Chapter 7: Sarkana’s Sanctuary

    It's Saturday already?

   Welcome to another segment of this ridiculously scattered dream. If you have joined me so far, I am beyond thrilled to have you here again. Casimir's tale is not the easiest to read, as it is, in essence, an exploration of chaos, so I am grateful to the audience it has culminated so far. Unfortunately, considering the immense pressure and stress I feel by writing this 'live', I won't be able to continue this story anymore, at least, not in front of everyone. It seems to be tainting the artistic purity of the piece ... I am regretful to announce that this will be the last chapter I post before the book is finished.

    Regardless, can you think of a better way to celebrate this April Fool's Day than with Casimir, a bonafide jester? I do hope you all a magnificent Fool's Day, and whether it bring pain or happiness, that it, (at the very least), offers some laughter, too.

   Happy April Fool's Day Prosers! Hopefully you caught the terrible joke. (You can't be rid of me that easily.) Enough is enough. Let us begin! 

                                                     ~  ~

    It is when fate is kind that we can entertain illusions of control, as specters might temporarily feel alive when moonlight and darkness coincide to grant their silver silhouettes the impression of fair skin, once again.

    That is not to say we cannot dictate how we tread our paths. There is power in softly spoken words, in biding for a crucial second between moments passing idly by, in love spawned from passing glances and hatred stretched over seasons, in haggard breaths facing opposition. We possess capabilities and potential just within our reach of fathoming. But all is constricted, all is tested, ground, pressured and prodded by that constant presence that has begun all this and will end it all the same: chaos.

    We are merely artists. Chaos is the creator. We are her ink and brush. But so long as we persist within this realm of happenstance, we may as well be her masterpieces.

In all its strangeness, my uncomfortable flight with the gargoyle bat continued for quite some time. I might’ve said, ‘longer than I expected’ but it’s not the most rational thing, to expect much of anything from something as ludicrous and unpredictable as being swooped from the air by a bat. As the darkened landscapes swirled beneath my tingling feet, the sky breathed silences of midnight beneath scorching scars, their light frozen by the wintry air. Time, once more, was dismantled from its linear nature, now dwindled into surreal obscurity.

    I reflected on all that had happened that evening, on what events might cascade from my regicide, on who I had become by killing William. My expression stiffened while the frigid winds froze my lips, realizing that killing ends the life of another, but may do little to the murderer. Flesh remains flesh and blood courses the same in unaltered veins; thoughts alone are the movements by which the soul shifts. And within that shift, guilt and justification quarreled for my attention as I imagined the possibility—even if it seemed unthinkable—that perhaps, one day, William would have conquered his insanity. If only I had waited. If only I had endured. If only I hadn’t already imbibed the poison of our companionship souring after that madness had consumed him, replacing what blessings we had in each other with bonds of hatred.

    In killing him, I didn’t rid Netherway of a madman, I merely replaced his body with my own. Now that he had been assassinated, his martyrdom would permit all of his greatest attributes immortality, while his insidiousness, and the actions the court refused to share to the public, would be passed to my name. A bloodied heirloom.

    Briefly, a colony of much smaller, chittering bats joined our flight, their wings like wildly fluttering, tattered dark pages that enveloped us. I stretched my arms out to feel their leathery skin and furry bodies as they investigated the unusually straight path of the gargoyle, who didn’t react to them in the slightest. Disenchanted, the colony then dipped downwards, returning to a cavern in the face of an adjacent cliff.

    But the distraction didn’t afford a long relief from my reflection. The guards’ corpses I’d left for the sake of my escape didn’t haunt me, they lingered as unanswered questions. That is: why I felt so little remorse, no burden of morality? I was distracted, drawn, confounded by the flashes of clarity I felt when those moments rose to an apex of tension. It seemed, at their sanguine summit, with blood rushing both within and outwards, my actions were little else than the unfolding of cards from a loaded deck, a wink of mischief at all of life’s miseries, taunting them to do better while I played the fool but murdered the chances. With death dancing as the consequence to failure, the stakes were too steep to play fairly. And within this game of justified horror, it made more sense to celebrate and laugh for my victories, to craft purpose out of action, than to weep for the atrocities demanded.

    The gargoyle bat made such a dramatic shift in direction as it dove from the sky, I thought I would surely be whisked out of its claws and into the air, to plummet into the canopies of the Sea of Blood.

    We ducked through a haze of thick clouds, our descent quickening while the lands beneath us neared. At the edge of the forest, a dark house with sharp, pointed roofs overlooked a cliff that was beating back the glittering, atrous waters of the Ruined Sea. Six conical towers surrounded the house like points of a star, each of their tops circled by a single ring of mauve light. And when I looked hard enough, I could see a thin, wispy chord of the same color connecting them all.

    The sanctuary’s gates were not iron, but wood, and not cut wood, mind you, but branches extending from two live trees that stood on either side, seemingly conjoined to the stone walls that connected each tower, and thriving with the same colored leaves as the forest beneath us.

    The bat ceased gliding and flapped its wings high above the entrance, as if confused. We sat in the air, flapping.

    I looked down at the candlelit windows of the dwelling beneath me, not entirely comfortable with the idea that I had been delivered here against my will, even if it was much, much farther from Portsworth than I ever could have hoped to be in such a short amount of time.

    Without warning, the bat relinquished its piercing grip, having difficult tearing one of its nails from my clothes.

    “Damned!” I started to scream a string of insults, but thought of a better use of my energy, and instead grasped onto one of the bat’s claws, now panicked with how my body dangled perilously over the pleasant view.

    The bat’s eyes shifted in color. They turned glossy black, wide, frightened and frantic. Now the creature emitted every noise it seemed possible of screeching, as if to make up for the hour of silence we shared in the sky. It snapped and bit at my head, and even used the thumbnail of its wing to claw at my neck.

    “Ow! Shh! Calm down!” I hissed uselessly at it.

    The beast steered frantically left and right in the air as it attempted to shake me off. Until finally, it squeezed its claws together and wrenched itself away.

    My hands slid from their grip and I dropped toward the ground, screaming loud enough to shake leaves from branches. I didn’t close my eyes, I opened them wide, hoping to take in every last detail of my meaningless death before my body smashed against the earth. For all that had happened that evening, to die a death of falling from a crazed bat was less than appealing.

    Halfway through my descent, the ground stopped rushing to meet me and my plummeting slowed. I was hovering weightlessly, falling slower than a feather, cradled in a glove of heavy air the same color as the turret’s circles. First nervous, then exuberant laughter came from my chest. I somersaulted and flipped in defiance of gravity, whooping hysterically that I had not died as an idiot. Enjoying the divine intervention, I was already sorry to see that my feet were close to contacting the ground. 

    After my toe touched the damp earth, my weight returned.

    Unharmed, astonished, and alive, I dusted myself off and adjusted my belt, staring at the knotted branches that comprised the sanctuary’s gate. Behind me, a small path led into the Sea of Blood, its trees now staggeringly tall with me beneath them. I walked closer to the branches that wove the gate together and reached a hand out towards them.

    My finger brushed against one of the leaves. The branches shivered and recoiled from my touch, curling into their trunks and folding against one another as if I had harmed them. They left an opening, one that led to a path of small stones, each one carved with symbols I’d never seen before, luminescent pale, gleaming starkly against in the night. 

    The mansion sat several bodies high above the ground. The dark, duskenwood structure rested on a massive block of stone. Surrounding the home were groves of plants and trees, their bark overrun with emerald green algae.

    Although my stomach squirmed at the thought of going further, it didn’t seem likely that whoever led me here would give up if I simply turned around and tried my chances in the forest. Against my better judgement, I took the first tentative step on the brightly lit path.

    My foot fell upon one of the runed stones. Damson light sparked out of the engraving. The ground crunched and another step jutted out of the earth in front of my foot. I took my next step on it, and another, higher step ascended. I continued, enthralled by the architectural enchantment, and enjoyed watching as each footfall summoned a pillar of stone that rose taller than the one before it.

    As my foot left the last stone step and met the wooden walkway of the porch, the staircase behind lurched, then dropped back into the ground with grinding clunks. 

    “Welcome, Casimir, to my humble sanctuary,” a woman’s calm voice greeted me. I jumped, nearly tripping over myself as I stumbled backwards. My hand went to one of my daggers, before I remembered that I’d just been saved from falling to my death, perhaps twice, by presumably the shadow now speaking to me.

    She was sitting on the guardrail between the pillars that supported the porch’s slanted roof. As if we had been good friends all along, she sipped from a steaming mug before gesturing at another one waiting for me on the railing. For now, I ignored the burning question as to how she knew my name.

    My eyes widened. In the dark, it appeared that she had the most bulbous, hideous head I had ever seen. I walked closer, saying nothing, observing the circular headpiece of silver and glass that encased her head, leaving only her nose, lips and cheeks uncovered. Like honeycomb, the headpiece was covered in dozens of lenses of various sizes, each one with a small lever. She reached up and flicked one, activating a click and a small movement in the contraption, before one of the lenses turned black. Only one of her eyes stared through a clear lens, the iris bright silver and simmering against the thin glass.

    “I … you,” I stammered. “This is what you call ‘humble’?” I laughed, not nearly mad enough to believe any of this was a dream, but just stupid enough to think that in the first place, after all that had happened. 

     The woman was dressed in garments that you’d commonly see in higher orders of practitioners: well-fitted arms, leggings, and a high-collared tunic with a belt that overlaid the ensemble, all in black. Stripped layers of ashen grey cloth hung from the shoulders and the waist, sifting in a sea-scented breeze frozen by the late hour. To my surprise, she matched my height, with skin as light as a pureblooded Moon-elf, and a body that appeared tiny, nearly frail.

    “Well, you of all people should know that humility is cheap. Oh, is this unsettling?” She switched the dial on the lens that covered her other eye, revealing her full, flitting gaze that quickly ran up and down my body. She tilted her head. “You’re taller than I expected you to be in person.”

    “I—thank you. This is all rather impressive, though unexpected,” I added with a less than pleased tone, feeling the lingering pain of the bat's claws. I turned my head around to observe the towers, the perplexing design of the house’s twisted and arching wood, the vines and plants that hugged the pillars and encased the walls, and the woodworking of the hideous faces staring down from the eaves at the entrance. Fireflies decorated the air with their meandering bodies of gold light, pulsing intermittently as they floated about the garden. “I will admit I am somewhat …”

    “Speechless?”

    “No.”

    “Confused, then.”

    “Incredibly.” I took up the steaming cup, smelling mugwort tea, and sipped it.

    “Yes, it is all quite confusing. Please, forgive me for that. Oh, where have my manners fled to? This must be jarring, and it’s been some time since I’ve spoken to anyone, let alone someone from my own kin,” she admitted with a shaky laugh before hopping down from her seat. “My name is Sarkana Bloodbane. Mala’desh manorei.” She smiled and bowed her head, the lenses on her head catching the moonlight as she did.

    “Cas—Mala’desh manorei,” I returned the Qalmorian greeting with a stutter. Simultaneously, we placed our right hand on each other’s left breast, long enough to feel the heartbeat underneath. It was common practice between elves of the same breed to exchange gestures respective to their kin, even if it was a meeting between strangers. Dusk-elves have the fortunate and other times unfortunate tradition of kissing fully upon meeting. Her heart, I felt, was racing. I noticed then, just like Shamus, that she had countless symbols etched into her hands, much different but just as complex as his.

    “Shall we go inside? I’m sure you have as many questions as there are stars in the sky, and you must be freezing from that flight. Please, follow me,” she said, opening the door to her home. “How’d you enjoy the fall?” she laughed.

    “Is it possible for something to be too dreamlike?”

    “Only if you can’t imagine it for yourself.”

    The wood creaked, not for the hinges but its ponderous weight, before she closed it behind us. Although crisp with years of solitude, the air inside was welcoming, and warm enough to make the edges of my fingers sting after being numbed to the cold.

    She walked to the staircase directly facing the door, where two pillars on either side held out silver bowls with stone hands. At the base of one pillar, she touched her finger to a symbol, and out of the embers in the bowls, fire burst upwards before they settled to a low burn. A chain of lights from torches, metal fixtures, stone sconces and two hearths then cascaded to life, illuminating the room with exhalations of flame and steady flickers.

    “Wonderful,” I muttered aloud, both bewildered and enchanted. “Ouch! Fek!” I whirled to face an exuberantly mischievous expression of a blood imp, sloshing my tea as I did. Its large, red eyes affixed to its tiny, furry head were positively dancing from having successfully bitten into my ankle. Its absurdly enormous, pointed ears flopped around as it spun on its hands in a dance of achievement.

    “Zuma! Stop that!” Sarkana chastised. “Casimir, I am terribly sorry. This little demon isn’t used to anyone else besides me. She must be excited.”

    “Evidently. Where did you get one of those, anyways?”

    “Oh, you know …” she said, not answering my question as she bent to pick up the four-legged creature, whose height didn’t extend far past my shin. Its eyes followed me even as she stroked its belly before placing it on the floor again, after which it scampered to the corner of a hallway, before peeking its head out specifically to watch me. Sarkana sighed, shaking her head. “By the fire, then?”

    Even for someone who wore a three-pronged hat nearly every day, this meeting was teetering a little too far beyond my boundaries of irregular. Reluctantly, I nodded, wondering if it was still feasible to run.

    Sarkana then removed the large contraption on her head, sighing as she pried off the tight-fitting, leather interior. A mess of damp, white hair fell in tangles before she hastily put it up with a loose strip of cloth that she had produced from inside her sleeve. Even without the mask, her age was difficult to gauge, as the lines on her face seemed to be caused more by stress than anything else. And yet, despite her stumbling greeting, she seemed far beyond youth, almost as if an excited energy shrouded her, one that time could not diminish. She had thin lips, a sharp nose, and angular jaws that brought out a peculiar beauty with a keen demeanor that seemed bent on scrutinizing, and exercising control meticulously.

    “What is that, exactly?” I asked.

    “Nothing that you’ll ever see beyond my hands, gods willing. I created it, after all. It’s a, well, I call it a seer’s eyes, not that it can glimpse into the future. It’s what I used to control that gargoyle bat. Or, if you prefer, Frederick.”

    My eyebrows flashed at the name she had chosen for a humungous beast. “Speaking of which--”

    “Let me assure you that you’ve not been captured, but saved. You would have died, Casimir, jumping from such a height. If I hadn’t known you better, I would have assumed you were trying to kill yourself. Even silver pools pack a density from a fall of that height. Your bones would have cracked when you met it.”

    I frowned, both skeptical and ashamed. “Well then, I owe you more than my thanks. On the other hand, I’ve only just met you, Sarkana. How could you know me?”

    She pursed her lips together and brought her fingers to them. “Perhaps we've only just met. But the Foxfeather Castle has been of interest to me, and I hope you don’t mind, but I have been rather diligent with my means of exploring it from a safe distance … for quite some time.”

    “You mean to say you’ve been watching me through the eyes of, aah, Frederick?”

    “Not you specifically, but recently, yes. And Frederick is not the only one, no. I have hexed more than a few creatures. Their individual spells are activated by these levers, here.” She pointed to the metallic points that switched the lenses. “After I’d spotted you plucking a familiar flower from that alchemist’s gardens, I must admit, I felt rather bewitched myself. When I realized what you were intending to do, I couldn’t keep my gaze from you. I watched you stare at that vial of poison in your chamber for nearly an hour, wasn’t it? Your hesitation …” She trailed off, as if all of it was just as mesmerizing now as it was then. I remained silent, anticipating that she had far more to say, and in all likelihood, far more that she wished to share but sensed she could not. Not now, at least.

    “But what truly captured my attention was when you embraced the aftermath of your actions. It was then that I realized, if there was any way that I could assist you, I would. So, after that mage nearly burnt down your chamber, I watched you fall, and well, that brings us to here.” Sarkana smirked. “You weren’t alone when you killed that monster, Casimir, even if all the members of your court sat still as ignorant stones, unwilling to stand up for your actions. They knew it was right. They did. I did, too. Let’s settle this odd tale this way: I had my own way of expressing my approval, and, fortunate for you, it was by saving your life.”

    Somehow, her clarification didn’t make me feel any less unsettled. I felt my voice hiding in the back of my throat, timid to respond from my scattered thoughts. Life gives as much as it takes, offering curses masquerading as blessings, misery disguised as happiness, and luck shadowed by misfortune; it seems nothing persists without its opposite. I had just murdered the very manifestation of that duality—a stranger that had become as close as a brother of my own blood, then a man I could not resist killing for all he had done.

    From behind Sarkana’s imploring eyes asking for my gratitude, I perceived a desperation less than innocent. So I flinched at my immediate instinct to trust, perhaps embittered by the true nature of fate’s meager graces, perhaps intimidated by the proficiency of higher magick that Sarkana, herself, possessed. They say that higher magick will kill a man if he does not practice it properly, but if he does, and if he does it regularly, it will consume him, his life, his ambitions.

    I could not help but wonder how long she had been living in solitude, and just what occupied her boundless time in a guarded sanctuary. Even then, I was trying to imagine just how fast I could sprint from her home.

    “Yes, thank you,” I replied carefully. “Though I doubt those words will do enough to express my gratitude to you. Forgive me, and I think you will understand,” I said with a chuckle, “that this evening has been a long one.”

    The dried branches soaked in the flames of the fire, crumbling, sizzling, and popping with the smell of roasted duskenwood. Exhaustion came in a sudden, vengeful rush, impatient after being fought back by the night’s adrenaline. Was it really just hours before that I tipped an uncorked tincture into a golden goblet filled with wine? I recalled the moment when I wondered if William would see the inconspicuous swirls of clear fluid before they dissipated into the vintage, and how his eyes met mine just as I turned around to present his death to him.

    “Of course not. No thanks or forgiveness necessary. Tonight, you did Addoran a favor. Though precious few will recognize it,” she said with a sigh. “The least I could do is offer you a place to rest.”

    Zuma’s clawed feet came tapping behind us on the wooden floor. The creature circled around the table in front of the hearth, her long, thin tail flicking back and forth as she sniffed my now cold tea.

    “Well then, aren’t you curious?” Sarkana asked, as if disappointed in me.

    “Curious?”

    “Don’t you want to see how the castle has been fairing with the death of their king? How they are all scrambling to find you? I have a finch in the castle’s gardens that might satiate your inquiries.” Sarkana made a motion to grab the seer’s eye while her lips did a poor job of hiding a toothy smile.

    I hesitated as she waited my response, then shook my head. “No,” I sighed, “I can’t imagine that there will be many nights where I don’t relive this one. At least for this hour, I might let my mind wander elsewhere, if you don’t mind.”

    Zuma leapt into my lap, nipping my hand as she did, which I took as an invitation to scratch her stomach. Her wet, pointed snout prodded at my fingers.

    “Yes,” Sarkana laughed. “You shouldn’t fret for keeping an old croon company, either. There is a spare chamber upstairs that you can rest in. I can only imagine how exhausted you are. There’s more to discuss, but I suppose it can wait until morning.”

    “I have little doubt you don’t have to imagine it,” I said with a nod toward the seer’s eye. “And, thank you, once more. I am not sure how many more times I can say it before it sounds empty.”

    “An expression of speech,” she smiled with a shrug, and then stood up and began walking away, carrying the seer’s eye with her. "As I said, there's no thanks necessary."

    “Oh? Where are you going?”

    “As much as it would be a pleasure to tuck you in, Casimir, I have some other tasks demanding my attention. I trust you can survive falling asleep without me. You’ll be happy to hear there are no guards waiting to kill you upstairs, nor angry mages to spit destruction incantations at you. Only a bed. Sleep well.” She turned into a doorway that led into an unlit kitchen overlooking the groves outside the home. Once she was inside, I heard another door open and close, and then another, followed by her descending footfalls down what I imagined was a staircase.

    In my lap, Zuma was curled into a ball of charcoal fur, her feet twitching every now and then while she chased after something in her dreams.

    I considered the ramifications of waking an imp from its slumber, and simultaneously, I felt the heavy, nearly paralytic waves of tiredness that claimed not only my limbs but my fingers. 

    My eyes fluttered on the flames of the fire, watching William’s body topple over his throne, seeing how his hand reached for his crown as the last of the poison’s convulsions staggered his heart to stillness. And I heard, once more, that reverent silence of death flourish throughout the massive dining hall, and how it shook even me in that moment, asking us all to consider the brevity and frailty of that gift we so often taint and squander.

    My head lulled backwards, the sky yawned a breath of dawn, an ember popped from the hearth, the imp snored, and I joined her.