Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Fire Emblem Tellius Saga: Book 1 ❯ CHAPTER 10: MONSTER ( Chapter 10 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The weather was marginally warmer this far south, but snow still fell and nights still froze. Soren kept moving, and before he realized it, his path eventually brought him back to the village he’d once shared with Ike and his family. Any sign of the massacre was long gone, but Soren imagined he still saw bloodstains on the cobblestones and the shadows of bodies in his peripheral vision.

Recently he’d been wearing a knit cap large enough to pull all the way down to his eyebrows, thus covering the offensive mark. Greil had told him not to hide it, and for a long time he hadn’t. But now life was simpler if he could avoid immediately repulsing everyone he spoke to. He approached people on the street, half-recognizing their faces and hoping they would not recognize him. He asked about a man named Greil and his two children who had moved away three years ago.

A few people remembered the man fondly, but none of them knew where he’d gone. Soren was oddly disappointed, even though he hadn’t expected anything better. He wasn’t even sure why he wanted this information. Did he hope Greil would take him in again? Did he dream of growing up as a brother to Ike? Did he fear Greil had gone berserk again? Did he simply want to know if Ike was still alive?

Afraid that he would be recognized if he stayed too long, Soren did not seek work here. Upon leaving town, he visited Elena’s unmarked grave, although he did not know why he came or what he was supposed to do. He promptly left her gravesite to steal offerings from the ones with tombstones. Moving on, he spent the night in someone’s hunting cabin in the woods.

 

Not long after that, Soren came to a town containing a large temple. It housed a dozen priests, priestesses, and acolytes and another dozen novices at various stages in their training. Clerics and bishops in the army even came here to study light magic and stave healing. Remembering the hot food and warm bed he’d been given at Temple Asic, Soren couldn’t help but hope this place would offer the same relief.

He waited until the end of the day, when the acolytes dispensed free food and medicine to the poor folk who lined up with bowls in hand. The Head Priestess, a tall woman with flashing gold eyes, oversaw the alms but did not participate herself. While standing in line with the others, Soren watched her and determined she was quite different than Belm and likely to be less welcoming.

When it was his turn to be served, he held out his bowl to receive a ration of the rice porridge and salted fish. “Does the temple need another pair of hands?” he asked the middle-aged acolyte. “I would work in exchange for a bed.”

She appeared caught off guard by the question. “W-we are perfectly sufficiently staffed, thank you,” she managed to say.

“I may not look it, but I am a wind mage…and a bearer of Ashera’s Protection.” He lifted his hat enough to reveal the birthmark before pulling it down again. “I would be honored to serve in a place graced by the Goddess.” He had practiced the line all afternoon, forcing the lies between his teeth, oozing just the right amount of reverence.

The acolyte seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “May I see that again?” she asked, pointing timidly at his head. Soren removed his hat entirely this time, deciding it was best not to seem like he was hiding it after all. The acolyte stared at the mark a moment and swallowed fearfully. Soren didn’t think that was a good sign, but she then seemed to collect her composure, glancing at the line behind him. “I-if you go to the prayer garden, someone will meet with you when we are finished here.”

Soren nodded and took her advice. The hot porridge steamed in the cold air, and he slurped it down as soon as he reached the circular garden next to the temple’s main building. The snow had been cleared away, and there were divots in the cold, compacted earth from the knees of people praying to the central statue all day. Walking around the sculpture, Soren assessed it from all angles.

Ashera appeared in bronze three times over, and by moving clockwise, he could watch the goddess go through the motions of striking down the dark god who’d flooded the world. First the god raised the seas to swamp mankind, then Ashera appeared and split the waters, thus saving one of the three men whose aghast faces appeared in the metal. Then she pulled a great sword from the water and cleaved the monstrous beast in two. The god melted into its own flood, and the surviving human prostrated himself before the version of the goddess who stood tall at the center of the sculpture. It was an intricate work of art, and the tendrils of bronze meant to resemble water seemed to flow and course around the sculpture when the viewer circled it.

“It is called Divine Justice,” a voice said, and Soren turned toward it. The Head Priestess was standing at the entrance to the garden with a male acolyte on either side. “It is a reminder to strike down darkness wherever it may appear. To oppose darkness is to act in the Goddess’s name. To mirror her image and to lead by her example—these are the only ways by which we can preserve the world.”

Soren tried not to stare at her as skeptically as he felt. “It’s a nice statue,” he said simply.

“I’ve been told you seek a place among us. Is that true?” Despite her long-winded introduction, it appeared she was willing to get down to business, and Soren appreciated that.

“Yes,” he answered. “I have worked at other temples before, doing whatever chores need be done. I can read, write, and manipulate large numbers. And as a Spirit Charmer, I am trained in wind magic.”

The priestess narrowed her golden eyes. “You claim to be a Spirit Charmer?” she asked in a low voice. “Think carefully before you answer. You stand on holy ground, and Ashera is listening.”

Soren eyed the acolytes on either side of her and realized they were both holding light tomes. He had been tricked into waiting for his own ambush. Then again, no one had tricked him into coming here. He’d known the risks and come greedily, hoping he could lie his way back into an easy life. He should have known better.

“Are you a Spirit Charmer?” the Head Priestess prompted again. “Or are you a liar?”

Soren took a step back. “I can see you are not amenable to the idea. You could have just said so. I can leave.” He took another step and looked for another way out of the garden.

“And spread your ilk elsewhere?” She shook her head. “I will not allow it. You, defiler, are the darkness that seeps into this world. You will now be expunged.”

Soren closed his eyes and threw up his arms in an attempt not to be blinded by the dual light attacks. But the brightness dazzled his eyelids anyway, and he felt the attacks burning his arms, chin, and chest. It sizzled through his clothes, melting his sleeves. The warmth was entirely different than the heat of a flame. It was dizzying, and before he knew it, he was on the ground pressing his burned arms into the cool dirt. He felt his nerves had been fried, and the slightest touch of the ground was like an electric shock.

Colored dots blotted out his vision. Two pairs of hands seized him and dragged him away. He struggled, but it was useless; he hardly knew which way was up. Before long, he was tossed into a cold, damp place. When his eyes adjusted and the shock of the light attack passed, he realized he was in some sort of cellar. Resisting the urge to soothe his wounds in the dirty water pooling in the corner, Soren stumbled over to the iron grate door and called to whoever might be standing guard: “What’s going on!”

“You’re going to be exorcised, wretch,” someone called back. “Now why don’t you get a head’s start and start praying? Might hurt less.” The voice laughed as if this was a particularly funny idea.

Soren started shivering and couldn’t tell if it was due to the cold, an aftereffect of the light attack, or simply fear. He recalled Greil’s warning as if the man were standing in the cell with him: “Men of faith come in two types,” he’d said, “the ones who’ll enshrine you and the ones who want to burn you at the stake. You’ve got to know how to read them. You’ve got to anticipate what they’re looking for.” Soren had done absolutely no reconnaissance before presenting himself at this temple. That was his own foolish mistake.

But he was determined it would not be a fatal one. Examining the cellar around him, he searched for an escape. There were two narrow windows set into the wall, but they were twice his height and there was nothing to climb on. Even if he could reach them, the iron bars were too thick to cut with wind magic.

Next Soren turned his attention to the door. The bars were of the same thickness as the windows, but it was only held in place with a simple padlock—the kind Soren had demolished countless times before.

The clergy had not taken his wind tome, and that was their mistake. Perhaps they’d assumed his claim to know wind magic was equal to his claim of Spirit’s Protection. Summoning his power and concentration, Soren aimed a spell at the lock. He knew the sound would draw whatever guard owned the voice and the laugh, but he would deal with that when the time came.

“*Fly spirits of wind!*” The bars rattled in the gale, and the lock fractured, falling to the ground with a thud.

“What’re you doing down there!” a man’s face appeared around the bend atop of the steps.

Soren wasted no time directing his next attack straight at him. “*Spirits of wind, slash the flesh before me!*”

He yelped and pulled back his neck in surprise. The winds flew past, digging a small hole in the stone wall. “Flying flapjacks!” the guard exclaimed. Soren had seen his white collar and could only assume he was a light mage. He may have even been one of the ones who’d attacked him, but Soren hadn’t been memorizing their faces at the time.

Dashing up the steps, Soren chanted another spell. He could hear the man incanting his own, but Soren was faster. He ducked low to the ground as soon as he reached the top of the steps and aimed his spell at the man’s legs.

A burst of light erupted above Soren’s head, just singeing his hair. But he was otherwise unharmed, and that was more than he could say for the acolyte. The man had fallen to the floor, where he rocked back and forth gripping his leg. The blade of wind had cut deep, and Soren could see a sliver of white bone amidst the gushing blood. He stepped back to avoid the growing pool and wondered if he’d unintentionally hit the femoral artery.

“You monster! You bastard! You f-freak,” the man stammered while his face went ashen. “Ashera will smite you for this!”

Soren thought that was a bizarre threat. “Ashera won’t avenge you,” he whispered in reply. “If she even exists, I am sure she doesn’t care about anything you or I do.”

“Blasphemy!” the man cried, and there were tears running down his pale cheeks.

Reaching out a hand to his light tome, the binding of which was already soaked in blood, he began uttering the words of a spell: “*Spirits of light, follow my-*”

Soren had begun chanting before the man had set fingers to the tome, and now he unleashed his own spell. “*-before me!*”

This time, the wind arced downward like an invisible lance. Soren had hardly had a chance to aim it, but the gusts tore into the man’s neck and shoulder, splattering the blood in an eerie splash and pushing the pool away in ripples. Soren was completely taken aback by the effect. He’d never aimed a spell in such a way, and he had certainly never used magic to hurt someone so extensively before.

Retreating farther down the hall, Soren stared at the man and was momentarily confused that he wasn’t struggling to rise or utter another light spell. He wasn’t unleashing furious threats or silly curses. He wasn’t doing anything. Watching the blood spread a moment longer, he realized the light mage was dead.

Soren had killed him.

“Hey, you okay, Gorgov?” a voice called down the hall. “I thought I heard-”

Heart beating fast, blood pumping in his veins, Soren launched himself over the dead acolyte’s body and ran toward the face at the end of the hall. He summoned another wind spell while this man stared in surprise, but he couldn’t bring himself to make this one sharp.

The gust blew hard against the man, knocking him against the wall. His head hit stone, but he did not fall unconscious. He merely raised one hand to the back of his head, obviously dizzy, while reaching out to Soren with the other. 

But Soren was too fast, and he ran down the adjacent hall as fast as he could. The sun was setting when he exploded from the temple’s basement entrance. No one else was standing guard, but acolytes, novices, and a couple patrons were still milling about the temple grounds.

Sparing them only a cursory glance, Soren ran for his life. He heard someone scream and someone else shout, “Stop him!” But he didn’t look to see who’d said it.

“Murderer!” someone yelled next, and he knew this voice belonged to the dazed man in the hall. He must have found his comrade’s body.

Pops of light magic exploded behind him, but none hit him. When he reached the edge of the temple grounds, he ran through a copse of trees, waded across a freezing cold creek, and didn’t stop running until he reached town again. He exited the little forest near the town’s forging district and hid in a mule’s stall listening to the hammering and clinking of metal until his heart quieted.

He knew people would be looking for him, and he knew this was an obvious hiding place. So as soon as he’d caught his breath, he left the stall and skirted through alleyways, across smith yards, and around smelters.

Night soon fell, and Soren was grateful for the darkness even if it also meant the temperature dropped. The cold prickled the inside of his lungs as he ran, and he felt like tiny slivers of ice were shredding him from the inside. When he couldn’t run anymore, he found a crevasse between two giant rocks in the woods and crawled inside, hoping it wasn’t the den of a dangerous creature.

He was terrified smoke would draw the attention of his pursuers, if they were still out looking for him, so he didn’t start a fire. Wrapping his cloak around himself and burrowing as far back into the cave as he could, he gingerly touched the burns on his arm, face, and neck and ran the entire event through his mind—over and over.

He had killed a man, a man who’d had a name. “Gorgov” the other had called him. He’d been a clergyman, a servant of Ashera, a supposedly good person. But Soren had only been defending himself, and could that man have been truly good if he and his comrades had attacked and imprisoned him? Soren was not quite sure what ‘exorcism’ entailed, because it was not an approved practice of the church; Temple Asic had certainly not had any books about it. But he understood enough to know it probably would have left him dead, and that would have made Gorgov and the others the killers in this situation. 

“There are no murderers,” Soren mumbled to himself. He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it, but for some reason, the words gave him comfort. “There are no murderers.” Shivering in the dark, Soren squeezed his eyes shut and reminded himself that magic was a weapon, and weapons were meant to maim and kill. That was why he’d wanted to learn magic in the first place: to defend himself, to hurt the people who wanted to hurt him. “This was what I wanted,” he whispered. Then a thought surged into his brain, and he gave voice to it: “That man had no more right to live than me.” With this in mind, Soren fell into a half-sleep.

 

In the early days of spring, Soren was kidnapped and trapped into service by a bandit company of forty or so men and women. The leader fancied himself ‘King of the Barbarians’, and as king, he wanted servants. Soren, being young, defenseless, and relatively able-bodied, was a natural choice to join his hoard. He did whatever he was told and was not allowed to leave or ask questions. In return, he was given food to eat, clothes and shoes to wear, a smelly hide to keep himself warm at night, and a tent to sleep in with the other servants.

He had his tome but he didn’t use it to escape. Even after coming to terms with the necessity of killing to stay alive, he was not fond of the prospect of doing it again. He was treated well enough at the hands of the bandits, who exercised their blood lust (and regular lust) on their victims and so had no violence left to expend on their slaves.

Soren sharpened their weapons, polished and painted their armor, washed and mended their clothes, cleaned and cured the hides from their hunts, cooked their food, poured their ale, washed their cups and bowls, dug their latrines, delivered their messages, carried their belongings, and so on. He stayed with the bandits for two months and had no plans for escaping, but the decision was made for him.

One night, when the ground was thick with the day’s rain, Soren heard the sound of hooves splashing and slurping through the sodden earth. Thirty Crimean cavalrymen bedecked in gleaming armor came riding through the field, spraying mud in their wake. The bandit’s camp exploded in confused fighting, and Soren ran for his life with the other servants.

When he reached the woods, he climbed a large dogwood tree and hid among the sleeping white buds. Horses twisted their ankles in the bloated earth, and a messy battle ensued. The soldiers were outnumbered, but even with the terrain advantage, the bandits were outmatched. The King of Barbarians died, along with most of his cohort.

Even after the raid ended, Soren stayed in the tree. With his back against the wet trunk and his feet pressed unevenly against two different branches, he breathed in the rather unappealing, almost salty smell of the dogwood flowers and wondered why he could never hold on to any sense of security.

 

Later that spring, while wandering aimlessly down a forgotten path in the countryside, Soren happened upon a curious place. It was a little cabin at the end of a long stretch of farmland. It was surrounded on all sides by a square fence, and ropes were strung from the porch to various points within the yard. They led to the door of a tool shed, the corner of a wood pile, the handle of a well, the edge of a chicken coop, the gatepost of a small corral of goats, and the arbor of a well-tended garden.

An old woman hobbled out of the house, prodded the ground with a walking stick. Seizing one of the ropes with a gnarled hand, she followed it. After watching a couple moments, Soren realized the woman was blind. Curious if she would notice him, he approached the fence. When she showed no sign of hearing him, he gently pushed open the gate and stepped inside.

The hinges squeaked when it closed behind him, and the woman’s head shot up. “Who’s there?”

Soren remained still.

“I know you’re there!” she called grumpily. “It’s cruel to play pranks on an old blind woman. Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

Soren still said nothing.

Giving up, the woman returned to the task of using her hands and feet to measure plots in the garden. She dug trenches, mounded dirt, and planted seeds, marking each with a stake. She set up lattices and posts for climbing plants. Soren was impressed.

But when watching her ceased interesting him, he went to the house and looked through the windows. There was no sign of another person living here. Soren braved a step onto the porch, and the creaking wood immediately caught the woman’s attention.

“Stay out of my house! I know you’re there!” She began hauling herself hand-over-hand along the rope, but Soren hopped off the porch before she could reach him. He was light on his feet, and she soon lost track of him again.

“Pah!” she grumbled, going inside and slamming the door.

In that moment, Soren decided he would stay here for a while. He could easily avoid the blind woman, and even if she caught him, he didn’t think she could hurt him. He would steal eggs from her chickens and milk from her goats. He could pilfer food from her kitchen and draw all the water he needed from her well. He could dig himself a place under her porch and perhaps even furnish it with blankets from her house. He could seek shelter in her shed if need be, and when her garden started producing crops, he could steal those as well.

Over the next few days, Soren proceeded with his plan—much to the woman’s frustration. She often suspected he was there, but he never let her catch him. Once he even sneezed, and the woman was sent into a crazed fit trying to find him and hit him with her stick.

Soren explored the area and determined secondary locations he could hide if anyone showed up. But farmers rarely checked these fields, and when they did, they completely ignored the woman and her allotment.

A week passed before someone came to check on her specifically, and when he finally heard a horse on the road, Soren made himself scarce. He ran in the opposite direction so the house would hide his escape and crouched in a neglected orchard. From here he watched a man who might have been the woman’s son dismount and try to hug her. But the woman did not return the gesture, clearing enraged. She waved her stick around, gesticulating wildly.

Soren wondered if she was telling him about the vagrant who’d moved in under her porch and if he would believe her. Of course, Soren hid his blankets behind a rock each day so no one peeking in would see evidence of him living there. He couldn’t help but grin at the woman’s expense. She had been a fine companion, and as long as this man was not here to stay, she would continue to be.

 

The woman’s son began visiting more often after that, and sometimes Soren merely hid behind the shed until he left, rather than running all the way to the orchard. He listened to their conversations and knew the woman was beseeching her son to rid her of the trespasser. The man, meanwhile, thought his mother was losing her mind, and he begged her to leave this little plot of land and come live with his family in town. The woman adamantly refused.

When she showed him the tops missing from her asparagus, the son said deer must have been nibbling them in the night. When she pointed to the empty spaces in her cupboard, her son asked if she remembered how many blankets she’d originally owned. When she brought him into her the tiny cellar where she curdled cheese and tried to explain what was missing, it was clear he did not trust his mother’s judgement in the least. Soren nearly laughed.

 

But he knew this easy life leaching off the woman could not last, and he fully expected to be discovered one of these days. Eventually that day arrived—or rather, night. Soren had been sound asleep in his den under the porch steps, but he jolted awake when he felt someone dragging him by the ankles. He kicked and squirmed, but his own stolen blankets inhibited his movement. Before he knew it, he was exposed in the dewy night air.

“I told you!” the woman crowed triumphantly. “I told you!”

“It’s a kid!” the son announced, obviously astounded to find he’d been wrong.

“Let go of me,” Soren snarled, using his voice for the first time since coming here. He was taken aback by how animalistic it sounded.

The man caught sight of Soren’s birthmark in the moonlight, and his expression changed from bewilderment to horror. “He’s cursed!” he warned his mother. “Stay back!”

“I’m the one who’s cursed,” grumbled the woman, “Cursed with a dunderhead for a son.”

Soren tried to run, but he seized his legs. In the struggle that ensued, the man got a few good punches in. One forced Soren to bite his tongue, filling his mouth with blood. He tried to form the words of a spell, but he couldn’t complete a full utterance before the man hit him again.

“Begone devil! You leave my mother alone!” he panted between blows.

Soren would have liked nothing better than to be gone, but in spite of his words, the man would not let him. He continued to wail on Soren, perhaps beating out his own frustration at having been fooled for so long.

When he finally tired, he sat back on his heels, panting. Soren picked himself up and ran with his sore arms crossed over his bruised stomach and chest. He tucked his chin and didn’t stop until he was confident the man wouldn’t catch him even if he did recover his breath and decide to pursue.

Eventually being chased away—that he had expected, but he’d not anticipated how bad the beating would be. Grimacing against the pain, Soren spat out a glob of blood and saliva. Why do I keep taking risks like this? he wondered, but the answer came immediately: he had no choice. Being alive (and trying to stay that way) was risk enough.