Chapter 14: Tale of The Sands.
"To Verigan's Hold!" Xephos ran after Honeydew up the short stairway that led up the dark hillside, at the top they found themselves on a large flagstone clearing before the castle of Verigan's Hold, that would most likely have been used to hold markets on. In the center of the large plateau there was a large tile sliding game, probably set up by the Carnival to drag people back to the fair as they left.
"Fuck the games." growled Honeydew as he passed it by. "Fuck the games, Xephos! We've got to go in this castle!"
They looked up at the splendor of Verigan's Hold, the whole keep was surrounded by a high cobblestone wall, that continued to extend past the tall light grey towers and tan slate roofs of the Hold, defending perhaps some. Oddly, the wall, as it passed the castle, doubled in hight, and the crenelations faced inside the walls as though it was trying to keep something in, and not out. It extended far into the night and every so often a large beacon tower rose out of the wall, supported by large buttress towers propping up against it.
"Okay, let's go." Xephos said, looking up at the walls with worry. "Let's go, let's go..."
He followed Honeydew up a set off slate stairs to the main gate of Verigan's Hold. The sturdy, if not slightly rusted, portcullass was raised, and the tall studded doors were ajar, brooking more worry from Xephos.
"We can't be distracted." Honeydew said as he reached out for the doors, then noticed a finely carved sign mounted on the right wall. "Verigan's Hold. "Sand cannot dull my blade."- Verigan Antioch." he read, looking at Xephos. "It's a bit strange..."
Xephos walked forwards and pushed open both of the doors, leading to a large courtyard with a large fountain in the middle. Opposite them the castle of Verigan's Hold stood tall and beautiful, it's squat central keep was shining in the moonlight, it's many large windows were clearly not intended for defensive properties, and the four main towers, two shorter stockier at the front and the two longer thinner of the four at the rear seemed lacking in arrow slots or any other defensive properties.
"Wow...this place is awesome." Xephos looked up at the spires in wonderment as he walked towards the fountain in the center and cupped a few handfuls of water into his mouth that he gulped down appreciatedly. He looked up and saw that mounted on a stone pedestal was a huge stone war-hammer, and on a plaque beneath it were engraved the words:
"Water! Blessed water! How it cools my sun-cracked skin!"
-1st Templar Verigan Antioch after the Battle of Tulip.
"Where do we go?" asked Xephos.
Honeydew stopped ogling at the war-hammer and turned to the front of the keep.
"Oh? There's a door over here." he told Xephos, heading towards the right of the large two-storied building, where a plain looking door was. As he neared, Honeydew could see through the door, a small man.
"There's a man in here!" he said as Xephos came after him.
Honeydew pushed open the door and the little man looked up. He may have been short, but he had an air of power to him, not unlike Peculier had. His hair was steel grey and so thin that it seemed that a gust would blow it off of his deeply lined face, browned from long exposure to the sun. He wore a sand-coloured scarf about it, covering his head from the nose down, and a tan surcoat with a large red templar cross adorning it.
"Hello there!" Honeydew called.
His eyes were dark and slightly clouded and as they entered he lowered the heavy pike that he leaned upon, but after a moment, he seemed to be at rest, and raised it, leaning his weight upon the spear's thick shaft.
"Hello strangers!" he trilled, in an ancient voice that somehow also seemed very full of life. "My Nephew hoped that you would come!"
"Hi!" Xephos said in a voice more confident than he felt, as he eyed the pike cautiously.
"Nephew?" Honeydew asked as he entered the large room that seemed to take up literally the entire keep. "Who?"
"I am Adaephon." He introduced briefly, looking tired. Xephos relised that he must've been waiting for them all night. "There is no time to explain, follow me to the battlements."
Adaephon turned and began to hobble to the left side of the room past a long dining table and several chairs seated before a great banner on the back wall of a blood red cross on a field of yellow.
"Where's he going?" Honeydew asked as they followed Adaephon to a stairway that led up to a mesanine floor. Xephos noticed as they passed the table that everything was covered in a reasonable layer of dust, and the castle seemed rather empty for one of it's size.
"No one is here but Adaephon..." he said as the followed the Templar up the stairs to the mesanine floor that pressed up against the windows of the second floor of the keep.
"Just do as he say's for now." Honeydew urged, even though he was suspicious of this man, he didn't like how he covered his face.
"This way!" Adaephon called, his pike clonking as he led them back to the right side of the castle to a doorway that apparently led to the battlements.
"He's obviously been waiting for us, hasn't he?" Xephos said as he followed Adaephon into what would seem to be the large squat tower on the right-hand side of Verigan's Hold.
"Follow." Adaphon instructed as he turned to his left and began to climb a set of stairs that led to the second floor of the tower.
"He was probably watching us, wondering what the hell we were doing pissing around in the carnival?" Honeydew winced as he followed Xephos up the stairs. At he next floor Adaephon led them out onto the flat roof of the keep, snaking around many raised skylights.
In many places on the roof there were large drifts of sand that seemed to have come from nowhere. Honeydew kicked up a cloud of it.
"Sand." he rumbled. "Sand is never a good sign. I don't like it."
"Where did it come from?" asked Xephos looking about, but a cloud had shifted in front of the moon, and all Xephos could see was cast from the light of the torches through the skylights.
"Heroes."
Honeydew and Xephos looked over and saw Adaephon standing at the edge of crenelations in between the right-hand towers. He beckoned them over, and pointed out into the darkness beyond.
"What is it?" asked Honeydew.
"A moment..." Adaephon looked skywards. "Notch will lift the veil..."
As he said it, the cloud in front of the moon shifted and the scene before them was lit up.
"Umm..." Xephos looked ahead. "Holy shit, son."
Before them stretched a huge expanse of sand, sweeping into dunes the size of mountains and carved into impossible shapes of arches and waves. Every so often the desert was interrupted by a cactus as tall as a tree with wicked spines.
Xephos looked to the south and saw the wall they'd seen from the outside extending far into the distance, and it continued from the east of the castle, seemingly hell bent on containing this emmense desert.
"It's just a massive desert..." Honeydew looked about in awe, following Adaephon down a small of stairs on the outside of the keep to where the sand rose up in a dune to meet the stairway.
"You look awed...but what you see before you, is no ordinary desert." Templar Adaephon said, leaning on his spear.
"Oh great." Honeydew looked about with unease.
"This sand...is a disease..." Adaephon wheezed. "A plague...with terrible power."
"Gah!" Honeydew leapt back and climbed to the top of the keep. "I wish you told me that before I stood on it!"
"But this place looks amazing!" Xephos stared off down the wall.
"I could've been playin' 'round in the sand, making castles in the sand, eating it, smearing it all over my face..."
"Short contact is no danger to a man as stout as yourself." Adaephon said reassuringly.
Honeydew had began dragging down several planks of wood that had been lying near the steps at the stairs and lying them across the sand as a bridge. "I think you mean dwarf." he said in annoyance.
"I think what he meant about the sand is metaphorical." Xephos told his friend.
"This wall here..." Adaephon hobbled forward, pointing at the high wall. "If it were not for this wall, the Sands would spread like wild-vine...choking the land till it dies gasping for life. But enough talk, I am getting older every day."
"Where is Old Peculier?" asked Xephos, suspicious that he might've had something to do with this. He turned to Honeydew, who was still running planks out across the sand towrds them despite Adaephon's promise. "Do you think that this has anything to do with the sand that we found outside the portals?" he asked. After a few moments before of wondering, he realised that he'd seen the cacti before beneath the crumbling ruin before the portal.
Honeydew shrugged.
"Your friend went to mend a breach in The Wall," Adaephon cast his hand down The Wall's length. "A serious breach that threaten sour safety."
"So The Wall stops the spread of the sand which is like a disease, there's a breach in The Wall that Old Peculier went to mend-actually, I think that I can see it..." Honeydew peered though the moonlight to where a couple of leagues down The Wall a huge gap ran down it's face.
"Oh right..." Xephos saw it too. It looked quite serious, it would take a man many weeks to repair without the aid of magic. Nubescu's warning seemed to make sense now, Peculier was putting himself at risk to hold back the sands, which if he was exposed to for long enough may kill him.
"Do we fix this breach?" asked Honeydew to Adaephon.
"If you wish to see him, turn left out of the main gates and follow The Wall south." Adaephon responded.
"Alright," Xephos said, walking up the stairs.
"Okay then." Honeydew replied, following.
"I recommend seeing to Peculier before long, he may need your help." Adaephon called after them as he struggle up the stairs.
"We need to see him." Honeydew nodded, helping the old templar up.
"Right!" Xephos agreed. "Let's go!"
They turned to leave, but Adaephon called out to them.
"But before you leave," he said. "if you are unfamiliar with our history, you should check out the castle archives over here." Adaephon shuffled over to the left-hand twin of the squat towers.
"Oh, a history lesson?" Honeydew sighed as the old Templar pushed the door open.
"Here are the archives..." Adaephosn walked inside the dark room, only lit by the occasional glowstone lamp. The entire room was surrounded by a ring of bookshelves, crammed with old tomes and scrolls. This room too was covered in dust, save for a wide area on a table in the center of the room which seemed to have been swept clean by Adaephon, or maybe Peculier.
"I know this place inside out." Adaephon said, hobbling over to one of the shelves and withdrew a thick volume bound in tan-dyed leather with the red cross of the Templars gracing the cover. He turned and handed it to Xephos, and motioned to the table. "I will leave you to read it alone." Adaephon said as he headed for the door. "You are welcome to sleep here and regain your strength, before you leave."
"Thank you Templar." Honeydew took the book from Xephos and laid it on the table as Adaephon shut the door behind him.
Honeydew opened the cover and on the page before him was the book's title:
The Tale Of The Sands.
"The Tale Of The Sands?" Honeydew read, reaching for the next page. But as soon as the words left his mouth the glowstone dimmed and there was a rumbling an ethereal sigh from the book. The next page snapped open of it's own accord and suddenly a disc of blue light faded into reality and hovered over the book.
"Whoah! What?!" Honeydew leapt backwards.
"What's happening?!" asked Xephos looking towards the door.
"The Tale Of The Sands." It was Adaephon's voice being emitted from the book, although somewhat younger. As it spoke the title was rewritten in the blue light with a flowing cursive, and the book began to emit a blue mist that faintly shimmered as it floated out onto the floor like a fog.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Xephos looked about.
"I don't know!" Honeydew yelled.
"One hundred years ago, there was a summer that never ended..." Adaephon's voice spoke.
The mist that now covered the entire room rose into many shapes and suddenly all around them it took the form of Mistral City. The mist had painted them back into Mistral City, but them were floating between the islands.
"What the hell?" breathed Honeydew as the he looked about.
The only thing in the room that remained unchanged was the book, even though they could both feel the ground beneath their feet.
"We're in Mistral..." Xephos looked about the room as they floated through the mirage. But then he realised something was not right in the city. All of the islands and the City below was covered in a thick layer of sand, the same sand as in the desert outside.
The scene shifted to the streets below Mistral, where few people walked the streets, and those who did bore heavy shawls about their faces to protect them from the sun, which even in the simulation seemed harshly bright and hot.
"...Raw heat parched the farmlands, and the wells ran dry..." the Voice spoke again. Strangely, everything that moved seemed blurred, like a shadow of what had once been there only to be taken by the wind.
The mist shifted and remasterialised inside a building in Mistral City. It would once have been a warehouse, but where crates and barrels would've been there were now rows upon rows of stretchers, upon nearly everyone a person was lying on, thin and too weak to move. Honeydew walked over to one of the beds, and saw that there was no human there, but what seemed to be a metal-man, turned red from rust.
"Xephos look at this!" he called, but then the voice spoke and the metal-man faded with the rest of the room.
"...The People of the land began to die, of hunger and thirst..."
The scene was now the fields outside of Mistral City, the Old Watchtower in the distance, but the fields were covered in the same coarse sand which covered the treetops. All around them dry and rotting corpses of livestock were being buried by the sand, one ox was meekly struggling before them, then sunk to it's knees and fell to the ground where it stirred no more.
"...Animals were blinded by blistering sand, blowing waist deep across the land..." Adaephon's voice spoke and there was a white light as the mist rearranged into the Fountains of Mistral City, where the two now stood amoungst a small gathering centered around a huge bear of a man wearing white surcoat adorned with a red cross of the Templars. On his face he had grown a thick black beard that covered most of his face, and across his left eye, white and glassy next to it's deep indigo twin, there was a pink scar that reached from the temple of his bald head to beneath his nostrils.
The huge man spoke something and raised into the air his War-Gavel; a huge war-hammer with two emmence flat sides on it's head. A mute cheer went through the crowd as the voice spoke.
"...Led by a legendary hero; Verigan, the people of our world began to fight back, building..."
The white light of the transition glowed again as the room shifted.
"...The Wall..."
The scene now floated about The Wall, but in a previous life. The wall here was young and keen, the towers were all manned. The Wall now was merely a memory of this.
"...to encase the sand, and halt the spread of the desert..."
"Look!" Honeydew pointed to between two towers, where Verigan stood with a smaller man, wearing a corinthian helm over his head, looking strangely familiar.
"...But an ancient terror rose rose up from the sands, and threat end to destroy everything..."
As Adaephon's voice spoke again, they were suddenly standing in the middle of the desert as Verigan and the helmed man ran past them away from The Wall and out into the desert.
"...Verigan Antioch and his son; Karpath Antioch, slew the evil monster and sealed it away under the desert..."
As Verigan and Karpath vanished over a dune, Xephos and Honeydew prepared themselves for the blue mist to shift once again.
But this time the scene did not change like the others, the sun accelerated across the sky and as it neared the horizon on the other side of the desert and the sky turned red as blood, a lone figure limped over the dunes from where he'd disappeared. It was Karpath, but he was alone, and a wound wept scarlet tears from his shoulder while he slowly continued to the wall.
"...In the final battle, Verigan was killed, and Karpath gravely wounded..." Adaephon spoke in a voice thick with emotion as Karpath's ragged memory limped past the two.
"...After recovery, Karpath founded the Crimson Cross, and established the Templars, incase the threat ever returned..."
The mist now moulded into The Wall, but now the guards were all bedecked in white surcoats and doublets with red crosses upon the breasts.
"...What happened next, is still shrouded in mystery..." Adaephon narrated as the mist painted a picture around them of a small well carved sandstone tomb, it's wide windows open to the dune in sat atop. In the center of the room there lay a small sepulchre with Verigan's huge likeness carved into it's surface, stone War-Gavel upon his breast. Karpath stood as the sun set across the desert, the shadow of the dunes hiding his face as he laid a bouquet of scarlet roses on his father's grave. He looked up at the words chiseled into the stone at Verigans feet, reading:
Verigan.
Here he shall
rest eternal
He then turned and left the building.
"...Less than a month after his return, Karpath vanished without a trace, and was never seen again..."
The mist began to recceed from the walls and ceiling and towards the book.
"...The Templars await his return...Templar Adaephon." The book signed off, and with a sigh the spectral fog rushed back into the book and it slammed shut.
There was a moment of awed silence within the archives as Xephos and Honeydew took a moment to get their bearings.
"Woah..." Honeydew gasped. "That was really weird...Xephos, that was really strange." The dwarf picked up the book and took it back to it's slot. "It was like I had this epic kind of vision around me."
"Me too." Xephos looked about in amazement, wondering how many other books had this property.
"It was beautiful, it was amazing!" Honeydew headed towards the door. "I wish that happened every time I read something."
Xephos snorted and followed him out of the archives as they started to head back out towards the entrance to the castle. It was nearing dawn, and even through they were both dead tired, they felt the need to see Peculier.
"Since when did you read?" He asked.
"Now you know why I don't!" Honeydew chuckled. "So Adaephon wrote it?"
"I think so, or spoke it. I don't know how old he is in that case."
"Well, this was, what, a hundred years ago? So he's one hundred and twenty years old at the very least. Maybe even a century and a half!"
"Looks like we have no excuse for calling Knight Peculier Old Peculier now."
"Gods you're right! I'm beginning to think that he's one of the youngest folks around here. This turns everything I know on it's head, and I don't like it." Honeydew said as he and Xephos pushed open the gates and waved back at Adaephon who called to them from the door of the keep. They continued out of the gate and turned to the south and followed The Wall towards where Peculier was supposedly repairing the breach.
HE could feel a disturbance in the energies of the world. The Two were approaching like moths to a flame, and soon they would burn like their friend. As HE stood HE could hear the soft hissing of the Bursting One and the moans of the Dead One at his heels. HE could smell fear in them, but fear was good. Fear made them HIS. A ray of light cut across HIS darkness and HE blinked in annoyance. With a thought HE caused a twister of sand to spin about HIM and his creations, spiriting them away from the eyes of the sun. HE had them now.