The Paladins of Naretia

Chapter 8

  It was neither cold, nor was it warm inside the dome. There was no breeze, but yet, Ol?rin felt a distinctive prickle of his beard as though gravity itself had lost its grip on it. His old joints moved fluidly as he stepped into a world where pain had been expunged. A blanket of calmness wrapped around his shoulders, and it felt like home. Streaming in from the walls themselves, an opaque light bathed the air in a niveous haze. There was no snow underfoot anymore, no trees or rocks in sight, just an endless landscape of white that Ol?rin both walked and floated on at the same time.

  Somewhat disorientated, Ol?rin took a few tentative steps deeper into the dome. It struck him as odd that his footfalls made no noise, nor did his clothes rustle as he moved. He tried to speak, but heard only silence. Tucking the glass bottle under his arm, Ol?rin clapped his hands together as hard as he could, but still there was no sound.

  He didn't know how long he had stood there before something moved in the light and a figure slowly emerged. Ol?rin didn't hear himself suck in his breath, but he knew he had. A tall, slender woman glided through the brightness with the same ease that a cloud would soar through the sky. The lady's long straight hair glimmered silver and mirrored the same silver that shone brightly in her pupil-less eyes. Her porcelain skin was unmarked by imperfections and shone the same irradiances as the haze around her. Her features were delicate; a small pointed chin, thin silver eyebrows, and lips of an intense azure blue.

  She did not wear clothes, as such, rather she wore the blinding whiteness as a misty gown. But still, the silhouette of her naked body could be seen. 'An alluring vision for most men,' Ol?rin thought. 'How could Dantet not have fallen in love with her?'

  Quickly realising that he had been staring, open mouthed, at the Goddess for longer than was polite, Ol?rin bent down on one knee and bowed his head as low as it would go. He wasn't expecting to meet the Goddess Edwina herself, but instead find a small stream or spring from which he could gather the waters of life. Although the very idea of meeting his Goddess had riddled him with nervousness in the past, having finally met her, his heart thumped patiently and his mind became oddly clear and calm.

  "My beloved Ol?rin," a strange voice said.

  It was certainly female, but instead of sounding in his ears it whispered all around him. Her voice was powerful, but quiet, like the ominous rustling of leaves before a raging tempest.

  "Stand," she said.

  Ol?rin rose to his feet and stood before his Goddess. In the minutes that passed while they stared at each other, he wondered why he felt so at peace and began to think that perhaps he might have died. The thought of it, and the warm feeling he got as he stood next to Edwina, lifted a weight from his shoulders and eased a heaviness in his chest. His worries about the world outside the dome, about Aramus, who was waiting in the cold, melted into a serene feeling of bliss. He could have stayed that way forever.

  "You have come for the waters of life, my child."

  She tilted her head gently, but her blue lips never moved. Her voice emanated from everywhere around him and inside of him, and it filled him with joy to hear it. He tried to speak, but again, no sound came from his mouth.

  "Your voice cannot be heard inside these walls," she said, taking slow, graceful steps deeper into the dome, Ol?rin followed. "It is not time for you to speak, but rather to see and listen."

  She glanced at Ol?rin with a knowing look in her silver eyes, as if she could feel the wave of questions that was trying to burst from him.

  "I have watched you carefully and have seen the sacrifices you have made. Some of them were selfless, while others were only a convenient excuse to not be truthful," she said, continuing to walk. "Love is love, Ol?rin, and I do not frown upon any of it. But I do not come here to talk about love. I have come here to help you see, and to strengthen your resolve as I fear that you will need it in the end."

  The Goddess waved her hand in a long, slow movement over the expanse of white in front of her, and suddenly an image of Aramus appeared. His large, black wings, extended to full width, and his amber eyes glowed with a deadly fire that burned from within. A powerful wickedness exuded from him, and Ol?rin did not recognise the young man he had come to know in the vision standing before him.

  "Dantet's child is nearing the age of maturity," she began. "With that, he will inherit some of his father's abilities. While I have rid Dantet of his own powers, I fear that they shall rise again within Aramus. Mortals, however, were never meant to have such Godly powers. And so, if his son is allowed to live he will be wild and out of control."

  Without warning Aramus's apparition burst into flames. Orange and yellow tongues wrapped themselves around his hands, his feet, and set his wings alight without burning them. Ol?rin took a step back and stared, wide eyed, at the image. Aramus smiled a poisonous grin, and raised his fiery hands high above him, threatening to engulf both Ol?rin and the Goddess in the raging fireball he conjured.

  "This power, the destructive element, can lure the most noble of men into losing themselves within it. It is hungry, all-consuming, and unprejudiced in choosing its victims. If you fail in your quest, then Aramus's human side will be lost to this enchantment. Dantet will use him as a conduit to seek revenge on me, and he intends to burn everything that I love to the ground."

  Taking his cue from her words, Ol?rin watched as Aramus's fireball exploded and spread through the air until the dome around them was a raging inferno. Behind the young man, an image of the kingdom of Naretia burned, consumed in a greedy blaze. Screams and cries of pain came from the flames under his feet, as burning hands reached up to beg Aramus for mercy. But he ignored them all with a cold look that Ol?rin had seen only once before. It was the day they had first met, when he came upon him in a quiet suburb of Lothangard, dripping in the blood of several dead men who lay scattered around him.

  "If that should happen, then my sadness will surely break me and the hold I have over Dantet. He will have his freedom to step foot on mortal soil, and I will be powerless to stop him."

  A deep sadness filled the dome and the image of Aramus, and his fire, died like they had been washed away with enormous tears. Ol?rin felt the weighted sorrow, like an anchor in his chest. It was the first time he felt something other than peacefulness since entering the dome, and it pulled him down until he couldn't breathe. Tears, that were not his, ran down his old cheeks and he crumpled to his knees.

  It wasn't until the hand of Edwina lifted his chin that he saw the very same tears as his own, roll down her porcelain cheeks - only hers shone like crystals. Ol?rin couldn't help but watch them trickle slowly toward her chin, mesmerised by their beauty and brightness. 'How can something so sad be so beautiful?' he thought.

  "The waters of life," she said, gesturing to the glass bottle Ol?rin held in his hand.

  Quickly realising what the Goddess was saying, Ol?rin uncorked his empty bottle and held it under her chin, ready to catch the tears as they fell. 'The waters of life are the Goddess's tears,' he thought, as three luminescent tears turned solid and dropped into the jar soundlessly. 'She must have cried for a long time after her children's deaths to have created so many creatures in Naretia.'

  When the forth tear fell from her chin and tumbled into the bottle, the Goddess stood up and walked away from Ol?rin. The sadness that had weighed him down and crushed his chest, went with her too. Before she disappeared into the white mist altogether, Ol?rin quickly corked the bottle again and placed it gently into the point of his hat. Getting to his feet, he followed her.

  "There will come a time, Ol?rin, that you will have to make a choice," she said gliding through the mist. "You must choose carefully and know that there is more at stake here than his life and the lives of the wizard caste. Be sure to weigh all of your options, even the unthinkable ones. And while there is one decision I cannot condone, you may have to take it regardless. If you do, know that I am at peace with it."

  Ol?rin opened his mouth to ask her "what decision might that be?"
But frustratingly nothing came out. He tried to shout louder, feeling a desperate desire to not disappoint his beloved Goddess fill his heart. While in her presence, the urge to blindly follow her directions was more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. But she hadn't given him any directions. There were things he desperately wanted to ask her, things he needed to know and not all of them were about Aramus.

  "My child, Ol?rin, I thank you for the sacrifices that you have made and are going to make," she said not hiding the sadness in her voice. "And if we should not see each other again, either as you live or after you die, know that I love you more deeply than you can imagine."

  Those were the last words the Goddess said before gently kissing Ol?rin on the forehead. He closed his eyes and through the rosy, blood tinted hue of his eyelids, Ol?rin saw the light around him fail. The warm feeling of her lips on his forehead drifted away, like the tumbling sands off a dune in a stiff breeze. The bitter air and the weakness in his old bones, blasted him back onto the mountaintop. But still, he didn't want to open his eyes again, he didn't want to see reality. So peaceful it had been inside that dome, like returning to a childhood home that held only warm, happy memories. He wanted to live in the Goddess's eternal bliss forever. But the ugly sound of swords clashing, and cries of pain, forced his eyes to open again.