Evening Star, Book 1-Spring Options

[Fiach]

I'm very sorry that I returning and disappearing education and life are very distracting :/
This is a fanfiction that I've been working on for a little while, and I hope you enjoy it, now that I've graduated I suddenly have amble free time on my hands, and my muse has returned

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The moons were red that evening, as if they were being bled dry.

Dalamus was crouching beside the door, his ear to the keyhole, his red eyes closed while he listened in on not just what was going on in the adjacent room, but what was around him. Sneaking and skulking about was not considered proper for a member of a noble house, even if that was pretty much the Telvanni family’s business model. Dalamus had to be careful; his attention was on what his father was saying in the other room, and he had been beaten for lesser things.

“And you’ve tried everything?”
“Everything in my power, your grace.”
That had to be Tolm, the finest healer in Tel Aruhn; and quite possibly the world.
“You’ve seen to his heart, liver, kidneys?”
“I’ve seen everything, checked and double checked. All are fine, his body appears to have just...given up.”
“What about poisons, have you checked for...”
“No toxins were detected in his blood” Tolm said firmly.

Dalamus heard the ring in his father’s voice as he continued the conversation and for a moment the young mage couldn’t identify what was in the man’s voice that made a chill run down his spine, as if he had just been pushed into a pool of ice cold water. His ignorance didn’t last long, as the emotion present stuck out like a broken nail. It was fear. His father was pleading with Tolm and Dalamus felt a cold dread in the pit of his stomach.

In his nineteen years he had never heard his father ask, beg or bargain for anything. In the seven years that his father was a Telvanni master, he could simply order for something, and it would be delivered expressly, often with an apology that it took less than an instant to acquire. Which was understandably of course, he had done much for the barren island, bringing in Western crops that had thrived in the volcanic enriched soil, making Tel Aruhn one of the few Telvanni settlements that didn’t suffer when slavery was outlawed, but instead prospered, making it one of the wealthiest towns in the province, people came from all over the empire to Tel Aruhn now, something that the Telvanni house was still getting used to.
But to hear the quaver in his father’s voice now, to see such a great man crushed by another’s mortality...no, it was too much.

Dalamus stepped up and brushed the dirt off his robes, turning to the bed where his brother lay.
This had once been their parent’s bedroom, wide and spacious, large enough for a servant to live in, but that wasn’t saying much. The candles by his brother’s bedside had melted down to tiny white stubs since he replaced them that morning and the fire at the end of the room had gone out. Dalamus stared at the cold hearth for an empty moment, deciding if it was worth the magicka to rekindle it, but gave up on the thought, sitting down on a small worn stool beside his brother.

Seren was five years younger, but at this point looked elderly, his ash coloured skin pale to the point that he could be mistaken for a human, his cheeks sunken and his red eyes (brighter then both moons at their peak, as his father once said) were now pushing out, as if ready to pop.

With a sad smile, Dalamus took the strip of cloth off his brother’s forehead and squeezed it, dipping in it a basin of rosewater placed beside the bed for that very purpose. It was strange, seeing his brother so tired, so weary. It was only a month ago that they were fighting, Dalamus was going out hunting with friends and Seren wanted to come and...Dalamus shook his head, as if to clear his mind from the thought. He wouldn’t cry, curse the heavens above for their situation, he was not weak. He was not like his father; he refused to be broken so easily.

“Sit tight little brother” Dalamus whispered gently.

“I have a plan”

The moons were red that evening, as if they were being bled dry.

[Fiach]

Phew, this is embarrassing, I really planned to update this weekly when I first wrote the introduction >,<
College has begun, Mechanical Engineering Year 1 (woooo ^,^), but I don't intend for it to slow me down too much, I have a schedule now anyway, so that should help, I intend to keep to this story to the end

Comments

I like that very last sentence. The useless attempt to warn his family, only to be thwarted by a breath of smoke. Very well written, I am eager for you to continue.

Thanks for reading Zaphone, Seren is a bit powerless here, but I'll be giving him a lot more development as the story progresses ^^

Your writing usually never needs editing, so I'm guessing you did this on a palm held PC or in a hurry - but the content was as awesome as ever! This chapter pulls the reader into every single scene in a hugely powerful way - Totally Awesome Write!

Thanks Malx, it's reaching a stage where I'm keeping a copy of some of your compliments to encourage me on my slower days. the break-downs really feed the ego
I actually did it on a palm held PC AND in a hurry, I'll have to keep my flashes of laziness under control in the future xD

and without further ado...

Chapter 1- Rebirth

Years ago, Dalamus heard a story about his father. When he was a young man, himself and a small band of Telvanni mages were researching Nordic magic in Solstheim. A snowstorm broke out while they were working, separating them from their camp and eachother.

Wandering for hours in the blinding cold, his father was unable see or hear any of his fellow mages, lost in the white. Night came quickly, No sooner had a full moon reached it’s peak that his father heard a howl pierce the calm air, a werewolf had caught their scent, moving through the storm quickly and easly, picking off the stranded mages one by one until finally it reached his father, Alveron Setso Indaryn. No more then an apprentice, he was the youngest mage there by nearly twenty years, but possessed a will to live that was unmatched by the others.

Using his limited knowledge, he lashed out desperately with fire magic, the flares catching instantly on the dry forest around himself and his attacker, barricading them in a cage of smoke and flames. The werewolf hung back, wary of the mage, but when it became apparent that its prey had run out of magicka, it sprung fort to attack.
Alveron was ready for him though, and with a battle cry reminiscent of the Nordic savages of old, he wrestled the monster with his bare hands. When the sun rose the next morning, he was the only member of his party to leave that burnt down forest alive.

Dalamus had never believed that story until then, but now that his father’s sleeves were rolled up, he saw the scars, painted silver against his father’s muscular grey arms, which even now looked threatening, like a coiled snake ready to strike.
Alveron was sitting back on an ebony throne, his fingers were spiderlike in the candlelight, tapping softly on the decorations on the arms of his seat. Dalamus waited there for what seemed to be an eternity, too ashamed to look the man in the eyes, all too aware of the strength of the gaze that was now upon him.

“You were told not to stay away from the Ashlands.” Alveron said finally, calmly, as if there was nothing wrong with their meeting.

“Father, I…” Dalamus tried to look up, but his father had risen with fury in his eyes, his cane brandished between his scarred fingers.

“You were told to stay away!”

Dalamus yelped as the cane made contact with the side of his face, tasted blood as he stumbled away from the black throne. Father followed, his calm voice turning into a shout, swinging after each word, punctuating every point with a blow.

“You were ordered to keep him safe!”

Breathing became difficult, but he felt the tingle of restoration magic knit his flesh and bones back together, before being split again with a well-placed swing.

“Alvos is dead…dead!”

“Father-” the cane hit his jaw with a dull crack, Dalamus hit the floor with a dull thump, no longer having the strength to get up.

It seemed that Alveron Indaryn no longer had the strength either, the cane clattering to the ground as he fell to his knees, placing his hand on his son’s broken face.
“So young... and he’s now rotting in some Kagouti’s stomach because you thought you knew better.”

Dalamus tried to speak, but saliva speckled with blood jumped from his lips instead.

The colours dimmed around him, and in the moment before he blacked out, the only thing he could make out was his father’s voice.
“He was your brother Dalamus…and you let him die.”


Dalamus awoke with a start, his vision was blurred with red and white and there was a ringing in his ears but apart from that he was oddly lost. His back was against a tree, he felt the mottled bark with his hand. There was a body by his feet, Torvir…or Toryyg, the name escaped him, Dalamus stared at the body curiously, noting the whiteness of the bone jutting from the armour, the odd angle of his legs, the bleached colour of his shrunken skin, as if he had spent a lot of time underwater.

Flames surrounded the two of them, darker then pitch and giving no glow. Dalamus had never seen black fire, bringing his hands to the flame before withdrawing it, unscathed. Some part of his mind realized that he was in deep shock, but he chose to ignore it, focusing his attention on what was around him.

Where that had once been stalls, there was charred wood and ash, where there was people, there were corpses, with coats of flames devouring them. Unfazed by the fire, Dalamus walked through, staring at the ruined world around him, afraid to touch or to look at what remained in the town he grew up. The fire around him gave no crackle, leaving no sound or smoke as they devoured wood and mushroom homes and the bodies of people he had loved.

Taking slow, awkward steps, he walked towards the tower where he had seen Seren, details over the past few hours were trickling back to him softly with every step that he took. Dalamus had seen his brother alive and well at the window, which had fulfilled his deal with Molag Bal, but he couldn’t fight the impulse to look for him, talk to him, say that he was sorry and explain himself to him…

As he approached the tower, he saw someone step from the building, a man dressed in a black silk suit, a cane with a monster’s head gripped between his pale fingers. A pair of large reptiles stood beside the man, Daedroths, Dalamus thought they were called, both looked at him with hungry grins.

The man waved at him with his cane, a bright smile on his face.

“Having fun little mortal?”

The voice, cruel and cold, was the exact same as that of the statue, the sound of it brought Dalamus out of his daze, suddenly aware of the ash on his shoes, the blood on his hands, the whiteness of the man’s hungry smile. Dalamus tried to move his feet in fear, wanting to run, but some force kept his feet on the blackened soil as the man approached,

“Time to finish our bargain little one” Molag Bal whispered, his teeth long and pointed.

“A life for a life.”

With devastating strength, the man sunk his fingernails into Dalamus’s skin, thin drops of blood trailing from where the claws touched. The sinking sound of Molag Bal’s teeth piercing his jugular reminded him vaguely of a crisp apple being chopped… his vision blurred from pulsing red to a silent black.

In the darkness, Dalamus felt the same way as he did all those years ago. Lying on the floor and coughing up blood in his father’s study, the soft voice of Alveron Indaryn brushing against his ear.

“He was your brother Dalamus…and you let him die.”

This post has been edited by Fiach: Sep 23 2012, 08:50 AM