CHRONICLE

BOOK TWO: CORREN

PART FOUR: REBIRTH

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Prelude: Who is the Martyr?

Notch paced the top room of the tower relentlessly. The shutters were closed against the starry night, and the only illumination in the room came from the softly glowing white walls themselves.

Not long ago, he and his brother had talked in this very room, with the observatory windows open to view the magnificence of the Aether. Now Herobrine was gone, and the windows were shut, because Notch could not bear even the sight of the stars lest he be reminded of the Void. What strange stars did his brother see in the Void, he wondered. Or if he could see any skies at all in his End prison as he endured torments worse than even the creator could imagine.

He should have listened.

It was painfully clear in hindsight. His brother had clearer sight and intuition than he did. His foolishness had damned his twin soul. Without Herobrine, the war would be desperate. The Overworld would be wiped out, and everything would have to begin anew. Yet without Herobrine, recovery would be impossible. Notch was the creator of foundations. Herobrine was the creator of life.

And now Herobrine was worse than dead.

Notch ground his palms into his eyes and growled. Think! he ordered himself. What would the enemy try next? It would use Herobrine to the best of its ability, but where would he go? What part would he play?

Then he remembered the delicious irony the Void so loved- unmaking things by the order they were made. It would only make sense that Herobrine, father of life, would be the instrument of death for all living creatures.

Notch stopped and sat down at the table, folding his hands before him. That was it. Wherever life existed, there Herobrine would be sent, starting with creatures capable of reasoning. Mankind was wiped out, so villagers would be attacked next. He needed...

He needed a champion.

Then he sensed something, something he had not felt for days since the battle for the Aether.

A human soul, terribly young, but strong enough to reach out to him.

Notch stood and commanded the windows to open. Starlight poured into the room, and the black shade of a new moon loomed over the tower. Closing his eyes, Notch looked out to the Overworld, chasing that tiny presence. What he found shocked him.

It was a prince, no older than four, praying to him from beneath the ruins of his castle. His parents were dead beside him, his mother only inches away, but unreachable in the rubble.

With just a word, Notch lifted away the worst of the weight around the boy, giving him room to breathe. He could see the strength in him, the spirit of his parents, and the cunning of his mother's family. He was the nephew of Herobrine's emissary- perhaps he could use that.

Vanishing from the Aether, Notch wrapped himself in the form of a bent old man. There was a Villager settlement not far from the castle, across the border. He would reach it by dawn, and the rescue party would find little Corren the next afternoon. A plan was already forming in his mind, one that would draw out Herobrine and the enemy after him. Perhaps his brother wasn't beyond salvation.

The risk of what he was doing was immeasurable, but any chance to save his fellow creator was worth it.

Besides- perhaps there was still a little strength to be found in the human race.

Herobrine was awake. His awareness had returned once again, slowly, inch by inch as he lay nearly catatonic on the stone. The Thing's attention was focused elsewhere again. He had another stolen moment to himself.

Slowly, he sat up, folding his legs before him. His wasted muscles screamed in protest as he stretched them for the first time in a week, but he stoically bore the pain. It was insignificant.

Taking a deep breath that rattled in his dry throat, he cleared his mind and closed his eyes.

The fractured memories returned, piece by piece. Luminara vanishing into nothing in a blinding explosion of light. The struggle with the Thing, with strength he never knew he had, grimly holding on even as his limbs began to tear joint from joint. Before, the conversation with Notch.

He had killed Terra, helped his betrayer escape, and said his goodbyes before he destroyed everything he had made.

Before, the despair had choked him. Now everything was clear. He was calm.

Now he had a purpose again.

Standing stiffly, Herobrine exhaled and settled into a basic fighting stance.

Envisioning the gods before him, he began to fight.

He did not think as he did so- instead, he let his body move by instinct. If a sword swept to cripple his leg, he would spin this way, sweeping his own sword on the way to make his attacker back up. Then he would feint and go in for the kill. If someone attacked from above, he would duck under the attacking arm, stabbing as he turned. A quick, clean kill.

Then he snapped open his eyes as he came to the point in his practice he needed.

The maneuver was simple. If he were knocked helpless, he would use his splayed limbs to knock his attacker off balance, bring them to the ground, and finish them, but instead, he altered the move slightly. Then he found another point in his impenetrable defense to weaken. Then another.

Over and over he practiced, changing his reflexes, repeating the motions until he collapsed trembling to the floor. Then, when he caught his breath, he did it all over again. And again. And again.

The Thing did not come, and his practice stretched on until he had built into muscle memory what he intended to do.

Next time he was in a fight for his life, he would be vulnerable. The Thing would not be able to do anything about it. It depended on his unconscious reflexes and instinctive memory to fight. But now, he had changed things. His skills would fail him at a most critical moment, whenever it would come.

He had planted his weapon against the Thing, and now all he had to do was wait for it to put him in the right situation.

He had imprinted into himself his own death. His next true battle, he knew, would be his last. He would be weakened, wounded, and Notch would find him. And Notch would end his suffering at last.

Satisfied, Herobrine settled down once more, closed his eyes, and waited to die.

The Priest once uncovered a poem in his studies, an ancient work that was allegedly written by an oracle as a prophecy.

He wasn't fully able to puzzle out its meaning, but it felt significant to him. The poignant words struck him in such a way that he couldn't leave the verse be.

When he finished Chronicle I, he copied the poem into the back, calling it a sort of epitaph for the victims of the events recorded before it.

It read:

Brothers born of Primordial Light
Each a hand that shaped the world
But when they fought and time unfurled,
Who was wrong? Who was right?

Brothers Divided, a world at war
Battles that put out stars and sun
Between them never a victory won
And by the darkness both were torn

Brothers broken, but which suffered worse?
Both broken, by suffering, by loss
Both saved the world, but at what cost?
Who is the Martyr? Who bears the curse?

Once upon a time, there was an author with a plan.

The plans died. The author was left alone.

Luckily, I'm a hardcore pantster when it comes to writing, and I've decided to truck along anyway.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the prologue to Book Two of Chronicle. As you can see, we're back to our normally scheduled programming of "Bad Things Are Going To Happen".

College turned out to be more of a ride than I thought it would (naturally) so, of course, I didn't write anything on this site for months on end. You may now hold your rotten vegetables at the ready to throw at me, because I'm about to tell you how I won't be publishing in a timely manner.

NaNoWriMo is coming. (*read that in the same voice you would say "Winter is coming"*) As of this chapter, NaNo 2016 is just two days away. I will be up to my ears in schoolwork and writing my second independent novel even as I am still revising the first. In the midst of all that, I'm leaving my only real live audience slighted and snubbed. Déclassé, I know. I'm sorry. I read your comments and I know how excited you are for the next installment. You can tar and feather me when I'm done.

BUT, now that I know what I am doing, I can at least assure you that Chronicle will be finished before I die. Certainly not before any more characters die, but we all know they must be sacrificed for the greater good.

With that cheerful thought in mind, I bid you all a tearful farewell, and I will see you in the next chapter.

If it doesn't come within a few weeks of the end of November, come looking for me. I may have gotten stuck on my way back up the rabbit hole. Bring a big stick.