Day One of NaNoWriMo
YAYAYYAYAYAY
I surpassed my word goal (mainly because I now have several "interludes" each of which was originally going to be the beginning of the story which is highly useful for when I'm stuck and I'm babbleing now so I'm going to stop...eventually...) I survived the first day :) (Which is pretty good considering that when I got out of my psych test all I really wanted to do was ram my head in to a wall until I passed out or the endorphins kicked in...)
And here it is, it all it's cliffhanger glory ;)
Chapter 1: You Still Won’t Hear Me
There was blood everywhere, all of it tainted with magic. He was watching, hidden in the shadows, as the Purge Warriors attempted to purge the world of all Dark and Dim magics. He could practically feel the heat of the Light magic as it swarmed across the collected practitioners of the Dark and Dim magics, burning their magic from their souls, condemning them to a long and painful death. He instinctively dropped his shields and tried to pull the hated magic into him, where it could be destroyed, only to fall gasping to the floor as it back-lashed at him. He blinked and there was a person in front of him, pulling him to his feet gently and brushing him off.
“What did you see, Andre?” his mother’s gentle voice caressed him like the dark moon’s rays.
He took a deep breath and recounted what he had seen in the void, of the way that the Purge Warriors were systematically traveling from area to area, searing the magic out of anyone who had been touched by anything save Light magic, sparing neither women about to give birth or children nay a decade old in their fanaticism.
“They must be stopped.” His father turned to look in the direction that the tenor voice came from and Andre shuddered, identifying the voice with the High Sorcerer of Shadows, Larik. The pale-eyed man emerged from the shadows that he had been skulking in, his bent and gnarled body giving him a grotesque appearance. “I propose that we start a revolution against them, a reformation of sorts. We must bring back the time where dark was separate from light, and with them their respective magics. We must form our own alliances and allegiances if we are to survive this so-called ‘Purge’.” He paused and spat viciously on the black marble floor. A servant immediately cleaned it up discreetly. “We must be stronger than them, faster than them, smarter than them, and more cunning than them. I propose that we claim our own lands immediately, remove them from the influence of those massacring bastards. Those who come to us for aid and protection from the Purge must swear off of Light magic or we’ll have another Purge-like situation on our hands.”
“What do you want us to do?” The High Sorcerer of the Void was quick to pounce on the idea of a rule more amiable to the practitioners of the Dark and Dim magics.
Larik chuckled and turned to look at the Void’s representative, Andre’s father. “Antion, Antion, Antion. Always so quick to steal power away from those who oppose you.” His pale unblinking eyes scanned over the assembled family representing the Void lineage. “Alexia, could you possibly put it out through your social networks that we’re undertaking a Reformation. Make it understood that all who side with us will be high on the list of Purge targets. I know that your social connections have kept you safe until now, but they can easily be used against you, just as those of the Light can be used against them.” Andre’s mother nodded in acceptance. “Antion, I need you to survey the land and pick out strongholds and people who you trust to act as area Lords over them. Then have those Lords choose officers and the officers choose underlings and collect everyone willing and able to fight. I leave their training up to you.” As Andre’s father nodded, Larik turned to face Andre, locking eyes with him and worming his way in between the cracks in Andre’s shields before lashing out mentally, sending Andre gasping to the floor. Alexia bent to pick up her son with a withering look at Larik, but was halted by her husband’s hand on her shoulder. When she looked questioningly at him, he shook his head and motioned for her to watch silently.
Andre was floated off the ground until he was eye level with Larik, who was sneering at him. “What’s wrong boy? Are you afraid? You should be.” Larik began circling the still floating Andre. “There’s something about you, some latent potential that you have kept hidden from all others. I think your parents deserve to know, don’t you?” He leaned in close to Andre’s back and rested his head on Andre’s shoulder. “I think I deserve to know.” He stepped back and stalked around so that he was face-to-face with the hovering boy. He shoved a skeletal hand over Andre’s heart, nails pointed towards the boy’s skin and pushed, only to have Andre’s shields clamp down tighter than they were before. “Now, now, none of that.” The hand ripped away the center of Andre’s shirt before returning to its original position with the nails pushing hard against the pale white skin. “Now, boy, I suggest that you consider your options very carefully. I will find out your little secret, the choice of which way I find it out is yours, however.” He released his mental hold on Andre, dropping him to the floor, where he landed in a crouched position, warily eyeing Larik, whose pale eyes were glowing menacingly. Andre defiantly locked eyes with the High Sorcerer of Shadows, his own blue eyes beginning to glow as he summoned power to the area around his eight-year-old body, eliciting a slow smile from Larik. “I was hoping you’d choose that way.”
The whites of Larik’s eyes became marbled and then turned solid black, leaving his pale irises glowing unnaturally between the former whites and his pupils. He then stretched his humped back upward, causing all the bones to crack and realign themselves. He proceeded to do the same with his neck, arms, legs, and lower back. In addition, his skin turned even grayer than it was previously and his hair melted into his skin as his lower jaw jutted forward and his teeth elongated and narrowed. He tossed off his cloak with a clawed hand, revealing his skin stretched painfully across his skeletal frame.
Andre snarled at the daemon before him and brought the power around to his front to form a clumsy shield, which was quickly torn asunder by the sheer force of Larik’s power. Larik then put pressure at points all across Andre’s mental shields, cracking them and then sent tendrils of electricity across the boy’s mind, causing him to crumble to the ground in pain, curled into a fetal position. Larik pulled him up by his hair, lifting him off the ground so that they were eye to eye again. “Just remember boy, don’t even think to challenge me. You won’t win.” He then proceeded to shred Andre’s shields and yank his psyche out to where he could examine it as the boy screamed in pain, his parents straining against the restraints put up by Larik.
The daemon twirled the psyche lazily around his fingers, pausing every once in a while to probe it with energy, causing Andre’s body, still suspended from Larik’s other hand, to twitch and his scream to increase in intensity until it died off, Andre’s throat refusing to take any more abuse. After a few minutes of fruitlessly prodding the psyche, Larik released it, causing it to spring back into Andre’s body with a snap. At the same time, he released Andre’s body, and the force of the returning psyche sent him flying into his parents. Larik’s bones realigned themselves once more, and his hair un-melted from his scalp as his jutting jaw shrunk to its original size and along with it his teeth. Finally, his eyes swirled again, leaving him a gnarled old man once more.
The High Sorcerer spat at the boy, who had slipped into unconsciousness. “Pathetic, absolutely pathetic,” he sneered. “Keep that thing away from me. All he was hiding was an empty void.” He turned his sneer to Antion. “Well, at least we know that the brat takes after you, ‘eh? At least it doesn’t have power, which would indicate that your lovely little trophy wife cuckooed you.” And with a mocking bow, he slipped into shadows, leaving behind the newly ranked Lord and Lady of the Void.
Antion motioned for a servant to take Andre to his rooms and turned and embraced his wife, who sobbed into his chest. He guided her to their rooms and had another servant draw a bath for her as he sat her down and brushed her hair gently until she stopped crying. “Andre is just a boy, why did Larik torment him so?” Alexia asked quietly, leaning back into her husband.
Antion sighed and breathed in her unique scent through her hair. “He wanted to make sure that Andre wasn’t a threat to him.”
She turned to face him. “And if he was?”
Antion closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his temples. “Let’s just be glad that he wasn’t.”
Something was wrong in the void. He could feel it pulsating around him, the wrongness of it screaming at him like the servants used to when he was younger…much younger. It was almost as wrong as when Larik ripped his psyche out of him and probed it, almost but not quite. Something was definitely off though. He pulled out of the void with practiced ease and sat up in his bed in a smooth motion, sliding out of the sheets that had cocooned him with the grace of a dancer. He let a few probes check the securities of the grounds, only to find that there had been a penetration in the perimeter by Light magic. With a snarl, he jerked out of bed and sent out more probes to determine the exact location of the Light workers in his ancestral home before taking off in the direction that the majority of the Light workers were clustered.
He could tell that something in the manor had been greatly altered, but could not discern what. That is, he couldn’t discern it until he heard his mother scream.
I surpassed my word goal (mainly because I now have several "interludes" each of which was originally going to be the beginning of the story which is highly useful for when I'm stuck and I'm babbleing now so I'm going to stop...eventually...) I survived the first day :) (Which is pretty good considering that when I got out of my psych test all I really wanted to do was ram my head in to a wall until I passed out or the endorphins kicked in...)
And here it is, it all it's cliffhanger glory ;)
Chapter 1: You Still Won’t Hear Me
There was blood everywhere, all of it tainted with magic. He was watching, hidden in the shadows, as the Purge Warriors attempted to purge the world of all Dark and Dim magics. He could practically feel the heat of the Light magic as it swarmed across the collected practitioners of the Dark and Dim magics, burning their magic from their souls, condemning them to a long and painful death. He instinctively dropped his shields and tried to pull the hated magic into him, where it could be destroyed, only to fall gasping to the floor as it back-lashed at him. He blinked and there was a person in front of him, pulling him to his feet gently and brushing him off.
“What did you see, Andre?” his mother’s gentle voice caressed him like the dark moon’s rays.
He took a deep breath and recounted what he had seen in the void, of the way that the Purge Warriors were systematically traveling from area to area, searing the magic out of anyone who had been touched by anything save Light magic, sparing neither women about to give birth or children nay a decade old in their fanaticism.
“They must be stopped.” His father turned to look in the direction that the tenor voice came from and Andre shuddered, identifying the voice with the High Sorcerer of Shadows, Larik. The pale-eyed man emerged from the shadows that he had been skulking in, his bent and gnarled body giving him a grotesque appearance. “I propose that we start a revolution against them, a reformation of sorts. We must bring back the time where dark was separate from light, and with them their respective magics. We must form our own alliances and allegiances if we are to survive this so-called ‘Purge’.” He paused and spat viciously on the black marble floor. A servant immediately cleaned it up discreetly. “We must be stronger than them, faster than them, smarter than them, and more cunning than them. I propose that we claim our own lands immediately, remove them from the influence of those massacring bastards. Those who come to us for aid and protection from the Purge must swear off of Light magic or we’ll have another Purge-like situation on our hands.”
“What do you want us to do?” The High Sorcerer of the Void was quick to pounce on the idea of a rule more amiable to the practitioners of the Dark and Dim magics.
Larik chuckled and turned to look at the Void’s representative, Andre’s father. “Antion, Antion, Antion. Always so quick to steal power away from those who oppose you.” His pale unblinking eyes scanned over the assembled family representing the Void lineage. “Alexia, could you possibly put it out through your social networks that we’re undertaking a Reformation. Make it understood that all who side with us will be high on the list of Purge targets. I know that your social connections have kept you safe until now, but they can easily be used against you, just as those of the Light can be used against them.” Andre’s mother nodded in acceptance. “Antion, I need you to survey the land and pick out strongholds and people who you trust to act as area Lords over them. Then have those Lords choose officers and the officers choose underlings and collect everyone willing and able to fight. I leave their training up to you.” As Andre’s father nodded, Larik turned to face Andre, locking eyes with him and worming his way in between the cracks in Andre’s shields before lashing out mentally, sending Andre gasping to the floor. Alexia bent to pick up her son with a withering look at Larik, but was halted by her husband’s hand on her shoulder. When she looked questioningly at him, he shook his head and motioned for her to watch silently.
Andre was floated off the ground until he was eye level with Larik, who was sneering at him. “What’s wrong boy? Are you afraid? You should be.” Larik began circling the still floating Andre. “There’s something about you, some latent potential that you have kept hidden from all others. I think your parents deserve to know, don’t you?” He leaned in close to Andre’s back and rested his head on Andre’s shoulder. “I think I deserve to know.” He stepped back and stalked around so that he was face-to-face with the hovering boy. He shoved a skeletal hand over Andre’s heart, nails pointed towards the boy’s skin and pushed, only to have Andre’s shields clamp down tighter than they were before. “Now, now, none of that.” The hand ripped away the center of Andre’s shirt before returning to its original position with the nails pushing hard against the pale white skin. “Now, boy, I suggest that you consider your options very carefully. I will find out your little secret, the choice of which way I find it out is yours, however.” He released his mental hold on Andre, dropping him to the floor, where he landed in a crouched position, warily eyeing Larik, whose pale eyes were glowing menacingly. Andre defiantly locked eyes with the High Sorcerer of Shadows, his own blue eyes beginning to glow as he summoned power to the area around his eight-year-old body, eliciting a slow smile from Larik. “I was hoping you’d choose that way.”
The whites of Larik’s eyes became marbled and then turned solid black, leaving his pale irises glowing unnaturally between the former whites and his pupils. He then stretched his humped back upward, causing all the bones to crack and realign themselves. He proceeded to do the same with his neck, arms, legs, and lower back. In addition, his skin turned even grayer than it was previously and his hair melted into his skin as his lower jaw jutted forward and his teeth elongated and narrowed. He tossed off his cloak with a clawed hand, revealing his skin stretched painfully across his skeletal frame.
Andre snarled at the daemon before him and brought the power around to his front to form a clumsy shield, which was quickly torn asunder by the sheer force of Larik’s power. Larik then put pressure at points all across Andre’s mental shields, cracking them and then sent tendrils of electricity across the boy’s mind, causing him to crumble to the ground in pain, curled into a fetal position. Larik pulled him up by his hair, lifting him off the ground so that they were eye to eye again. “Just remember boy, don’t even think to challenge me. You won’t win.” He then proceeded to shred Andre’s shields and yank his psyche out to where he could examine it as the boy screamed in pain, his parents straining against the restraints put up by Larik.
The daemon twirled the psyche lazily around his fingers, pausing every once in a while to probe it with energy, causing Andre’s body, still suspended from Larik’s other hand, to twitch and his scream to increase in intensity until it died off, Andre’s throat refusing to take any more abuse. After a few minutes of fruitlessly prodding the psyche, Larik released it, causing it to spring back into Andre’s body with a snap. At the same time, he released Andre’s body, and the force of the returning psyche sent him flying into his parents. Larik’s bones realigned themselves once more, and his hair un-melted from his scalp as his jutting jaw shrunk to its original size and along with it his teeth. Finally, his eyes swirled again, leaving him a gnarled old man once more.
The High Sorcerer spat at the boy, who had slipped into unconsciousness. “Pathetic, absolutely pathetic,” he sneered. “Keep that thing away from me. All he was hiding was an empty void.” He turned his sneer to Antion. “Well, at least we know that the brat takes after you, ‘eh? At least it doesn’t have power, which would indicate that your lovely little trophy wife cuckooed you.” And with a mocking bow, he slipped into shadows, leaving behind the newly ranked Lord and Lady of the Void.
Antion motioned for a servant to take Andre to his rooms and turned and embraced his wife, who sobbed into his chest. He guided her to their rooms and had another servant draw a bath for her as he sat her down and brushed her hair gently until she stopped crying. “Andre is just a boy, why did Larik torment him so?” Alexia asked quietly, leaning back into her husband.
Antion sighed and breathed in her unique scent through her hair. “He wanted to make sure that Andre wasn’t a threat to him.”
She turned to face him. “And if he was?”
Antion closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his temples. “Let’s just be glad that he wasn’t.”
Something was wrong in the void. He could feel it pulsating around him, the wrongness of it screaming at him like the servants used to when he was younger…much younger. It was almost as wrong as when Larik ripped his psyche out of him and probed it, almost but not quite. Something was definitely off though. He pulled out of the void with practiced ease and sat up in his bed in a smooth motion, sliding out of the sheets that had cocooned him with the grace of a dancer. He let a few probes check the securities of the grounds, only to find that there had been a penetration in the perimeter by Light magic. With a snarl, he jerked out of bed and sent out more probes to determine the exact location of the Light workers in his ancestral home before taking off in the direction that the majority of the Light workers were clustered.
He could tell that something in the manor had been greatly altered, but could not discern what. That is, he couldn’t discern it until he heard his mother scream.
posted by Niharana at 11:13 PM
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