Chapter 8
Now it is time for the other side to be seen.
Take the eye of the mind away from the little group in the inn, through the cracked streets of Prontera, world power and sprawling city of Rune-Midgard, the Royal City of the King. Let it speed onwards until it reaches one of the gateways, and crosses out over the forests into beyond. From here, the forest stretches on like a thick green blanket over the lands. Far off are the dark terrains that signal the approach of the cold, remote, hostile mountains.
Look another direction and see a vast expanse of water. Not far off there is a suggestion of stone - another city built along the coastline. Ahead of the eye is a white building, rising high above the trees like a small mountain. Let the eye speed past this building and its city, pass over the green forests, pass over the animals settling back into their routines. Let it whiz through the untamed wilderness of the place.
This is a small part of the world, after all.
The eye comes to rest on a great cluster of grey-green buildings in the distance. It is another city, although in its current state no one could say it has been lived in. However, it was once a city of greatness. Thousands of years ago it was the city to go to. It was greater than Prontera, in its golden age. Prontera was only a city that was royal in name. It was vast, yes, but this city was once even more vast. It had once commanded an empire. It was a city of knowledge, of power, of magic, and of warriors. Architects had great spreads of drawings of every single detail.
It was a city where things happened.
But it was the heart of a cruel, cold empire. And, like most cruel, cold empires that had ever reigned in Rune-Midgard, this empire was ended with a sword stab to the heart.
Now the wind whistles through the forgotten buildings. Whisperings of leaves and the long-forgotten dead echo in the empty, dark streets. As the skies above darken, the atmosphere grew heavier and deeper.
Novices and inexperienced defenders of the New World are forbidden by the law from entering its grounds. It is a hanging offence.
The eye moves swiftly along the streets, into a large castle at one side of the city. It goes through dusty corridors, musty decorations, portraits of emperors, their names ripped out from the history books. It goes down flights of steps, into what looks like a dark cellar. But in the cellar, where a door shouldn't be, there was a door.
The door opens. It stays open for a while, and then closes. Like someone going through it.
The eye follows. There are disembodied footsteps, muffled by the grime of the stone steps, into a round room. One side of this room has crumbled. There are still chunks of rocks below.
But the room has an excellent view. It is far above what looks like one of the biggest mazes ever built. Torches burn away, set up by someone no one can see. The maze was once built for prisoners-of-war, and was said to be the greatest plaything of the emperors. It was where the prisoners were released into the mazes, and allowed to find their way out. If anyone got out the emperors would reward them with eternal freedom.
None ever survived the maze.
Now the disembodied footsteps stopped at the edge of the crumbled side. There was silence, before a voice - if you could call it a voice - spoke. It hissed and snarled at the same time, angry and vengeful. It was like cold, evil poison slithering down your spine to its target spot.
A world where freedom is given to the undeserving Men, it hissed. Do you think it is not fair?
One who is listening very closely would hear a whispering sound arising from the vast maze beyond. Its walls stretched so far back at the other end was cloaked with darkness, but anyone could start imagining things beyond it. Things that were far more dreadful than nightmares, and, worse, were real.
No. We do not think it is fair. The sound bounced off the walls. Think of it. Once this city is raised again, we will choose a new emperor to lead the world. He will become like you, but more intelligent - the King of beasts.
The whispering increased briefly, as if whatever unseen things in the maze were agreeing.
Think of it! A new world will be born from the ashes of the old! The dead shall awaken, and the living shall fall! We will RULE!
The whispering grew into a roar - a roar that man had heard from the very beginning of time. It was not just the roar of beasts. It was the roar of what used to be, of the dead, the spirits, and the most fearsome of monsters.
Arise, my warriors! Declare war on this pathetic world! Take it over! No one knows what is being done! We will take them by surpise, overthrow them, consume their weak minds and souls and destroy them! Send every single one of them into the dark, cold oblivion, like they have sent us to our end! ARISE!
The roar grew until the maze shook and fragments of stone fell off the pillars, walls and, somewhere in the dark, the ceiling. There was a rumble, before shadows poured out from the open ends of the maze and over the walls, rushing in their mad bid for blood. The ground shook beneath their trampling hooves, feet, paws and whatever else they had to walk and run with.
As the sound begin to fade and the shadows lessened, there was a scraping sound as the disembodied footsteps turned on their heels.
And now...the choosing of the new emperor, it thought, if invisible things could think. He will be a great emperor. He will rule with an iron grip over the world. Forever. The links to choose from look promising. They were what was left of the great heritage of the residents of the city. All of them were strong, but there were ways of breaking a person's mind into submission.
One of them, yes. Then the course of history will be changed forever. And the emperors would be avenged.
'Well, well, well,' said Valkron. 'What a bloody shower.'
'What?'
'Who're you calling a bloody shower?'
'I know what he means,' said Iruna, who had rewrapped the cloth around her eyes. 'He means you look like crap. I mean, look at you. The portal must have been very strong this time, eh?'
Several of them winced at the sarcasm in her voice.
'It did hurt,' said Nocturne, rubbing his head.
The innkeeper had kindly provided a large common room for them. It was obvious everyone was taking this for granted, because they had thrown themselves into the various chairs around the fireplace and were now slumped in them. Only Valkron, Iruna and Emeth stood looking at the mess of people. There was no other word for it.
'Now, look here,' said Valkron, flourishing Emeth's piece of paper. 'According to research done by our fellow wizard, the portal is complete. Anything from other worlds and dimensions can come through it. Now that the old magic has been fully awakened it's going to start ripping our world apart. Do you want that?'
There was a mumble.
Valkron cupped his hands around his mouth. 'I said, DO YOU WANT THAT?'
'No,' they chorused.
The knight sighed and drew his sword. 'This really is too drastic,' he said, as the blade flared and tongues of flame licked the glowing metal. 'Let me repeat--'
'NO!' everyone yelled.
'Was that a no to our world being ripped up, or to this?' said Valkron, waving the sword.
'Uh...both,' said Samaroh, a minute later.
'Good.' Valkron sheathed the sword. 'We've got to find out where this portal is, and destroy it before it's got the chance to destroy us. So we'll have to get ready for a long hard slog.'
'It's a mercenary's life, Valkron,' said Khan. He'd taken off his straw hat, and looked quite old under all that grey hair. 'What were you expecting?'
'I was expecting a lot more life from you,' snapped the knight. 'All of you have to take this seriously. We've read you the portions you need to know from the book, I've told you what we have to do and tomorrow we'll be setting out to do this properly. No more hunting for people who are affected like us! Anyway, eight is the maximum for a mercenary party.' Valkron glanced at Iruna, but she seemed fine with what he said. 'And we'll have to pull our weight like the other parties, at least. No one likes to be in a disgraced party.'
'Referring to you?' said Samaroh.
'I'm referring to all of you!'
'Are we expected to, you know, go around in dungeons like everyone else is doing?' said Eni.
'That's a dumb activity, I told you that already,' said Iruna. 'No one's getting anywhere.'
'But we've got such a big party now!'
'It still doesn't mean they're going to protect us.'
'Why not? They're men!'
'They're not the kind of men you think about, Eni,' sighed Iruna.
'Then why are we going with them? They're not nice! I don't think they're nice!'
'Who's nice?' snapped Iruna, so suddenly that Valkron jumped. 'No one's nice these days! It isn't the age of chivalry out there anymore, Eni! And how could you say that? One minute you were thanking these men for looking after Nocturne, and the next you're saying they're not good enough?'
'Like the dog that bites the hand that feeds it,' said Emeth, in a low voice. Valkron hoped he was the only one who heard it.
'Nocturne, do you think they're all right?' said Eni desperately, turning to her brother for backup. 'I mean, these days there's hardly any nice people around! Where else could there be nice people that we could trust? Up on the mountains? Being hermits in Juno? Living in Ant's Hell?'
'All the trustworthy people in the world are in this room,' said Nocturne.
An embarrassed silence descended over the group. For quite a while there was no sound except for the ticking of the tiny clock on the mantelpiece over the blackened, empty hearth.
Valkron coughed. 'Right,' he said. 'Thank you, Nocturne. Anyone who wants to leave and not be involved in this can leave now. I swear I won't come after you,' he added.
They perked up.
'Really?'
'We can leave?'
'You're letting us go free?'
'Valkron!' hissed Iruna, which was quite hard to do because he had no Ss in his name.
'Yes.' Valkron ignored Iruna. It was not the time.
There was a pause, in which no one moved.
'Once you come with us, you can't go back,' he warned.
No one moved.
'All right, all settled?' Valkron turned around. 'Now you can go to bed.'
'Um...'
Valkron turned back.
It was Nocturne. He had raised a hand, although rather hesitantly. There were some things that you were careful about once you had got to know Valkron.
'Yes?'
'What's the name of our party?'
Valkron opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He hadn't actually thought of it. He thought it didn't matter. Plenty of people were often satisfied with 'The Party' when they joined him, and anyway they never stayed long enough to make it last.
But these people sitting in front of him didn't look as if they would accept such a name. They're young, he reminded himself. Or maybe a few of them, anyway. They want something that sticks in people's heads. They want to be remembered.
They were all watching him. That was the problem. He couldn't think when so many faces were at him. His mind was blank, all except for the cool part of him, which was rather weak. It offered him a name that he'd only heard of when he was younger, and a swordsman - the name of a person he'd never met except for a few years of his early life, a person whose appearance he couldn't even remember.
'Raulus,' he said.
Everyone blinked.
'That's it?' said Eni. 'No meaning? No symbol? No foreign words, like the others?'
'We are NOT one of the others,' said Iruna.
'It's got a meaning, but I'd rather not talk about it,' mumbled Valkron. Only Emeth and Iruna heard it. The wizard, with great presence of mind, stepped forward and said, 'All right, we need to get up early tomorrow! Come on, let's all turn in!'
With a scraping of chairs and general muttering the group dispersed to their rooms. Valkron was left standing quietly in the centre of the room, still staring somewhere above the mantelpiece. Emeth, who knew him, moved off quickly, but Iruna, who didn't, went up to him and said softly, 'Let's go.'
The wizard watched in horror. Any moment now, and he was going to snap about not needing help. Iruna expected that to, somehow - the knight seemed to give you a feeling that he would immediately reject all help.
Instead, Valkron turned away. Iruna put a hand on his shoulder.
'Your bedroom's this way,' she said. She signalled to Emeth, who came forward rather reluctantly. 'It's all right,' she whispered. 'He's...reminiscing, I think.'
'People reminisce like this?' said Emeth, in quiet horror and fascination.
'Um...well, maybe not the sort of normal people, but still,' said the crusader, looking apologetic insofar as anyone could tell. 'Come on, help him.'
Emeth reached out and tapped Valkron on the shoulder. The knight stirred. 'Hm?'
'Turning-in time,' said the wizard.
'Now?' Either Valkron seemed to have grown smaller, or the room had become larger. It was dark, so Emeth couldn't tell.
'Yep.'
After a minute or so Valkron made his way out of the common room. Emeth and Iruna shared a look.
'Looks like this is going to be one hell of a party,' said the wizard.
'You couldn't have put it better, Emeth,' said the crusader.
And thus the Raulus Party went to bed.