CHAPTER TWO
Korr raced up the stairs as if the entire Su'dah army was after him. He burst into the door of the stranger, and found him awake, staring at him from those eyeholes which seemed like dark pools in the dusky shadows. No surprise was betrayed to him at all, just a look of curiosity. The entire expression seemed to ask Korr, "What do you want?"
The boy burst into gasps of air. The run from the other side of the village tired him out slightly. The stranger patiently waited for him. "I saw...a...new face-" mumbled Korr. The stranger kept staring a hole straight through him, with those dark eyes. A sharp sound from behind him made Korr give a quick glance behind him. Upon looking back at the stranger, he almost fell over from fear. The man wasn't a man anymore - somehow. He still looked like the man who stumbled into their town, but something had changed about him, but he couldn't quite think what. He looked so powerful now, so dark, so evil...
The stranger opened his mouth to speak, and said in a strange, inhuman voice, "You will serve me!" In a split second, he was on his feet, reaching up with both his hands, his face also pointing up, but staring at him through his half-closed eyes. Somehow, those eyeholes didn't seem so dark anymore - he could almost see a faint red glow coming from the eyes, illuminating the darkness around him with the blood-red hue. A spectral, misty figure faintly in the shape of a man emerged out of the stranger's now open mouth, and slowly the cloud was completely out of the body, and hovered above the floor. The blood-red light died in the stranger's eyes, and began to pulsate through the cloud. In a climax of light, it was gone, almost instantaneously jumping through the floor, straight down into the ground. The body of the stranger staggered, and slowly collapsed on to the floor. He seemed to be back to the normal, pre-existing self that Korr had met before. A sudden surge of the red light shot out from the body in a ribbon, and jumped into his hand. A sudden scorching sensation passed through him, and after raising the pained hand up to his face, he heard a fizzing sound, like the one you hear when you pour water on a fire, and saw a symbol of some sort - a a thick cross with a circle on on top, starting at the intersection of the two perpendicular lines of the cross. The pain was gone, but the sheer strangeness of this symbol appearing on his hand seemed so shocking. He was concious of a sudden laugh, deep, breathless and terrible, and looked up from his hand to see the stranger sitting on the floor, leaning on the bed, with his glowing red eyes laughing at him somehow...
That's when yet anoth sharp sound jolted him. He was no longer in the room of the stranger, but back in his own bed, with the moonlight seeping in through the window, and the quick, steady beating of his heart was the only sound. "None of what I saw happened," he told himself. "It was all a nightmare; I'm never eating so much before going to bed!"
But the cold sweat stood out on his forehead, and he raised his left hand to wipe his brow. That's when he saw it, the mark of the seven-pointed star, there on his palm, like in his dream. The charred black flesh of the lines stood out from his white skin in the moonlight as well as it would've done in the sunlight. He was now aware of a pulsating in that very hand, seemingly from the mark. It felt strange, as if he had another heart beating in his hand, pumping blood. The irresistable urge of sleep overcame him, he felt so drowsy in fact, that he faintly remembered his head falling on the pillow before his eyes closed, and a vortex of darkness seemed to suck up all of the light from around him, and he felt asleep.
The next morning, he awoke and remembered no more incidents since his hand began to puslate. He now looked at it again, and there it was, that seven-pointed star he saw before. Yet now it wasn't as contrasted against his skin, rather it was much fainter, and only on close inspection could he see the marking - but it was still there, a branding for purpose unknown by a dream! How silly that would sound to anyone who saw the mark and he tried to explain to! He got out of his bed, and got dressed. He had chores to do, and sleeping in wasn't one of them. As he was milking the cows, he thought about the stranger at the inn. Most would think a dream like this is a preminition, and stone what they percieved as evil. But to Korr, this was all stupid. Stoning a strange man, highly ranking in Vaelic Guard, and just because of a strange dream he got he would stone the poor man, who was no doubt still recovering from his injuries? "No," Korr thought, "I don't believe in that jibberish. Then on the other hand, there was the etched mark of the seven pointed star..."
Korr raced up the stairs as if the entire Su'dah army was after him. He burst into the door of the stranger, and found him awake, staring at him from those eyeholes which seemed like dark pools in the dusky shadows. No surprise was betrayed to him at all, just a look of curiosity. The entire expression seemed to ask Korr, "What do you want?"
The boy burst into gasps of air. The run from the other side of the village tired him out slightly. The stranger patiently waited for him. "I saw...a...new face-" mumbled Korr. The stranger kept staring a hole straight through him, with those dark eyes. A sharp sound from behind him made Korr give a quick glance behind him. Upon looking back at the stranger, he almost fell over from fear. The man wasn't a man anymore - somehow. He still looked like the man who stumbled into their town, but something had changed about him, but he couldn't quite think what. He looked so powerful now, so dark, so evil...
The stranger opened his mouth to speak, and said in a strange, inhuman voice, "You will serve me!" In a split second, he was on his feet, reaching up with both his hands, his face also pointing up, but staring at him through his half-closed eyes. Somehow, those eyeholes didn't seem so dark anymore - he could almost see a faint red glow coming from the eyes, illuminating the darkness around him with the blood-red hue. A spectral, misty figure faintly in the shape of a man emerged out of the stranger's now open mouth, and slowly the cloud was completely out of the body, and hovered above the floor. The blood-red light died in the stranger's eyes, and began to pulsate through the cloud. In a climax of light, it was gone, almost instantaneously jumping through the floor, straight down into the ground. The body of the stranger staggered, and slowly collapsed on to the floor. He seemed to be back to the normal, pre-existing self that Korr had met before. A sudden surge of the red light shot out from the body in a ribbon, and jumped into his hand. A sudden scorching sensation passed through him, and after raising the pained hand up to his face, he heard a fizzing sound, like the one you hear when you pour water on a fire, and saw a symbol of some sort - a a thick cross with a circle on on top, starting at the intersection of the two perpendicular lines of the cross. The pain was gone, but the sheer strangeness of this symbol appearing on his hand seemed so shocking. He was concious of a sudden laugh, deep, breathless and terrible, and looked up from his hand to see the stranger sitting on the floor, leaning on the bed, with his glowing red eyes laughing at him somehow...
That's when yet anoth sharp sound jolted him. He was no longer in the room of the stranger, but back in his own bed, with the moonlight seeping in through the window, and the quick, steady beating of his heart was the only sound. "None of what I saw happened," he told himself. "It was all a nightmare; I'm never eating so much before going to bed!"
But the cold sweat stood out on his forehead, and he raised his left hand to wipe his brow. That's when he saw it, the mark of the seven-pointed star, there on his palm, like in his dream. The charred black flesh of the lines stood out from his white skin in the moonlight as well as it would've done in the sunlight. He was now aware of a pulsating in that very hand, seemingly from the mark. It felt strange, as if he had another heart beating in his hand, pumping blood. The irresistable urge of sleep overcame him, he felt so drowsy in fact, that he faintly remembered his head falling on the pillow before his eyes closed, and a vortex of darkness seemed to suck up all of the light from around him, and he felt asleep.
The next morning, he awoke and remembered no more incidents since his hand began to puslate. He now looked at it again, and there it was, that seven-pointed star he saw before. Yet now it wasn't as contrasted against his skin, rather it was much fainter, and only on close inspection could he see the marking - but it was still there, a branding for purpose unknown by a dream! How silly that would sound to anyone who saw the mark and he tried to explain to! He got out of his bed, and got dressed. He had chores to do, and sleeping in wasn't one of them. As he was milking the cows, he thought about the stranger at the inn. Most would think a dream like this is a preminition, and stone what they percieved as evil. But to Korr, this was all stupid. Stoning a strange man, highly ranking in Vaelic Guard, and just because of a strange dream he got he would stone the poor man, who was no doubt still recovering from his injuries? "No," Korr thought, "I don't believe in that jibberish. Then on the other hand, there was the etched mark of the seven pointed star..."