Chapter 5
Karl watched the mixed emotions flashing across Marianne's face. To heck with this, why don't I just ditch her? He thought to himself, but his eyes touched on the leather bound book in her arms, and he let out a gloomy sigh. He knew she wasn't going to be able to survive by herself as long as that was in her possession, and stealing it from her would be hard; killing her and taking the book out of the question.
"It might help if I clarify some things for you before I go, don't you agree?" he asked quietly with a slight smile. Marianne just nodded, not quite knowing what else to do.
"First of all, when I say 'I' in this, it's not really me," Karl explained. Marianne's face screwed up in confusion. "Remember the inscription on the book?" Karl asked her, but went on without waiting for a reply, "'Du feamt dra bufan uv dra tyshat, oui sicd civvan vencd yc dra tyshat tu, drah civvan yc drao crymm.' 'To wield the power of the damned, you must suffer first as the damned do, then suffer as they shall'", quoted Karl, then went into a somber silence, absentmindedly etching runes into the dirt in front of him with a stick. "When you take up this power," he continued suddenly, without looking up, "you take on the memories of past lives; not your own, but rather parallels in the space- time continuum," Karl looked up at Marianne with sad eyes, "Not all the memories are pleasant ones," he whispered, "But all of them are important lessons," he continued on, "You don't always get the memories of someone with the same name or sex, its based on some sort of spiritual parallel that no one has been able to work out. Most of my other memories are like that, but the one I'm telling you about is the most important. It documents the two deadliest wars using necromancy. The first completed during Carl's lifetime, the second, also started during Carl's lifetime, but it never ended," Karl gestured around the fire place, at the rune-bedecked sticks and logs, then at the night, "But I'll go into that another time. What's most important is the first war, and it's relevance to the book."