Tempting the Tempest

Destiny has a past, too.

"Why are you such a heavy sleeper?" A pale, eerie light hummed its shadowy song across the floor of my cage, slowly fading out and swaying stronger again. I sat up to be surrounded by rock. No daylight.

Then the pain came. The hours of being dragged, drugged, beaten, and struck unconscious finally came as waves of bodily hurt and exhaustion, accompanied all by unbearable emotional suffering. I couldn't ever remember feeling so deeply afraid and lost; and behind that came the agonizing realization.

"This...isn't...really a dream," I gulped. I separated my stare from the stone floor to Quess's stony eyes. Painful shock filled my heart; shocked wonder flooded his eyes.

"You're from...what would you call it...Earth?" I rolled onto my side opposite my new friend and admittedly began to cry. That was the first time I knew I would never again awake to find my dog snoring at the foot of my bed.

I know Quess tried to coax and console me, but I was overwhelmed and heard, felt, and breathed nothing more than self-pity for an unknown span of hours. What was going to happen to me? I jumped back from my own little world only when a sharp pebble thwacked me in the middle of my back.

"Oi! Get up and wipe the Tambling slobber from your nose!" Theoforte chided. "We've all been stuck in this mess, and some of us with bigger problems than you!"

Wow, didn't expect that. Forte was in the cell directly across from me. With the added static, filthy fur, he seemed to have been struck by a lightning bolt.

"Hey, you'll be ok," Quess whispered from the cell to the left of mine.

"Quess, what are we gonna do?! How will we get out?" I sobbed.

"Depends on where we are going," he replied, still looking at me.

"Indeed, where are we going? Arianne," Theoforte took a deep breath, knowing this would be a length explanation, "you cannot return home. You must realize this. Perhaps one day soon I can explain why, but for now I can only say it is simply impossible." He knew the pain I felt, so tried to make light of it all. "Besides," he chuckled, "don't ask Quess. He can't be trusted." Forte glanced back at the teen and smiled. "But, nonetheless, he can be loved and guided."

Quess grinned at that, too, and sighed; he slumped to the ground against the bars. "Have I permission to explain?"

"It might prove best," Forte responded, squinting.

"No one really knows the whole story, but I'll tell as much as I can for now. I can't tell you everything because not everything is known. You've not yet heard of it. Skulziamorth was many years past a rising capital of a large nation. Its king, Scarioc, was a man of vast knowledge and vision. He discovered powers deep within the mind and how to tap some of them. An unfathomable future set before him. His advisor and brother grew jealous and knew he could easily gain all that power should he discreetly murder his brother. The plans were set and the night still when another advisor saw the small group sent by the brother approach the king's quarters for the ambush. She noticed their concealed weapons and followed them. What she didn't know was that was the back-up guard. The king was attacked in his room with brutal force. Fortunately or unfortunately it is not known, but the dagger missed its intended target. Still, the king was mauled beyond recognition in the following assault. His disfigured features and maimed physical ability were not the sole impacts. He was unable to have children and had no other blood relatives but for his hated brother. These all drove him into a subtle state of insanity." Then Quess suddenly stopped, as though telling more would steal all his breath and stab him in the heart. "What..." he halted again. After a few ragged breaths, he finished what he could of the tale.

"What horror issued then was bred of human lust for glory. Scarioc issued an invitation for all young boys to come to his palace to live for as long as it took for him to choose from among them his successor. They would be offered cheap food, free housing, and a new school to learn leadership and diplomatic skills. Seemed like the perfect proposition. No one sensed his mental infirmity or his feral plan to indoctrinize all these young boys and bend them to his corrupted mindset." Those doleful eyes spoke something else as he turned them onto my own. Remorse? "Coming from a prominent family and being much like Scarioc himself at the time, I immediately rose as his favorite student. He claimed to be finding the next royal line as he transformed an entire nation into nobility. Nice way to handpick your heir and brainwash all hopefuls. I wasn't his spitting image, but neither am I saying I wasn't conforming to that image I am not. He awoke in me a part of myself I never knew existed. He made me feel powerful and helpful at the same time. But something started to turn askew when we progressed to higher philosophy classes. We had been trained for months to think independently. Then Scarioc challenged everything we had ever thought or believed. In diplomacy, we stopped seeing the material in a defensive position. We began to learn offensive tactics and torture methods for the 'greater good' against spies of enemies. We took classes to conceal truths from those who opposed us. And impressed most clearly upon us all was complete and utter love, loyalty, and respect for our king."

He grew rigid. A shudder of sorrow stole over him before he picked himself back up again. " I still find myself chanting the songs of praise as we did each night." An aching, bitter chuckle erupted spontaneously from him. "We all thought we were emerging as something great, to be feared, to change the universe, and to raise our fearless leader up to rule all. So I excelled at all I did. This just starts the horrors we honored. But is success truly great when its intentions are a little broken? To constantly wrestle within oneself to the nature of liberty and truth? In building a better mindset, sometimes we have to tear down past even the foundations, but then will you know how to build it back up again? And build it right?" Quess shifted into silence and buried his face in his arms.

"None can fathom the damage scorched into those boys," Forte continued, when he saw Quess could not. "This digs deeper than any magic could run. There is so much you do not and cannot understand, Arianne. You see, Quess didn't just have nobility and talent. He had something Scarioc possessed, too, and coveted. I doubt you know what I'm talking about; but, that's why King Gorzol was afraid to punish you. From what you had said, he feared you have the Secret, too." He winced and looked at me as if I would contradict him.

I just blinked. "Huh?"

Forte heaved a sigh. "There's no real way to explain it, but the Secret is something a group of philosophers brought about long ago. Nothing much is known except the then-king hushed it all up and brought it down to the status of black magic among his subjects. The philosophers were hanged. Then Scarioc resurrected it. Perhaps that is part of the fear: the unknown power wielded mysteriously by the known madman. The press of desperation. The hold of curiousity on a man's heart. The touch of darkness creeping upon our souls."

"That's how we think you got here from Earth," Quess added. He never parted his gaze from me. A man three rows down moaned as guards dragged him from his cell. "There's not a better way to clarify it. So, now I need to ask you something. How did you get here?" With that, I launched into my story of untold questions that only burned curiosity deeper. That unknown darknes crept upon me. It would be the first of many tales harboring such hazy shadow.

I thank all that have stayed with the story, even when for the two months or so I lost inspiration; it was you that helped encourage me again. As tensions rise, so will the action and mystery in the upcoming chapters. Tune in next week for more adventure and intrigue as true loyalties and untried trails are soon to be unraveled.

remaining Amari