Chapter Fourteen: Cat and Mouse
Bandit's Hollow.
Such a simple, almost unimaginative name…and yet, as Enakhra looked down upon the ramshackle, pathetic excuse for a town sandwiched between two ridges of the southern Avarrockan Hills, she wouldn't have named it anything else.
True to its name, this sorry collection of hovels and shacks was home to some of the grimiest, foulest, brutish criminals in the entire eastern half of Centralia. Smoke was constantly rising from the town—either from chimneys, from kitchens, from fires burning in the streets, or from burning buildings.
Men staggered through every street, drunk out of their minds. They curled up and slept on the dirt streets, hung out of windows, dangled from lamp posts and poles, slumbered with pigs… And the place smelled, too. There probably weren't any baths, here.
"Humans…" Enakhra hissed with distaste, gazing down at Bandit's Hollow through narrowed eyes.
As much as she would love to burn Bandit's Hollow to the ground and bring a merciful end to its existence, she was here on business. Though she loathed to admit it, she was here to find a human. A man. A man who, if the rumors she had heard in Aeriose City were true, potentially held valuable information that could help her mission.
The female Mahjarrat stepped into the shadow of a nearby tree and melted away into darkness. Several hundred meters away, right at the edge of town, the hooded woman in the red cloak reemerged from the shadows of another tree at precisely the same time.
Enakhra suppressed a shudder, gathering her cloak about her. Shadow travel was something she was particularly good at, but she had never liked it. It always made her a little nauseous. She would take honest teleportation over shadow travel any day of the week. Teleportation took more energy, however, whereas shadow travel was pretty much akin to stepping through a doorway, so Enakhra used shadow travel when she needed to traverse shorter distances.
Only one man saw her emerge from the shadow of a tree, but he was so drunk that he forgot about it three seconds later. He giggled, leaning against the wall, mumbling out an old drinking tune. When the hooded woman in the red cloak brushed past him, he was none the wiser.
There were women in Bandit's Hollow, as well. Most of them were prostitutes, or they worked in the town's many pubs as objects of pleasure. The point is that none of the women here were really…respectable.
And so, when the stunningly beautiful woman in the cloak came gliding down the main street in Bandit's Hollow, the brigands of the city assumed her to be little more than a bar wench. Certainly not a respectable woman…and certainly not an ageless member of the most powerful and dangerous race in all of Gielinor, save the Gods themselves.
The sober men gave her a wide berth. Though none of them could really figure out why, their instincts told them to stay away. And so, almost subconsciously, they steered themselves away into the side alleys and streets as Enakhra passed them by.
That was wise of them.
But the instincts of the men who were mildly intoxicated…well, they weren't nearly as sharp. One man hooted catcalls and made her the object of a sexual innuendo. To be honest, Enakhra actually found it to be rather amusing.
She allowed herself a small smile as she incinerated the man from the inside out.
After that, even the drunkards started to avoid her. Just as well—the Mahjarrat was in no mood for further distractions. It was bad enough for her to set foot in such a filthy place to find a man; she did not want to have to remain here a moment longer than she had to.
The root of her distaste stemmed from the fact that she considered humans to be worthless. But she had to admit that she required their assistance to complete her mission, and this irked her to no end.
But there were much larger things at stake than her pride. She saw most humans as little more than ants, and it was extremely annoying that she had to seek their help, but it was merely a means to an end.
There was a threat against her master that needed to be taken care of. A certain Mahjarrat youngling with a destiny that needed to be nipped in the bud.
Avis was in a boat. It was a tiny little thing—small, single mast, an oar, a pail, and a little toothpick of a rudder. There was no sail to give the boat proper propulsion, but the existing wind was strong enough to churn the boat along without the help of the shaped cloth.
Avis gripped the mast hard enough to turn his knuckles even more bone-white than they usually were. The waves were like hills—when he was at the top, he could see the stormy sea for miles in any direction, its choppy, foamy surface illuminated in brief flashes by the lightning bolts that seared through the night.
When the boat dipped down into the trough, it was as if he were standing in a gorge, though this gorge's walls were made of ocean, not rock.
By some miracle, the boat had yet to sink. Avis's heart pounded faster and faster as he stared into the sky. The night was brightening, but not into daytime. An inferno was coming.
Well, two infernos, to be exact. One of red fire, the other of blue—each roaring towards one another from opposite directions. Great walls of flame, consuming everything in their paths.
Avis was stuck in the middle. He gripped one of the ropes with his other hand as the wind blew even harder, causing the waves to toss the boat around like a juggler's ball. The heat was intense enough to blister the boy's skin.
The sky above Avis lit up in a terrifying purple blaze as the red and blue flames collided. The sea convulsed as the warring infernos burst out in a blinding explosion of white light.
Avis was thrown from the boat. He screamed as he pitched down into the raging black waters…
…and up into a low-lying tree branch.
Jerrod had always enjoyed rousing his pupil by splashing water in his face—it always gave him such a jolt. But this time he jolted too fast and smacked his head on the tree branch which he had been sleeping under.
"Rather jumpy this morning, are we?" the Cleric chuckled, returning to the crackling campfire which he had tended throughout the previous night.
"I had another dream…" Avis mumbled, massaging the small bruise that was already forming over his left eye.
"More red and blue?" Jerrod asked, arching a curious eyebrow. He wasn't surprised when his pupil gave a nod. Lately, Avis had been having a lot of dreams involving red and blue.
Two fighting warriors—one clad in red armor, the other in blue. Two bolts of lightning—one red, another blue. Two storm clouds, two avalanches, two wildfires…
They all involved two forces in conflict with each other, and those two forces were always red and blue. And in every one of these dreams, Avis always found himself caught between the two forces. Killed by the warriors, burned by the wildfires, crushed by the avalanches…
It did not take an expert healer to know that the red and blue were representative of the two warring Gods whose conflict the young Mahjarrat was quite literally caught in the middle of.
Both sought to use him for their own agendas, though Zamorak seemed to be more than happy to have him killed to deny him to Saradomin. Personally, Jerrod didn't care for either of the Gods using his student as a tool. But, if he had to choose between them, he would admit that having the boy fight for Saradomin would be the lesser of two evils.
An important—and in many ways, unique—thing to understand about the Cleric was that he recognized that no single God should ever be allowed to rule over the world. Having Zamorak at the helm without Saradomin to counter him, or vice wersa, would be disastrous.
Secretly—and the Cleric had never revealed this to anyone—Jerrod believed Gielinor would be much better off without any Gods at all. By this, he did not mean that the Gods should be destroyed; rather, he thought they should simply…go away.
This war, and all of the destruction that it had wrought…it all boiled down to two Gods, both vying for control of the world and its inhabitants…
They were dangerous opinions to have, especially in times like these, and normally he would take them to the grave without speaking of them…but he was prepared to make an exception, here. Though most people didn't know it, Avis was potentially the most important person in Gielinor, right now, and he was young enough to be untainted by the religious fanatics out there.
Even more fortunately, he had grown up amongst the Menaphites, who generally paid homage to Tumeken the Sun God rather than Saradomin. But it was important to try and ensure that someone with the Mahjarrat's power fulfilled his destiny for the right reasons. The Cleric didn't want Avis buying into the religious crap that the Church of Saradomin would have the populace believe.
"I'm going to Awaken you at the Earth Temple, today," Jerrod announced, pouring himself a steaming cup of coffee from the pot he had fashioned out of the earth last night.
"Is it going to be anything like what happened at the Water Temple?" the boy sounded apprehensive, and with good reason. When Jerrod had Awakened his inner Water, he had reacted almost violently with the pure elemental energy infused in the Water altar.
"I don't know," the Cleric was able to honestly answer. "When I Awakened you back in the Virid Swamp…that was the first time I've ever used the Temples like that. I don't know how it'll go. Could be the same, could be completely different."
"Better not be like last time…" Avis muttered.
Jerrod took another few minutes, waiting until he thought his coffee was sufficiently cooled before resuming the conversation.
"Why do you intend to fight Zamorak, boy?" the Cleric finally asked.
Avis was caught off-guard by the question that had just come out of the blue. "I…you…well, he's gonna burn the world, isn't he? Saradomin has to win the war to stop that from happening."
Jerrod was silent as he sipped from his coffee. It was still a little too hot to drink, so he touched a finger to the side of his mug. There was a breath of cold air and a film of frost crept across the rim of the cup. It cooled the drink down enough for him to finish it in several gulps.
Normally he'd take more time to enjoy his coffee, but he wanted to get the business at the Earth Temple over with. The less time they wasted here, the better.
Once Jerrod and Avis packed up, strapped on their swords, and got back onto the road, the Cleric decided to resume voicing his opinions on the Divine.
"You know the strange thing about chaos?" the Cleric asked the boy. "Most people say 'chaos', and they think of demons burning huge swathes of the world. But chaos itself comes in many different forms. Creativity, the ability to be spontaneous…free will…" Jerrod let that last remark sink in before going on. "So you see; Chaos itself is not evil. Zamorak takes the concept to an extreme—an extreme where he desires to tear down any semblance of law and order."
"That's the kind of chaos that'll tear Gielinor apart, though," Avis affirmed. "That's what needs to be destroyed."
"That extreme form of chaos, yes…but Chaos itself…" Jerrod's voice trailed off for a moment. "The strange thing about Chaos and Order is that, even though they are polar opposites, they compliment each other. Pure Chaos results in anarchy and ruin; this is what Zamorak offers. But consider the other side of the coin… Saradomin tirelessly seeks to eradicate chaos and establish order. Pure Order, without Chaos to counterbalance it, results in stagnation. No creativity. Nothing new."
"So wait…" Avis frowned. "You're saying that Order is bad, too?"
"No," Jerrod shook his head, careful to keep his rising impatience out of his voice. "You're missing the point. The point is moderation. Balance. Order and Chaos need to balance each other out to keep a world alive. Take away Order, and the world burns. Take away Chaos, and it suffocates."
The teacher and student climbed to the top of the hill they were currently on, leaving the road when Jerrod spotted a statue of a nondescript horseman—it was the landmark the Cleric had always used to find the path to the Earth Temple.
It wasn't even an actual path, per se…just a way through the woods and around a chain of rather steep hills that Jerrod knew well.
"Did you know that Karamja wasn't always an island?"
"What?"
"It's true," Jerrod recounted. "You won't find this in any of the history books, because the Church would rather not publicize what their God caused. Several thousand years ago, the God Zaros ruled the largest empire this land has ever seen—larger, even, than Centralia. Zamorak, his greatest general, rebelled against Empty Lord and deposed him."
"And then he became a God by siphoning Zaros's powers—we all know the story," Avis finished for the Cleric.
Jerrod snapped his fingers, and small motes of fire sprang into existence around his knuckles. "Avis, we've talked about this whole 'interrupting-me-while-I'm-talking' thing."
"Sorry."
The Cleric extinguished the flames. "Anyhow, the other Gods banished Zamorak shortly after his victory over his former master…but he comes back soon after that with his powers fully manifested, and he brings his twisted ideals of Chaos with him, and he begins wreaking havoc… Tensions between Saradomin and Zamorak rose until they finally met each other in direct battle in the kingdom of Syran."
"Never heard of it."
"That's because the elemental energies released by the two Gods fighting each other was powerful enough to completely destroy the entire kingdom. Syran sank into the sea, creating the Knossos Bay, which now separates Karamja from the mainland. The only part of Syran that didn't sink was a mountain which we now call Crandor Island," Jerrod explained. "That single battle between Saradomin and Zamorak was destructive enough to change the very face of Gielinor. I tell you this now because it is important that you realize that Chaos is not inherently evil, and Order is not inherently good. Something I realized a while ago was that while some claim this war to be a struggle between Order and Chaos… What happens when you put a Saradominist and a Zamorackian in the same room?"
"They fight," Avis replied.
"But why do they fight?" Jerrod pressed on, pushing the branch of a pine tree away from his face as he continued up the hillside.
"Because they disagree?"
"Well, yes, but it's more than that; both of them are arrogant enough to think they are superior to the other, and so when they slight one another…the tension will build and build and build until a fight is inevitable. Now bring it up to the Gods' level. You put Saradomin and Zamorak in the same world together—here—and they're bound to fight each other. Chaos and Order can reach equilibrium…but Zamorak and Saradomin cannot. They represent the extremes of both sides, and extremes can never co-exist. They are like magnets…clash and repel, clash and repel… And because the Gods will inevitably fight, their immense power will scar this world again and again, until there will be nothing left but ash and smoke."
"You'd prefer it if the Gods were gone?" Avis sounded skeptical at first; the sheer concept of what Jerrod seemed to be suggesting just seemed so...ridiculous. But then the boy noticed how deadly serious his mentor was. "A world without the Gods?" the boy murmured, his voice quiet as he tried to imagine such a place.
"Now you see why I've always kept these opinions to myself," Jerrod chuckled. "I'd be hung up on a gibbet for expressing them. I tell them to you so that you might develop a more open mind. Even now, both Gods seek to influence you, to bend your logic and reasoning to follow their own."
"How can you have these opinions of Saradomin when you are loyal to him?" Avis frowned, still not completely understanding his mentor's rationalizing.
"I serve Saradomin, but I am not loyal to him," Jerrod corrected the Mahjarrat youngling. "I am loyal to Centralia, because the Centralians are the best hope this world has for survival…not Saradomin. But this is the advice I give to you: the world needs Balance. The Prophecy says you will bring this war to an end. I do not know how you will accomplish this, or what the outcome will be…but when the smoke clears, you must fight to maintain that balance. Without the balance, the world will never heal. Never side with a God; always side with the people. Now, why don't we take a short rest here?"
"A rest? Really?" Avis arched an eyebrow. "Why now, all of a sudden? You usually enjoy running me ragged until sunset."
Jerrod pointed to the top of the hill, where Avis could just barely make out the top of a broken-down pillar. "Because we've arrived at the Earth Temple," the Cleric said.
The man was screaming pretty loudly, now. It amused Enakhra how low some people's tolerances for pain could be. Granted, she had put a red-hot pebble into the man's stomach, but still…
"Are you still too drunk to answer me properly?" the she-Mahjarrat asked calmly, keeping her swelling impatience from bubbling over. This man had been reluctant to divulge the location of the man whom she was seeking. This irked Enakhra, somewhat.
"Alright, alright!" the man managed to squeak out as he clutched and tore at his own stomach, trying in vain to get the pebble that was burning inside of him. "He's in the Bloody Imp, the tavern just down the street! Now get this thing out of me!"
"Sure thing," Enakhra snapped her fingers and a cherry-red pebble appeared out of thin air, dropping down and searing right through the wooden floor. The she-Mahjarrat than grasped the man by the throat and incinerated him from the inside out, reducing him to a pile of ashes in mere seconds. He hadn't even had a chance to scream. "I appreciate your help."
The female Mahjarrat stepped out of the pile of ash's hovel and back onto the street. No one gave her anymore trouble as she walked across the dirt street and found herself in front of a building that actually wasn't in very bad shape, compared to the rest of Bandit's Hollow. It wasn't slanting to the side, and there were no holes in the walls, for starters.
The front sign had an image of a small, red imp with blood spattered across the white background, and the words Bloody Imp stenciled in below. This was definitely the tavern the pile of ash had indicated.
Enakhra strode into the tavern, pushing open the swinging wooden doors and heading straight over to the bar counter. "Where's the leader of all this scum?" she asked the tavern owner, gesturing to all of the grimy, burly men who formed the ranks of the tavern regulars.
The owner couldn't quite explain the tension that suddenly arose in his muscles, but something warned him not to cross this strange woman. Wordlessly, he nodded in the direction of a table set in the back corner, where a lone man was sipping from a tankard of mead.
"Thank you," Enakhra said to the owner as she sidled away. "You may keep your life."
The tavern owner watched her turn and walk away before realizing he had been holding his breath the whole time. He quickly returned his attention to cleaning the stack of used mugs set by the basin. That was something that wouldn't in something deadly and unexpected.
The man at the table looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. He had thin, dark hair, small eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and the beginnings of facial hair on the lower half of his face. Despite his outward uncleanliness, it was easy to tell that he had once served in the Centralian legions—his body was in perfect health and shape, and his muscles still showed through his tattered clothing.
Right now, he looked angry. Not throwing-glasses-against-the-walls angry, but silent, brooding angry. This was good; he would be able to listen to the she-Mahjarrat more effectively if he wasn't distracted with venting his anger by breaking things.
"Tullius Beaumont," Enakhra slipped into the chair facing the bandit leader. "Or should I call you Beaumont the Blackguard? It is good to lay eyes on you at last. The people here were not exactly inclined to tell me where you were, but I can be very…persuasive."
"Why don't you give me one good bloody reason why I shouldn't have you thrown out on your pretty arse?" Beaumont growled, setting down his mead and dropping his hand onto the hilt of his mithril sword.
Enakhra made no move, even as three burly men behind her took a threatening step forward. "That would be unwise," she smiled.
When Beaumont gave the center man a nod, he stepped forward and laid a hand on Enakhra's shoulder. The moment he touched her red cloak, hwoever, his hand started to burn. Within an instant, it had been reduced to ash.
The hooded woman whipped around, raising both hands and curving her fingers towards his chest. Suddenly, the man found himself unable to move. He couldn't breathe, either.
There was a sickening crunch, followed by a shower of blood as Enakhra—who had gained control of the air currently in the man's lungs—ripped that very same air through his lungs and out of his chest. The man, whose chest was now little more than an open, sanguine hole, gurgled and twitched for several moments before crumpling.
The tavern fell silent as heads swung around to find the source of the commotion. Many of them saw the woman, saw the dead man on the floor with no chest…then merely shrugged and returned to their drinks. Before long, even the music was back to normal.
"Normally I burn people like your friends from the inside out, but I think you required a more…gory demonstration, shall we say?" Enakhra's cold smile widened a fraction. She then extended a hand towards Beaumont, focused on the Blackguard, and closed the hand into a grip.
Beaumont shuddered as every inch of his body suddenly seized up.
"I wonder what it would feel like to have your blood torn out…" Enakhra mused. "One vein, one artery at a time…"
"Release me, witch," Beaumont managed to grunt semi-intelligibly.
"Oh, I am no witch…" Enakhra sighed. "If you knew half of what I truly was, you would have soiled yourself the moment I walked in. But, in the interest of time…" Enakhra unclenched her fist.
Beaumont gave a groan of relief as the pinching hold over his circulatory system was released. "What the hell do you want with me?"
"Information," the she-Mahjarrat replied.
"I hold a lot of information," Beaumont shrugged, raising his tankard back up to his mouth, taking another drought of mead. "Could you be a little more specific?"
"Your tongue has a bad habit of speaking too much and out of turn," Enakhra observed. "Perhaps you should consider allowing me to remove it."
The bandit leader swallowed nervously. "My apologies, ma'am. Please," he gestured for her to continue.
"Word has it that you took a small raiding party into the woods to prey on travelers, several weeks ago," Enakhra recounted. "Word also has it that you tried to rob an old man and a young boy…and they ended up killing almost your entire force."
"Yes, yes; the horrible Beaumont the Blackguard, foiled by an old man and his brat," the bandit leader grumbled. "It has not done wonders for my reputation. But I do not care. Damn every single person who has laughed at me…they were not there. They did not see what that old man and his brat were capable of…"
Enakhra smiled inwardly. She now had no doubt that Beaumont had indeed encountered Jerrod the Lightbringer and her offspring. But still…it paid to be certain. "My interest lies not with you, but with them. Describe them to me, please."
"Well…" Beaumont the Blackguard frowned slightly as he forced himself to call up those hated memories. "Uh…the old man was probably in his sixties, or so…salt and pepper hair, a beard that's starting to become long, gray eyes, black cloak, North Centralian accent, carried this weird staff that changed colors…"
"And the boy?"
"Nothing special, really," Beaumont shrugged. "Black hair, bone-white skin, freckles…he was wearing all black, too—a black vest and torn cloth pants. But the only odd thing about him was his eyes…red eyes, they were. Never seen anything like it in all my years, 'cept in albinos, but he was definitely not an albino…"
There was no longer any doubting Enakhra's heart. Beaumont had seen an old man and a young boy traveling on the road without anything in the way of armed guards. They seemed like the perfect prey for a mugging, so the Blackguard would have attacked…not realizing that he was going up against a Mahjarrat and one of the most dangerous men in all of Gielinor.
Enakhra wondered if the bandit leader realized just how lucky he had been to escape. She wondered what it was like to feel lucky in that manner…she had never barely escape a fight with her life, before. Usually it was her enemies who were doing the escaping.
"Where were you when this happened, and which way were those two individuals going?" Enakhra asked next.
"We ran into them in the fringes of the Avarrockan Hills, southeast of here," Beaumont replied, draining the rest of his mead in a single gulp. He signaled the tavern keeper for another. "They were heading north, past Avarrocka. No idea what they'd be heading for, though… Only thing up that way is the bloody Wilderness."
Enakhra was no longer listening to the man. In truth, she had completely forgotten about him. Even before he finished speaking, she smiled, rose from her chair, and abruptly left the tavern. She was smiling because she knew two things.
First, she knew that Jerrod the Lightbringer was training her son in the elemental magicks. And not only that, but she now knew how he was doing it…and that coincided with the second thing she knew. There was something in between Avarrocka and the Wilderness besides trees and empty hills.
Jerrod was taking the boy to the Earth Temple.