Skyfallen

CHAPTER 1

“Do you feel it? Do you feel it, Dalitan?”

It was a chamber hewn of stone, cold and dank. Two men were there, the one who spoke and another chained to the wall.

Dalitan.

The man who spoke had grabbed the hair of the man named Dalitan and pulled his head back.

Dalitan looked worn and haggard his faced twisted in pain. His eyes were dark around them but they were rimmed in red—when they were open. They were mostly closed now from the pain. But, notwithstanding that, notwithstanding being worn down, beaten down, worn away, there was still defiance, defiance still came through the intense and searing pain. That defiance was in his face and could be read there even with his eyes closed. Even in the pain.

Chained and tortured as he was, he still defied his torturer. And he struggled.

“You feel it, Dalitan?”

Dalitan opened his eyes but only the whites of them could be seen. He said nothing and his face did not change.

The man let go of his hair and Dalitan’s head lolled forward. That shifted him some and the chains that held him clanked with the movement.

But that wasn’t the only sound. That sound of clanking was accompanied by the sound of buzzing or snapping, more like the sound of high voltage electricity arcing between two electrodes.

Dalitan arched his back with the sound and strained against the chains. The veins stood out prominently on his neck and his face contorted in more pain. His mouth sprang open in the shape of a cry, but no sound came from it. And the smell of brimstone filled the air.

Moments later, the sound stopped and Dalitan slumped forward, released momentarily by whatever it was that had seized him.

The other man smiled.

“That is my little addition to the proceedings from the last time. My little innovation.”

He grabbed one of the chains and shook it. There was the sound of arcing once more and Dalitan strained against the chains again.

“The lodestone of Samhain. The one that bears his curse, the curse that spewed from his lips as he was delivered to the Void. This is from the vein of the metal he touched, the vein he cursed against any flesh that touched it.

“That, my friend, is the metal that holds you now. The pain comes from that.”

He looked into Dalitan’s face.

“You feel it? You feel it burn down deep, down to the very middle of you, to your very core? Do you feel it in your soul, you fool?

“Pain,” he said with a grin. “Soul-deep pain. You feel it?”

Dalitan stirred and spoke. His voice was distant. It came from somewhere deep inside of him.

“You spend your life bringing pain, Skolis. What would it be like if you followed more peaceful pursuits?

“Ever thought about taking up ballroom dancing?”

Skolis did not smile but shook the chains instead. Dalitan arched his back again and the veins on his neck stood out more prominently than they had before. A cry rose to his lips but he stifled it again. It was a small victory but a victory nonetheless.

Skolis came in close, so close that Dalitan could feel his breath on his face.

“You mock me, of course. When I can inflict so much pain you only think to mock me?

“You mention peace. Then you will be talking of love. Love and peace. You would speak of these again to me?

“They are but the feeble idlings of those who serve, of those who grovel and bow and genuflect. That may appeal to you, brother Dalitan, as one who comes when called. Like a dog. But not to those who have a greater capacity, those born to rule.

“Peace and love? Let them have their idyll, their lost paradise? That is what you want.

“I, however, stir the pot. I want some direction to their lives; I want results. I want them to produce. What is wrong with that? Isn’t that what they all want anyway? Production? Their capitalism demands it and they comply. Even their communism exalted production and output. I will just substitute a flesh and blood person as the focus of their efforts, of their aspirations. I will have them acknowledge me in the stead of an abstract economic point of view.

“Get them to produce; get them to stir from their indolence; get them to be productive.”

He laughed.

“Why encourage the cattle to loaf when there is power in the herd, direction in the herd?”

“No,” said Dalitan and his strength rallied some as he spoke, “you want nothing of benefit to them and cattle is what you mean. You want them churning and churning away in lives of pain and agony. You want them under your thumb and pressed down.

“And you want them that way why?

“Because you like it. All the pain, all the grief, all the agony is appealing to you, it titillates you. It is the savor that you seek. It is what you revel in, what you thrill to as it washes over you. You drink it down to your very inward parts and you delight in it.

“But you break no new ground, Skolis. It is nothing new. You are just the latest in a long line of men who get it into their heads that they want to be served and gnash their teeth in pleasure as the humans under them writhe in pain and suffer.

“It’s an old idea, an old and very tired idea.

“It wasn’t even new when your master, Anlis, poked his head up above the rest and took this same thought as his reason for being, for existing. That was before, Skolis, when you served and genuflected and submitted your will to the will of another. Before.

“With Anlis you came when called, Skolis. You came like a whipped and slinking puppy. And you groveled and scraped.”

Skolis’s heard this and his face contorted in rage and, screaming “Ahhhh!”, he struck Dalitan across the cheek.

Dalitan, for his part, rose up against the chains and spit in his face.

Skolis went dark and his face became impassive as he raised a hand to wipe the spittle away. But, after a moment, his face changed. It was still dark but a smile had come to it.

“Your father came,” he said. “You speak of a whipped puppy but that is how he came to me, Dalitan. And then there was pain and agony for him before he died.

“Before he died groveling.

“But your mother, your mother was the best. She bowed and submitted and then died when I tired of her.”

Dalitan screamed and he rose up and shook the chains that held him as if he would tear them apart and break Skolis to pieces.

At that same moment, a shimmering appeared in the air in front of him but it was behind and to the right of Skolis so he couldn't see it.

In that shimmering, scenes from various places flashed by.

Dalitan had strained but he hadn’t broken free. The metal chains sparked and the smell of brimstone filled the space again.

Finally, it was too much for him and his back arched and the veins stood out on his neck and face as they had before. But his hands, free as they were though held fast by chains secured at the wrist, gripped the air as if they would grip something else.

The shimmering in the air behind Skolis disappeared and Dalitan shrank back.

“You lie!” hissed Dalitan through his clenched teeth. He would have screamed it but that was all he could manage exhausted as he was.

“Lie?” said Skolis. “No, it is no lie. Your father would admit it if he were here. But he is not. He suffered pain and agony before he died. Yes, he did. And then he cried like a little baby just before I released him from it. I did it out of pity like killing an animal that is suffering—”

“You lie!”

“Lie? No, it is no lie. Morgala was there. She heard it all.”

“Morgala?” said Dalitan and he laughed though it was a feebler version of what it would otherwise have been. “She’s hardly a truth teller. Last I heard she was on your side of the line.

“She’s yours, Skolis. She follows you, wants what you want, does what you want. That makes her an interested witness. She’ll say what you want her to say.”

“She once was yours, Dalitan. Or do you forget so easily.”

Pain spread itself out on Dalitan’s face again. But this time, it was of another kind.

“Forget, no. I have forgotten nothing. It remains with me an ever-present memory of what I should have done, what I didn’t do.

“If I had been here, Skolis, you would not have the story you now tell about my parents. You would not have lived to tell the lie.”

“Maybe, Dalitan, but I think not. You talk of defeating me standing there in chains, chains placed by me.”

“Through deceit, Skolis. Through lies and deceit.”

“Your vulnerability, Dalitan. You care and that makes you weak. Your being here and bound proves it.

“But, in any event, we shall never know what would have been, Dalitan. What did happen is a matter of history, though. And you were not there.”

Dalitan winced and lowered his head. There was more pain there now but it was not of the body.

“You calculated your interests and you made your decision. And your parents are now dead.

“But that is as it should be. Calculate your interests and act consistent with them. There is honor in that, principle. Calculate it out and then act accordingly though other things may entice you away from your chosen path.

“Even family.

“To act this way is the sum and substance of life. It is the full measure of a man.

“In that we are alike, Dalitan. In that we are the same.”

He nodded his head and grinned at Dalitan. But Dalitan didn’t see it. His head was lowered and his face down.

“But I don’t have it only on the strength of Morgala’s word. It is recorded. I left nothing to the reputation of witnesses.”

Skolis waved his hand and a voice came up that echoed in the space.

“Skolis,” it said, “don’t. I beg you, don’t.”

It was the voice of his father. There was no doubt about it.

“On your knees, Palindin. On your knees.”

Dalitan heard the sound of movement.

“On my knees, Skolis, I beg you to let me go.”

There was the sound now of crying. It started low but soon became a high-pitched whine.

It was an embarrassment. It was the sound of a man who was unmanned.

It was the crying of a child.

And it was the voice of his father.

A cold feeling struck Dalitan in the stomach.

It wasn’t possible. He knew his father. He was a brave and courageous man. That was the reason he went to Skolis in the first place because he was courageous.

But what he was hearing now raised doubts.

“Created by you, Skolis,” he said but he didn’t say it with complete confidence. “Easily done with standard software if you’re a Moerghus. But you could do it with a wave of your hand.”

Dalitan’s voice gained in confidence as he spoke. It was as if the words coming out strengthened him on the inside.

“My father was a man of honor,” he continued. “His life was outsized; heroic. You with your parlor tricks and your lies cannot take that away. It is all written in the Chronicle of the Ages. And it cannot be blotted out. It will come to light in the end. It will not be hidden as it is now subject to your manipulations and lies.”

“The Chronicle of the Ages?”

Skolis laughed.

“A tale told to children to help them face the dark. There is no such thing. There is here, there is now, there is nothing else.”

He went over to a large, rough-hewn wooden table set off to the side and picked up something.

“You want to know how I did it? You want to know how I killed them, how I killed your father, how I killed your mother?”

He walked over to Dalitan and raised something to his face. It was a blade made of something resembling glass. But it was not smooth. It had jagged edges that came to a wicked point.

And it gleamed with a cold, pale light.

The light of the Void.

“The Neghil Saksom, cast from the Void in the Great Beginning.”

Skolis ran the blade along Dalitan’s cheek and laid it on his arm. There was a coldness to it that seemed to suck the warmth right out of the skin. It seemed to Dalitan as if all of the heat that was in his body directed itself to that point on his skin, the point where the blade touched it, and flowed out never to return.

But that wasn’t all. It seemed as if the very life of him followed after it. Dalitan could feel it go little by little.

“Do you feel it? The power of the Void. The power of the Nothingness. That is how he died. That is how they both died. I killed them with this.”

Skolis held the blade up to his eye.

“You can still see the blood on it,” he said wistfully.

He turned it in his hand for a moment. Then he opened his mouth and with his tongue slowly licked the blade.

“Taste it,” he said. “Savor it.”

Skolis’ eyes began to change. They went red and a grin formed on his face.

“The taste of it, the taste of the lifeblood of your parents.”

He lowered the blade.

“And now you.”

With a quick movement, Skolis grabbed Dalitan and stabbed the blade deep into his side.

Dalitan screamed and the sound of it boomed through the chamber. His eyes opened wide out and his back arched. But this time, mustering all the strength he had, he lunged. And, as he lunged, he brought his hands together.

The chains shattered instantly. At the same time the air shimmered in front of him and a door opened up in it.

Dalitan leaped toward it and there was a flash.

And he was gone.

“Noooo!” cried Skolis.

And he screamed.

But Dalitan was gone.

Skolis brought his hands up to his face but his eye caught on the blade. The very tip of it.

He looked at it closely.

“Yes, yes,” he said after a moment and he began to laugh.

Loud and long he laughed. He kept laughing until he could laugh no more.

He sat down on the seat near the table.

And he brought up the blade again.

The blade was as it had been. It shown with a cold light about it and the edges of it were the same jagged edges that were there before.

But the tip of it. There was something different about the tip of it.

A piece had broken off.

Skolis fingered the break and said,

“It begins.”

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Skyfallen