan still wore the thin blue shirt with a hood to block the whipping snow. Nestor often wondered if the boy would handle the heat of the desert as well he did the cold of the mountain. Of course, if they reached the Sorna, the heat would be the least of the boy’s worries. The boy was strong, no doubt. The witch had cursed him with uncanny talents, but it was not enough. The Lord of the Sorna would bring the boy to his knees before draining him of that precious blood.

The boy was enamored with the arch that reached up beyond the height of three men, with a series of letters from the old tongue bent into shape across the top. In the middle was the ancient symbol, its meaning lost in time, of an eye entrapped in a cell at the top of a triangle. The boy was studying the old words, trying to make them out in the blinding storm.

Nestor did not need to look up more than once at the arch to know what they said. He had seen this arch’s twin in the Sorna. The words at the top were the same. The boy obviously could not read them.

“How well do you know the tales of old?” Nestor walked beside him, eyes remaining on the road ahead. “Not just of the last age, but the times before the seven kingdoms, before Tarek Grandar or Salama (the last name came out as a whisper).”

“I know little of this land and nothing west of the Belnor,” the boy’s eyes dropped.

“Would you believe that before the Sorna was a waste, it was a paradise? “ Nestor clawed at his arm without thinking. The boy did notice that one. “Plush and green with waters that flowed over cliffs forming beautiful waterfalls that fell into quiet pools where children played and beasts drank in peace.”

Oan’s eye stayed on Nestor’s hands. The boy was a natural hunter and he did not allow many movements to get past his sight. Nestor had to control his urge to claw at his skin, which throbbed and tingled constantly.

“Why are you telling me this?” Oan turned his attention back to the arch. Nestor ignored the question.

“They say it started with a small pile of sand somewhere in the vast, rich jungle of life,” Nestor continued. “Over years and years, it spread out draining the water, the life from the region till one day it was all gone and nothing was left but the great waste.

“There are spots in Sorna today where you stand on the golden sands and you can hear the water fall from high above a cliff down into a sparkling pool. The ghosts of the paradise still hide in the arid soil and, sometimes, they appear to the man lost or wandering long out in the desert. It’s there, my boy, dormant and waiting my boy. One day, it’ll return and all of us that have stood guard on the waste shall be awarded paradise.”

Nestor sighed. It was a children’s tale, at best, to those Nocnil, but one that still struck a chord in his heart. If only all the decay of the Sorna could be washed away in a sea of green.

“You forget, Nestor, your watch has failed,” Oan said. “Paradise is lost to you and your kind.”

“No!” Nestor raised his hand for a slap, but the boy caught it without a flinch. Heavens, Nestor was getting old. There was a time no man could have reacted in time to stop his strike. How can this be? Oan released his arm, and Nestor’s fingers longed to dig into his flesh in armpit. He refused to give into it. Oan’s attention went back to the arch.

“What do you think it says, “ Oan asked? He was shielding his eyes again from the snow. “I can’t make out the letters.”

“The old ones knew much, my boy,” Nestor regained some confidence. He may be losing his physical control over the boy, but he could still hold some intelligence over him. A man with answers was always valuable. “When the land that was a paradise turned to waste, they put up an arch the image of this one where the heart of the jungle once pumped. Every man raised to the watch was required to journey to it before he could claim his rank. Each man was taught what the words meant.”

“Enough with the tales,” Oan twirled his right hand, a gesture to accompany the sentiment. “What does it mean?”

“It means we are damned, my boy,” this time he caught the boys collar and pulled him close. “We are all damned.”

The boy’s eyes were cold and calm. They were the eyes of a killer. Nestor could feel the sword, like a vibration. He’s changing too! Nestor recoiled and the boy pushed him away, not with much authority, but enough to let Nestor know not to touch him so again. It was the sword changing the boy. It was taking hold. Once it does, the boy will be bent on battle, and there was one particular battle a sword like that strapped to a boy like that would want to go. That path is death, Nestor thought, and eyed Veris once again.

“Perhaps the Sorna is damned,” Oan started, “But this is the Kingdom of Marek, the home of the first. What do the words above mean in the old tongue.”

Nestor swallowed and took a step forward. If a long drop awaited him, he did not want to delay it any longer. He never expected all of this to be so damned hard, but he had lived through the desert, the ritual, the river, and if nothing else, he’d make up this mountain road.

“Nestor!” Oan called, not moving from below the arch.

Nestor stopped in a drift that reached his knees and rubbed the empty socket where his left eye once resided.

“What once was may be again.” He said the word clear, and the wind died while he spoke so they reached Oan’s ears. “That’s the meaning.”

They did not speak for some time and Nestor stayed still letting the wet snow dampen his face. It soon grew numb to the point he forgot all his deformities. He was thinking of standing there for all eternity until he heard the crunch of snow under feet approaching. Oan stopped at his shoulder.

“What of the design with the eye?” Oan kept his focus forward up the road. Nestor turned his head to truelly see the boy.

“It’s the eye of time,” Nestor said. “It sees all and waits.”

“Waits for what?”

“To close.”