The Auric Insignia Read online

  - Die!

  Each and every time his fist smashed down,Roarke was sprayed in red as he struck the gory pool that the lord’s face had become.

  - Die, fucking die!

  - Roarke.

  At his limit, Roarke let out an uncontrolled wail, rolling over, tears clearing the blood from his eyes.

  - Roarke.

  He could hear Refaz’s strained voice whispering, sounding like it was further away than the few feet it actually was. Looking at the uneven surface of the roof above him, Roarke struggled to even move his sticky lips so that he could form a response.

  - Roarke, can you hear me?

  - Yeah.

  A moment of silence followed until Refaz had mustered enough energy to speak again.

  - I feel cold.

  - Me too.

  - Some rescue this was.

  As more and more blood left his body, Roarke’s speech became increasingly slurred.

  - The stuff of legends.

  Roarke’s eyelids grew heavy and he couldn’t find the energy to fight it, and at this point, he welcomed the rest, even if it was eternal.

  - Refaz?

  Eyelids finally shutting out the outside world, Refaz gave no response.

  - I’m right behind you.

  The darkness surrounded him, the nothingness filling every inch of his reality. If his pain still existed, he couldn’t feel it, he was beyond it. He didn’t feel sad or content, he didn’t feel at all, he just was. Time, an unknown variable, its value hidden from him, if it passed at all. In this state he remained for what could have been a second or a year, until suddenly, instantaneously, paradigms shifted. A warmth appeared inside of him, pulsating at an ever intensifying speed, pushing out waves of energy through every part of his body. Humming shocks vibrated his core, searing away the parts that made him what, and who he was. With a mind no longer fully his own, Roarke could feel the building blocks composing him being remodeled and recharged.

  The black world he inhabited started to melt away, a warm golden white assuming its place. A light so bright and so beautiful that it threatened to blind him, had his eyes not been remade anew, stronger.than before. Roarke took a breath and the edges of his world expanded, taking another and its borders swelled even further until finally it encompassed everything that was, making Roarke more than he had been, more alive.

  ***

  What the fuck is going on?

  As the blinding light slowly retreated, he awakened and found himself in another place than when he had last closed his eyes. He was lying in a bed, made with fine silk sheets and pillows filled with down. Pale sunlight was streaming in through two slitted windows, illuminating the room around him. He was alone in the room, that much he could see, but something was wrong, or at least different from before. In the light coming in from the window, he could see colors he had no name for, colors he had never seen before, save for in a brief, fruit induced moment. In his nose was the stench of the marshes, stronger than before, if such a thing was possible.

  Suddenly, a buzzing sound crashed against his eardrums, bouncing around inside his head. Startled, he threw himself out of the bed and onto the stone floor, not sure what was happening. When nothing did happen, he looked up from behind the wooden bedpost that had been lacquered black, and with his newly heightened senses, he identified a fly across the room as the source of the noise.

  - What the fuck is going on?

  He stood up and noticed that someone was indeed in the room, looking at him from inside the mirror that stood in a corner. Forgetting about his strange awakening for a minute, he was transfixed by the man looking back at him from inside the reflecting surface. Walking slowly, the two twins approached each other with equal parts caution and curiosity, driving them forward. Their movements mirrored, they touched their shared face, feeling the bare skin, all the way from the chin to the top of the scalp. The scruffy beard that he had been starting to get, was gone, along with the rest of his hazel brown hair. Every single strand, from his eyebrows and arm hair, to his pubic hair, was missing, almost as if it had been singed off in the blinding light from before. Trying to understand the situation, he remembered the last minutes before everything went black and gasped for air when he remembered his wounds and the pain they had caused. He spun around and looked at his shoulder, where he had been struck, only to see a healed scar. Quickly, he bent down to touch his thigh, where he felt no open cut. Running his fingers over the already fading marks, it freaked him out even more than being able to hear an insect taking flight from across a room. His head at an angle, he next noticed his ears and what they had become. Like clay, both of his ears, including his damaged left ear, had been remodeled. Pulled out and remade, ripples and ridges ran across the new shapes, giving him an unusual and sharp profile. Finally, after his eyes had scoured every inch of his body, they settled on their own image, where they found irises, once a mix of blue and pale green, but that now shone with the color of warm gold interlaced with darker details of bronze.

  Before he could think of anything even resembling an explanation, another sound interrupted him. This sound was further away, but as seconds went by, he could hear that it was coming closer. After a while he recognized it for what it was, feet stepping on stone, approaching his location. Something in his psyche, something new, took over, and as the door on the opposite wall slowly opened, he moved with speed beyond his own. Leaping to the doorway, he threw it open and grabbed the person standing in front, lifting them up in the air. Taken by surprise, the group at the door scrambled, drawing their weapons, readying to attack.

  - Stop!

  The voice of steel came from the woman hanging by the scruff of her neck. She was a woman that looked to be in her late thirties, but her hair had already started to shine with gray streaks. Streaks that mixed with thick strands of black hair to form a tight but ornate bun at the nape of her neck. Her face had a stern look, amplified by the scars it wore, physical memories of pain and hurt.

  - I said stop, sheathe your swords, you idiots!

  Her commanding voice hit like a whip and the soldiers standing in the doorway lowered their drawn blades. Having dealt with her subordinates, the woman, unruffled, turned to the one who had her in his grip.

  - I am Nitska, I am the one in charge here. We mean you no harm.

  He watched from inside himself, the new presence currently at the helm of his mind. It didn’t feel malign in its nature, but rather like a defense mechanism of sorts. A mechanism that now when the apparent threat was subsiding, loosened its hold on him.

  - I am Roarke. What’s happening to me!?

  ***

  Epilogue

  - Praise him, the one who stands above everything and all.

  - Praise him!

  - Praise him, the light that guides us safely through the darkness that exists in our realm.

  - Praise him!

  - Praise him, the defender, power incarnate, for protecting us from the dangers that would seek to destroy us.

  - Praise him!

  - Praise him, the teacher who elevated us from the misery and chaos of our nature.

  - Praise him!

  - Praise him.

  - Praise him!

  For every shouted exhortation, the shriveled old lady received a deafening response, chanted in unison. With every answer, the large room vibrated, the air thick with unquestioning deference. The homily coming to an end, the people inside the grand hall, all stood up. The old priestess, dressed in a robe of white and purple that clashed in symmetrical designs all along the billows of the cloth, spoke one last time.

  - We bow our heads to him, the one who watches over us from above, always.

  As she spoke, she raised her hands to the glass roof above them, and beyond.

  - Always.

  When she had finished speaking, every single person inside the room bowed their head, and closed their eyes. Above them, above the glass roof of their house of worship, was a tower, a spire that attempted to re
ach the sky. A monument made out of marble and glass, watching over the heart of its empire, undeniable proof of human skill and superiority. High up there, at the top of this tower of light, stood a shape, watching, a shape with an unmistakable aura of power.

  Raising his head with those around him, was Igin, general of the armed forces, and the highest ranking officer in Cayrock. Looking around him, Igin could see people from every station, bakers and tailors, traders and fellow soldiers, all of different standings, but all below the one who watched from above. Though believers, for most of those who had spent their morning showing respect to the divine, monotony awaited in their day. They would play their part, unknowingly becoming a cog among many, most of them without ever seeing who controlled the actual system that was their way of life. As a commander of the army, Igin exited the large building with the glass roof and made his way towards the very thing he had praised so dearly, just moments before. He walked by people hurrying in and out of the gilded doorways that led to trade houses and luxurious shops, all along the stone paved road that led to his destination. The air was still relatively cool, but Igin knew that before he had climbed the stairs, the heat would have begun to spread through the streets of the capital. The guards at the entrance saluted when he approached and he responded with a short nod as he walked past them, and entered the white tower. Having walked this way countless times before, the general did not stop to marvel at the awe inspiring architecture that surrounded him, thoroughly acclimated after all his years of service.

  Old, but still strong, he started the climb to the top, to where he had been summoned earlier that morning, like so many times before. Countless marble steps later, Igin had reached the top floor, where he, except for the sentries standing guard, was alone. This far up, the continuously thinning herd of servants and dignitaries that occupied the lower levels, were nowhere to be seen, leaving the true halls of power eerily empty. When he had gotten past the last guard within sight and he had an empty stretch of hallway ahead of him, he stopped and rested for a while. Thanks to a life time of training and discipline, his body was still keeping up with his tasking demands, but as of late, for every day that passed, the journey up the stairs took longer than it had done the day before. Pushing fifty, Igin could feel his joints aching as he put on his armor in the morning, but he was a soldier, and true soldiers did not quit. The general had served the highest all his life, first as a simple foot soldier and later on, as a commander. Knowing that he would soon reach the end of his service, saddened him, even though he was far too stoic to show it.

  The graying soldier straightened his back and held his head high as he walked up to the final doors. Made out of aspen, the pale wood was smooth except for the sumptuous emblem carved out in the middle, its details adorned with gold, displaying the skull of humanity, the symbol of Gota. Igin knocked twice and after a short wait, the doors were opened, splitting the skull in half, by two guards dressed in silver attire. Inside was a lofty room filled with the tools of a ruler. In the middle of the room stood a marble desk, exquisitely cut from a single block of the purest marble, so unclouded that it almost seemed to glow when the sun hit its sharp edges. Laying on its flat surface, was neatly stacked piles of letters and reports from all over the realm, organized by some system that was beyond Igin’s soldier mind. The chair behind the desk was empty so the general scanned the room and found what he was looking for. Standing on the platform on the other side of the outside wall made out of glass, were two figures, standing so they faced the city. Having been let in, Igin assumed he was allowed to approach and proceeded to do so, walking across the stone floor, nearing the open archway leading out onto the protruding terrace.

  - Seal it and send it to Marielle, Fenmyere Keep.

  The shorter of the two, the personal scribe of their leader, quickly scribbled his instructions on a notepad, before bowing and running off.

  - General Igin.

  The voice was not that of any normal human, veritably shaking the air with abundant energy when released. No matter how many times he had heard it, Igin never got used to it, the presence palpable, unmistakable for anyone who had experienced it, unfathomable for any who had not,unlike anything else.

  - Yes, revered one.

  - What do you have me?

  - We have completed our routine sweeps of the orphanages and shelters, in and around the major cities. We found a number of children and feeble minded defectives that await your judgment in holding.

  - What was the analysis?

  - The cretins suffer from lowered cognitive functions varying from mild to severe, present since birth, the doctors words, not mine. The children range from newborn to nearing adolescence.

  Gota stood still, looking out over the horizon to the north, past the city gates and factories, to the pale fields beyond.

  - Castrate the ignoramus able of physical labor and divide them between the western logging camps and the forges of Goib. Conscript the currently able bodied adolescents, execute all the rest.

  Some people, through the years, might have looked at Igin and thought that the soldier’s life was a hard one, but he himself would not have changed a thing, even if he could have. If he, by the turning of time, had to step down from his duties the next day, he would look back at his life, his service, content, knowing that he had served under the right and the just.

  - It shall be done, master.

  Igin bowed, turned around and retreated inside the big open room once more, moving past the big desk. Saluted by the guards, he approached the opening door, his mind on the task given to him. As the aureate doors swung open, he was met by a woman in the opening, going the other way. Dressed in dark armor without markings, Igin recognized the hooded figure as a child of wind, a member of the Lopti, an elite force of assassins and spies, answering direct to Gota. Igin didn’t care for its members, harboring a professional dislike for what he thought should be a part of the army instead of an independent entity. He was far too seasoned to show this however, and his many years as a soldier had taught him to know his place.

  - Hel.

  - General Igin.

  After the austere greetings had been given, both of the servants continued on their way, Igin going out into the empty hall whilst the woman with her face painted in midnight blue went in to speak with the one she served. Igin stifled his curiosity and kept walking until he heard the doors close behind him. When they did, he stopped and briefly started a line of thought before he shook his head, as if he was trying to rid himself of his folly. Continuing his stride, the general started the long descent down from the top floor, down to the plane of mortals.

  --To be continued--