Kite - Chapter 15: Seared

Play if you want to read with music (May be a bit creepy)

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Two months after the supposed meeting had taken place; my study was filled to the brim with reports from my extensive spy networks about increased order activity. What puzzled me, though, was that none of them, not even one answered the question of exactly what the order was doing. Few speculated but a lot of those seemed far-fetched to me.

In the three years since the day the sun was restored, I had become harder, more accustomed to the surface world. In fact, Ivan had his tutors teach me the ways of his court. They were more than happy to oblige, provided that I told them of my heritage and taught them a little faerie magic. A number of the kin, though they despised being painless, did not despise their immortality either. Those were thankful for the service Ivan and I had done for them. The years of utter darkness had done wonders for their urge to feel pain.

As the seasons passed, I gathered quite a number of friends. Early on in the summer of the first year of the so-called new era, Ivan’s spymaster passed away. He was one of my dearest mentors and was quite fond of me, so to me the mantle of spymaster was passed. It didn’t take long before I had the position safely secured, but that was when reports about a so-called Order began to flood in.

All over the continent, kingdoms and towns were still struggling to get by, but life was comparably easier than in the darkness. The reports told of strange hooded people that had begun to show up in the towns, offering food and shelter instead of asking for it, a peculiar sight indeed. The towns and cities that accepted them, though, soon found bigger harvests and more prosperous times.

The towns that rejected them, on the other hand, weren’t much affected. However, a year afterwards, these towns fell victim to one or another inexplicable phenomenon. At first I did not connect the two, but as I was browsing my archive of reports, I saw a town that had reported driving away the strangers. It had piqued my interest because just that morning, I had received reports from adjacent villages that the very same town had succumbed to an infestation of disease bearing rats.

I had discounted it that day, thinking it was just coincidence. However, in the weeks following my discovery, deeply disturbing news arrived day after day. One such account was from a witness that had made a miraculous recovery as soon as he entered a different village. The man, according to the report, had said:

“It began one day, when the night seemed unnaturally dark. And then the screams began. They were horrible, horrible, bloodcurdling screams. No one wanted to leave their homes. The next morning we went to investigate. What we found shocked me to my very core. On her bed was an woman who was perfectly well the day before, yet her eyes and mouth were wide open. The rest of her looked like a dried up, shrivelled raisin. Her sheets were all red! It was as though all the blood in her body had bled out of her onto the sheets. It was gruesome… Thoroughly disturbed, I wandered out of town and before I got back in the night. The screaming began again. And it was as though the entire town was screaming. Terrified, I ran nonstop for the next vill—"

The report had been blotted out. By whom, I still had to investigate, but until I found out and interrogated the perpetrator, I had nothing but vague connections to work on. Ivan was riding out to most of the outlying villages of the Kin’s territory to investigate my findings, along with a contingent of his finest, while I remained to monitor the information that was arriving nearly daily now.

The most recent reports contained information regarding the underground farms. The artificial suns were acting erratic, dimming and brightening randomly. I thought it was only because the magic had been around for so long and was beginning to decay. The artificial sun that powered the amulet that allowed me to retain my original form had to be replenished every week, partially due to its small size. It was as big as a pea and was contained in a small cage that hung in front of the amulet.

I felt a tremor pass through the floor. My wings vibrated, something they had never done on their own before. I heard an ominous hum from below the castle. In fact, it was as though it came from below the city. Something was wrong, very wrong.

I rushed into the corridor and screamed to anyone who would hear me to get inside any room. I don’t know why, but it seemed to be the best I could do. I rushed into my own study and hid in a corner. Moments later, the sky was lit up with the brilliance of a thousand suns. Luckily, I was in the shadow of one of the bookshelves, the unnatural light singed everything it touched. It nearly blinded me, looking at the streams that flooded through my windows.

When the light subsided, I went into the corridor to see what the light had done. The entire hallway was covered in a fine layer of soot. My eyes widened and my stomach lurched. Scattered along the hall were perfectly white bones, without a single mark of anything on them. It was as though the light had been meant to destroy only living flesh. The servants that had populated the halls only moments before were now heaps of pristine bones scattered along the corridor they so meticulously cleaned. It was as though they had been seared out of existence.