Broken Page 9

  Talia gasped. She realized what her father meant. “I hurt mother sometimes without meaning to while we trained together. I remember I would get frustrated because I couldn’t seem to get the better of her, or I would want to stop but she would insist on practising. At those times, it would suddenly seem that an invisible force threw her away from me.”

  Michael smiled sadly. “Yes, Talia, I know. Your mother told me you had started using magic without even being aware of it. She thought that maybe, as a half blood, your magic was innate compared to how it was for her. She was so proud of you.”

  “How could she be proud? I hurt her. I hurt her, Father, but I didn’t mean to. You know that.” Talia was tearful.

  “I do. And so did she. As if you are capable of hurting anyone, least of all someone you love. It only means that while you are as magical as your mother, if not more so, you are also different,” Michael told her. “But you mustn’t worry about harming someone inadvertently because your mother was never badly hurt by your actions. I am sure that as you grow older, your control will improve.”

  “I wish she had taught me how to use and control my powers,” said Talia wistfully.

  “Your mother had her reasons. I believe one of them was to protect our family. The family she came from wouldn’t approve of me in her life. After our marriage, she hid her supernatural nature to keep her identity secret. She turned her back on her sisters, others just like her,” he said, regret lacing his voice. “Your brother and you were the most magical things in our lives.”

  “Was Joshua magical too?” asked Talia suddenly, trying to disguise the hope in her voice.

  “No, Talia,” said Michael flatly. “If you are asking because you think their magic would have saved them, you are wrong.”

  “Why?” Talia asked, tears clouding her eyes.

  “Only daughters inherit the power of their mothers. Your mother told me that magic would be harmful to Joshua.”

  “Please don’t say that, Father,” pleaded Talia.

  “Your time will come. Your power is still in its nascent stage. You are still young. You must hide until you are older,” Michael cautioned.

  “Will you be coming with me?” Talia asked. Seeing Michael’s expression, she understood the truth. “You want me to run away alone. Why?” Talia was crying now.

  Michael hesitated but then he confessed, “I must stay here. I owe it to your mother and brother. I have to learn what happened to them.”

  “What kind of position are you putting me in? I can’t avenge them. I can’t look for them. I have to run and hide like a coward while you get to stay behind and become a martyr. Why? Because you are the father and husband? Am I not a sister and a daughter? Don’t I get a say in this? Don’t make me leave you, Father. I can help. I must help.”

  But Michael shook his head. He wanted to hold Talia in his arms and weep, but he had to remember the danger. “Don’t be silly, girl. I am not going to do anything foolish, but I promised your mother I would never leave her. I also promised her I would always look out for you. Let me keep my word. You, in turn, remember your promise to me. It is not safe for you here, but I have nothing to fear. The man who warned me may help me hide me from the king. You must go and begin a new life alone. Together we will be much too easy to find. You must survive and one day seek vengeance,” Michael told her solemnly.

  “I don’t understand, Father. You want me to never return to Aberevon, but if I don’t return, how do I have any chance of seeking revenge?”

  “Ah, wise girl. This king is mad and will never stop chasing you. He is plagued by poor health. According to Luigi, the man who is helping us, your mother had the power to give King Damien a new lease of life, and as the daughter of a sorceress, the king believes you have that power too. As long as he lives, he will keep searching; he is obsessed. When he does find you, make sure you are ready. Remember what your mother used to tell you: ‘Trust no one.’”

  “What about you? You don’t have anything to tell me beyond run away and never come back?”

  “Talia, I know you are upset with me right now, but someday you will understand why I am doing what I am doing.”

  “Someday? Why not now?” asked Talia.

  Michael laughed. “Because, my dear, only when you become a parent will you realise that the well-being and safety of your children always comes before your own. It is a sacrifice that any parent makes with pleasure. The greatest despair for a parent is to stand back and do nothing while a child is hurt. As for my parting advice to you, there is a thin line between being brave and being reckless. Remember which side you want to be on,” he said. As Talia turned to leave after one last hug, he whispered, “And one more thing. I will always love you.”

  CHAPTER XV

  How are we to know what lies in the depths of the heart of a terrible beast? It may be a relentless hunger, a need for violence, a thirst for revenge, obedience to the master’s command, or even fear. Ultimately, its motives will manifest themselves through its actions. Until then, don’t be quick to judge.

  Talia

  VASSAL TO A RUTHLESS KING - THE DRAGON

  The dragon’s cell, the largest standalone structure of the dungeon, was at the extreme end. Even behind a gigantic iron door fortified and reinforced many times over, the dragon’s acute sense of hearing could pick up every footstep clattering on the stone flooring. To the dragon, the footsteps were a death knell, a call to his duties of extermination and doom. Seeing the fear in the eyes of those he was about to kill created a sense of shame and loathing which didn’t seem to ever go away.

  Damien, however, forced the dragon to lay waste to the armies, cities, castles, granaries and even the homes of his enemies. Startled soldiers would stand frozen, all their defensive manoeuvres laid to waste as the dragon’s dark shadow would creep upon them from the skies. Outrunning the fire-spewing dragon proved to be an impossible task, and soon the fiery path created by him would be awash with burned skeletons and ashes of Damien’s enemies. Damien’s legion of hundreds and thousands of soldiers would follow in the dragon’s wake, effortlessly taking control of once powerful empires brought to their knees by the king’s killing machine.

  He was a powerful dragon but a mere puppet in the hands of his king. When he wasn’t reigning over the skies, Damien’s dungeon was home to the dragon. It was a brutal assertion to his life of captivity. It lay in the bowels of the Earth and stretched the entire length of the castle. It was witness to the suffering endured by many a prisoner at the hands of the past rulers of Aberevon who, in seclusion, away from the attention of their adoring public, were almost as violent and ruthless as Damien. The dungeon would have been cast in total darkness were it not for the occasional firelight the guards used to drive away the gloom when they were alone in the desolate dungeon. Except, of course, at night because that was when the dragon had dark dreams. He would stay awake all night curled up in a corner hoping that the hallucinatory demons and monsters that had a tendency to float out of the gloom of his own imagination would not see him.

  The sight of the ferocious dragon trembling in terror made the guards dissolve into laughter with tears rolling down their cheeks, turning his fear into anger. His deafening roars would shake the very foundations of the castle, abruptly turning their mirth into alarm. King Damien would suddenly emerge in the dungeon, his face black with rage and a special whip in his hand. He would approach the dragon, seemingly uncaring of his own safety, and the mighty creature would do nothing but fall silent in the king’s presence. The dragon knew the soldiers in the dungeon gossiped about this. “Does the monstrous dragon think he is a mouse?” they would say to each other. They would jeer at the fact his mighty paws could break the tiny whip into two yet the mere sight of it had him falling silent and cowering in fear. “With one breath, he can burn down our king who approaches him so carelessly, but what does he do? He hides his head between his paws.”

  The dragon was supposed to be a natural born killer, but he did not fee
l like one. Violence made him feel nauseated, dizzy and all nasty inside. King Damien’s whip unlocked some terrifying, unexplained fear within him, and all rationale withered away at the sight of it. The soldiers could laugh at him, the king could threaten him, but despite it all, the dragon was determined not to be broken. He was King Damien’s creature to command, but within himself, he retained a small sliver of dignity that he would always try to hold on to.

  Damien was on his way to Syrolt, an island in the North West beyond the mountainous lands and across the Clavoln Sea. The journey across land and sea would have taken the king a fortnight and a half. As it were, astride the dragon, he would cover the same distance in a matter of days. It was the longest journey the dragon had ever undertaken, but the best one of its young life.

  For the first time, the dragon felt free. He luxuriated in the sparkle and might of the ocean and he took in the allure of the distant rolling green hills of islands they flew over. Being able to revel in the blue of the morning and to appreciate the inky and mysterious darkness of the night was one of life’s simple pleasures he rarely had the opportunity to enjoy. He meant to savour the exultation of flying with his majestically unfurled wings as if it was the very heavens that he explored.

  King Damien claimed that the princess of Syrolt once lived in Aberevon. She had been promised to him long ago when she just a girl but had been cruelly snatched away. From the king’s victorious rantings after a meeting with his favourite hunter, Garcia, the dragon realized they had been looking for this particular girl for years and years. Now they had finally found her.

  The dragon felt sorry for the unknown girl who had been unlucky enough to be hunted down by Garcia, for he both hated and feared Garcia with all his heart. There was some terrible memory in relation to Garcia buried somewhere. Luckily, Garcia stayed away, only throwing the dragon a solitary glance from the corner of his eye.

  King Damien planned to abduct the princess and her daughter, and then he intended to unleash the dragon on Syrolt and its people. He wanted the dragon to kill hundreds of innocents without batting an eyelid and to lay to ruins what was a beautiful island country. Not a single soul was meant to survive. The people of Syrolt had the audacity to make the girl who belonged to him their princess. She was meant to be King Damien’s wife, his queen, and above all, his salvation from illness and death. They had to pay in blood for their folly of offering sanctuary to his blue haired sorceress.

  ****

  Unbidden, a memory tiptoed into the dragon’s thoughts. He, too, had encountered a lady with blue hair a very long time ago. He remembered waking from a deep slumber to find her staring at him. She carried the lifeless body of a little boy in her arms. They were surrounded by Damien’s guards, who stood warily some distance away. Were the guards been there to protect her from him? Something terrible must have happened to her because the bruises on her arms and neck bore witness to the brutality she must have been subjected to. Her lower lip was swollen from a well-aimed punch, but her injuries were nothing compared to the pain he saw in her eyes. She must have loved the boy very much.

  “Why did I not pay heed to the Wraith?” she mumbled to herself again and again. The dragon wanted to soothe her broken spirit, but what comfort could he offer her? As he racked his brain for a way to reach out to her, she addressed him, concern marking her voice.

  “Look after yourself,” she said as though they knew each other, but he had never seen her before. Why was she concerned about him? He was fine, wasn’t he? She was the one who was badly hurt. Before he could ask her what she meant, the guards dragged her away.

  “Don’t worry; I can take care of myself,” he tried to say to her. The guards and the lady had barely left his line of sight when the dungeon became very cold. He remembered hearing the screams of the petrified guards, the sound of them running, and then the loud thuds of them falling to the ground still screaming. From the lady, he heard only whimpers of fear followed by a startled shriek; then all was quiet for a beat. In the silence of the dungeon, he heard the beginning of strange whispers that grated and sent shivers through him. His hackles rose in response to the eerie voices that did not sound quite human.

  “You were warned,” they said. “Again, and again, we came to you but you cast our advice away and now you must pay. You used your magic to help the vile king, and all our sacrosanct tenets into the wind you threw away. The price your family has paid and now the turn is yours. The great unknown, the land of the dead, will be your purgatory as still living and breathing you will walk its lonely paths. You ignored the prophecy and so now you are cursed. For all of eternity you can never return.”

  “Take me with you; punish me as you must. It is indeed my lot to bear,” said the sorceress. “But he is an innocent. I only ask you this. Give him a little time to make things right. Don’t take him away,” the blue-haired prisoner begged the unknown tormentors.

  The voices whispered amongst themselves until they said in unison, “Only until vengeance is his and not a day longer, otherwise even his soul will no longer exist. When it is time for him to go, you may return to guide him along, but then to your perpetual prison you will return once more.”

  The dragon wondered whom they were talking about. Was it about the boy in the lady’s arms? Then he’d heard the lady sigh in agreement and he was sure she whispered goodbye. Was it to him, or was there someone else around he hadn’t seen?

  The dungeon fell so silent, the hissing of his own breath the only sound he heard. He always wondered what had happened, but never fully understood because he never saw the lady or the same guards again.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Damien was the hunter and I was the hunted. He was the predator and I the prey. His men came for me and I ran. Never breathing easy, scared to sleep, and never able to trust anyone enough to make a single friend. Was this how the rest of my life would be? Was there anything but fear and fleeing in my destiny?

  Talia

  THE SEARCH FOR SERENITY - TALIA

  Talia came upon Syrolt by fluke.

  Since fleeing Aberevon, she kept moving. Her sense of foreboding grew each day. She ensured there was randomness to her selection of a place to move to. The constant moving erased Talia’s teenage sense of wonderment. Yes, strangers could be kind, but many of them also saw a lone, unaccompanied girl as an attractive challenge. Fending them off required a great deal of ingenuity and quick thinking. Luckily, her mother had taught her to defend herself, so she had nothing to fear. Still, she missed being a protected, well-loved little girl, but the softness started fading when she met Damien. Evading Damien’s many spies and soldiers did not allow for any pathos or sloppiness. They were too many and too well armed to fight off were she to be caught, so she had to match her wits against them instead.

  Talia knew that the soldiers were looking for a young, blue haired girl, so she became an old crone, bent with old age walking with the support of a stick. Just a change in posture and walk made her invisible to the searching eyes, her face and hair covered against what seemed were the vagaries of the weather. She learned to avoided patterns, always reminding herself that patterns were traps. She never overstayed or returned to the same place more than once, nor did she buy food from the same area or vendor twice. She spread disinformation here and there on the whereabouts of a blue haired girl from Aberevon, often sending Damien’s spies into a tizzy. She avoided inns, always taking shelter in forests or caves. She confided in no one and made no friends, for she instinctively knew that the more people she trusted, the lower her chances of survival.

  Talia knew that as things stood, she would not survive another encounter with Damien. She had no intention of giving him what he wanted. She would rather die. She hadn’t seen any sign of magic in herself whatsoever. She wanted to laugh at her own destiny. She was being hunted like an animal for capabilities she didn’t have.

  The toughest part was to be on her guard all the time. She barely slept and often found herself jerking awake in a cold
sweat after just a couple of hours. Peace of mind was elusive and everything was taking a toll on her. Talia knew she wouldn’t be able to sustain it much longer. She needed to find a place to disappear to and prepare for vengeance. Stability conflicted with being on the run. Despite the distance she had built between her and Aberevon, she never felt safe enough.

  Talia was right to worry because the soldiers nearly caught her one day. One of the younger ones caught her hand, trying to befriend a pretty and young local girl. Imagine his surprise when he found himself looking into the startled blue eyes of the girl from his old neighbourhood, the one his king now hunted. Before he could react, Talia gave him a mighty push and in the opposite direction she fled. The young soldier shouted for his colleagues but none were around. He gave chase but, fortunately for Talia, he was too late. She had picked up the scattered belongings of a drunken sailor and, disguising herself as a deckhand, got passage on board a ship bound for ports in the Clavoln Sea.

  Talia had no idea where the ship was heading, but as it moved towards the open sea, she felt the last vestiges of her bond with Aberevon break away. Worry for the father she had left behind would torment her until she knew he was alive and well, but the bond she had with the land that had once been her home had been severed by the cold-blooded and callous behaviour of Aberevon’s king.

  Many weeks later, when Talia saw the island country of Syrolt, she felt a ray of optimism for the first time in a long while. She soon found employment in the nearest village in a local grocery. The owner was a kindly old woman whose children had moved to the mainland a long time ago. Lonely and desperately in need of some help, she accepted Talia’s explanation that the land she was from required her to be garbed at all times from head to toe. The young girl was trying to be brave, but the old woman saw the exhaustion and the despair that lined her eyes. She offered Talia lodging in the room above if she agreed to helping out with household tasks. Rising at dawn, Talia would head downstairs to the store. The owner rewarded her hard work and diligence with a modest supper, allowing her some extra funds for the likes of clothes and candles, etc. She didn’t mind the frugality, but a life of anonymity without any family or friends was a lonely one for a girl who was once constantly surrounded by love and laughter. However, after life on the run for almost a year, there was plenty of comfort to be found in the sameness and routine of her days.